President Obama and Secretary Clinton are asking for peace and support for President-elect Trump.
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He started with talking about his plans for the upcoming worldwide trips and the transition of the office to Donald Trump.
When asked for his impressions after their meeting, Obama said he believes Trump “is honest in wanting to become a successful president”.
But Obama said Trump’s election – in which total voter turnout was only about 55 percent and Trump lost the popular vote but still won the Electoral College – is a reminder that elections matter and votes count.
Mr Trump on Monday spoke on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin announced, and both agreed their countries’ relations were “extremely unsatisfactory”.
On his trip, Obama is stopping first in Athens, where he’ll tour the Parthenon, meet with Tsipras, and give a speech about democracy and globalization that will take on new relevance in light of Trump’s election. “And I will be the first to congratulate him”, Obama went on to say.
“It’s really important to try to send some signals of unity, and to reach out to minority groups or women or others that were concerned about the tenor of the campaign”. “Do I have concerns?”
Obama added, “My hope is he makes things better”.
On the campaign trail, Obama repeatedly portrayed the billionaire as unfit to be commander in chief and said the entire world was “teetering” on Trump’s possible election. “I think it is important for me to not be big footing that conversation, that is why I think term limits are a useful thing”. “That’s powerful stuff. I think he is coming to this office with fewer set hard and fast policy prescriptions than a lot of other presidents might be arriving with”.
Reporters later also asked Obama about Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon as Trump’s chief strategist. Prior to becoming Trump’s campaign CEO, Bannon ran Breitbart News, a mouthpiece for the alt-right movement and the kind of racism and bigotry that ran through Trump’s campaign.
The New York Times reported that the two men also “discussed foreign and domestic policy issues that Mr. Trump would need to deal with on Day 1 in the Oval Office”.
The President responded that it would be inappropriate for him to comment on each appointment to Trump’s administration.
The Thursday meeting also clued Trump in to some of the most obvious, mundane responsibilities of being president. And misgivings about Trump will certainly follow Obama to Latin America, where Trump has turned off many with his hard-line immigration stance and description of Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists.
It was a sharp change in tone for Obama, who regularly mocked Trump’s candidacy in the last days before the election, even accusing the billionaire businessman and former reality television star of helping the Islamic State group with his rhetoric about Muslims and undermining US democracy through his claims of a “rigged” election.
The president said that in his White House meeting with Trump last week on the transition he found Trump in agreement on maintaining US core commitments across the globe, including a commitment to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. “It takes a long time for people to reconcile themselves with that reality. And that’s what it must continue to be”, he said.
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Obama appeared before reporters before leaving the United States on the last scheduled foreign trip of his presidency, to Greece, Germany and Peru. “I think he’s going to try as best he can to make sure that he delivers not only for people who voted for him but the people at large”.
