By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top advisers to U.S. President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump put aside their differences – mostly – for a symbolic “passing of the torch” event focused on national security issues on Tuesday.
Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan passed a ceremonial baton to U.S. Congressman Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for the same job, in a revival of a Washington ritual organized by the nonpartisan United States Institute of Peace since 2001.
The two men are normally in the media defending their bosses’ opposing views on Ukraine, the Middle East and China.
On Tuesday, Waltz and Sullivan politely searched for common ground on a panel designed to project the continuity of power in the United States.
“It’s like a very strange, slightly awkward version of ‘The Dating Game,’ you know the old game where you wrote down your answer, and that person wrote down their answer, and you see how much they match up,” said Sullivan.
The event offered a preview of what may be in store on Monday when Trump is inaugurated as president. This peaceful transfer of power, a hallmark of more than two centuries of American democracy, comes four years after Trump disputed and never conceded his loss in the 2020 election.
This time the two sides are talking. Sullivan, at Biden’s request, has briefed Waltz privately, at length, on the current administration’s policy around the world even as the Trump aide has regularly said the new team will depart radically from it.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Biden’s envoy Brett McGurk are working together this week to close a ceasefire deal in the region for hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Asked about the key challenges facing the new administration, Waltz and Sullivan on Tuesday both pointed to the California wildfires and China.
Sullivan also highlighted a hostage deal and artificial intelligence as key issues.
Waltz pointed to the U.S. border with Mexico, an area where Trump has ripped Biden’s approach.
But he credited the Biden administration with deepening ties between U.S. allies in Asia.
For all the bonhomie between the two men, and the talk of the prospects for peace in the Middle East, Waltz painted a picture of the grimmer decisions awaiting him in his new job.
“Evil does exist,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to put bombs on foreheads.”
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Caitlin Webber and Christopher Cushing)
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