Biden and Trump’s sit-down at the White House on Wednesday underscores that conclusion for Biden, whose final presidential campaign was underpinned by his opposition to Trump only to see him return stronger than ever.

Despite being eight years since the last president and president-elect meeting, after Trump did not invite Biden to the White House in 2020 as he disputed the results of their election before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the Biden-Trump sit-down is expected to be more symbolic than substantive.

Biden extending the courtesy to Trump that was denied him validates the changing of the guard and Trump’s mandate for change after winning the Electoral College and the popular vote.

“It is quite important because it symbolizes a core strength of our country, and that is that we have hard-fought elections and then we have the peaceful transfer of power,” Max Stier, founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service and its Center for Presidential Transition, told the Washington Examiner. “The reality is that we all need to work together. The metaphor for me is we have a new airline pilot. We’re all on that plane and we all have to hope for the success of the pilot in making sure that we don’t crash.”

Regardless of national security being a priority during this transition with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Stier said those briefings can be conducted through “other channels and multiple engagements.”

“This is really about setting the right tone for the nation,” he added. “The public needs to see our leaders committed to the long-term health of our country.”

Republican strategist Doug Heye agreed, reiterating meetings between a president and president-elect were “normal, par for the course” sit-downs “for outgoing presidents until 2020.”

“There’s no reason to think it won’t be this time,” Heye told the Washington Examiner.

Wednesday’s meeting, initiated by Biden to ease the transition between his and Trump’s administration, is poised to be personally difficult for Biden after describing Trump as a “threat to democracy” and, as recently as last month, a fascist.

But it is because Biden believes in “norms,” “institutions,” and “order” that his meeting with Trump is important, according to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.

“The American people deserve this, they deserve a peaceful transfer of power,” Jean-Pierre told reporters on Tuesday. “[White House] chief of staff Jeff Zients has been pretty, pretty open and available to the Trump transition team and will continue to do so. We want this to go well. We want this to be a process that gets the job done. And so it’s certainly, we’re going to do anything that we can.”

Zients has been spearheading the White House Transition Coordinating Committee and has been working with his Trump counterparts, former Trump Small Business Administration Administrator Linda McMahon and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick, in addition to Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, Donald Trump Jr., and Eric Trump.

Although Biden and Trump have resumed the tradition of meeting, first lady Jill Biden and former first lady Melania Trump have not. Melania Trump declined Jill Biden’s invitation for tea.

“The Bidens extended congratulations and a joint invite to the Trumps to meet at the White House,” a spokeswoman for the first lady told the Washington Examiner. 

A spokeswoman for Melania Trump did not respond to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment.

For Stier, meetings with predecessors “should be the norm across all senior leader positions in the government,” from the Cabinet to White House communications aides.

“The truth is that no one knows the job better than the person who had it before you,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you have to agree with all the choices that they make, but you want to understand, and to understand, you should be talking to whoever your predecessor was.”

Since his resounding win against Vice President Kamala Harris last week, Donald Trump’s transition has made decisions with surprising alacrity. For example, Donald Trump named campaign co-manager Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff last Thursday.

Donald Trump appointed Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) to be national security adviser and nominated former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to be his CIA director on Tuesday, with rumors that he will send his nomination of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to be secretary of state to the Senate. By Tuesday evening, he named South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem as his Department of Homeland Security nominee and Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth as his Secretary of Defense.

Stier praised Donald Trump tapping Wiles “quickly” as “a very good sign,” though he recommended that Donald Trump’s transition sign the federal government memorandums so aides can “get access to agencies and critical information in terms of the personnel side.”

“The question I have is it’s not clear to me what the process has been in terms of the selections of the people so far, whether or not that process has actually been the product of consistent and substantial vetting,” he said. “President-elect Trump in 2016 and it appears today does a lot of freelancing and gets input from places that are not necessarily those that would have best insight into capability or character.”

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, for one, has become close to Donald Trump, even joining a phone call between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine relies heavily on Musk’s Starlink communications system in its war against Russia. Donald Trump named Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to new jobs in his administration heading up a “Department of Government Efficiency.”

This weekend Musk encouraged Donald Trump on his social media platform, X, to make recess appointments this winter, which means he would not require the advice or consent of senators on any controversial picks.

Senate Republicans are voting via secret ballot to replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Wednesday, who said he would retire from leadership this spring.

While Stier supports reforms to what have become long, protracted nominations, he argued the Senate’s advice and consent responsibility is “core to our system.”

“The Senate should independently evaluate all of these candidates,” he said. “That is what the Constitution, how it was set up to do.”

The White House told reporters on Tuesday that they would be permitted into the Oval Office for the start of the Biden-Trump meeting, scheduled to take place on Wednesday at 11 a.m., but there would be no lunch between the pair or a colonnade photo opportunity. The White House has signaled that Biden will attend Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.