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(WASHINGTON) -- President-elect Donald Trump was greeted with a standing ovation from House Republicans at his first stop back in Washington on Wednesday.

"It's nice to win," Trump said as he took the stage at the conference's internal meeting at the Hyatt Regency near the Capitol.

Ahead of his arrival, House Speaker Mike Johnson celebrated Trump as the "comeback king."

Trump smiled and shook Johnson's hand and other top GOP brass on stage, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has been named as Trump's U.S ambassador to the United Nations.

The meeting comes as Republicans inch closer to a majority in the House. While ABC News has not yet projected which party will control the chamber, Republicans are two seats away from the threshold with a dozen races still undecided.

House Republicans took an early victory lap as they came back to town Tuesday for the lame-duck session, saying they are prepared to enact Trump’s agenda on Day 1 of his administration come January.

"I just want to thank everybody," Trump told the room. "You've been incredible. We worked with a lot of you to get you in, and you helped me, and you helped me too."

As the press was being escorted out of the room, pool reporters noted Trump told lawmakers: "I suspect I won't be running again unless you do something else, unless you say he's so good we've got to figure something out."

The friendly atmosphere comes ahead of Trump's sit-down with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office, a return of a White House tradition that Trump flouted in 2020.

Trump landed at Joint Base Andrews for the first time since leaving office in January 2021 flanked by billionaire Elon Musk, a sign of some of the new faces that may dominate Trump's orbit in his second term.

This is Trump’s first public appearance since his speech in the early hours after Election Day. He’s since huddled at Mar-a-Lago, where he’s been rolling out picks for Cabinet roles and other administration positions.

Musk has been weighing in on the decisions, ABC News previously reported.

On Tuesday, Trump announced Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead a what he's calling a new "Department of Government Efficiency” to provide outside guidance on reforming federal agencies and cutting government “waste.”

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(WASHINGTON) -- President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump are meeting in the Oval Office, resuming a tradition that Trump himself flouted in 2020.

Biden spoke first, calling for a smooth transition and telling Trump he will do "everything we can to make sure you're accommodated."

Trump followed by thanking Biden.

"Politics is tough, and it's, in many cases, not a very nice world but it is a nice world today," Trump said. "And I appreciate it very much. A transition that’s so smooth, it'll be as smooth as it can get."

They did not answer questions.

After losing the 2020 election, Trump broke with two traditions that demonstrate American democracy's peaceful transfer of power.

First, he declined to invite then-President-elect Joe Biden to the White House in the weeks after the race while contending he hadn't lost. Later, he skipped Biden's inauguration, instead leaving Washington mere hours before the ceremony began.

But those customs returned as Trump arrived Wednesday at the White House.

It marks Trump's first time back in the White House since ending his presidency under a cloud of election denialism four years ago. A week before his departure, he was impeached by the House for a second time as lawmakers charged him with "incitement of insurrection" after his supporters violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump vowed to return and his comeback was made complete last week. He swept all seven swing states, clinching 312 electoral votes to Vice President Kamala Harris' 226 votes, and is on track to win the popular vote. 

Biden spoke with Trump on Nov. 6 to congratulate him and to extend a political olive branch with an invitation to the White House.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that Biden did so because "he believes in the norms."

"It is important not just because it's important to him, but it's important to the American people," Jean-Pierre said. "The American people deserve this. They deserve a peaceful transfer of power. They deserve a smooth transition. And that's what you're going to see."

Last month, before Election Day, the White House said Biden would attend the inauguration no matter who won.

Biden made preserving democracy a key message of his 2020 campaign and his 2024 reelection effort before dropping out, repeatedly blasting Trump as a threat to the institution over Jan. 6.

"He wants to show the American people that the system works," Jean-Pierre said.

Asked by ABC News White House Correspondent Karen Travers what was on the agenda for their meeting, Jean-Pierre said the conversation would be private but that reporters will be allowed in the room to capture the start of their sit-down.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan said this past weekend, though, that Biden and Trump would go through both domestic and foreign policy issues.

Vice President Harris will not attend the meeting, Jean-Pierre said.

Melania Trump will also not be in attendance, her office confirmed on Wednesday. First lady Jill Biden's office confirmed that a joint invitation was extended to the Trumps to meet at the White House.

"Her husband's return to the Oval Office to commence the transition process is encouraging, and she wishes him great success," Melania Trump's office said in a statement.

In 2016, Michelle Obama hosted Melania Trump at the White House when then-President Barack Obama invited Trump just days after the election. The two men met for 90 minutes, and Obama called the conversation "excellent."

While in Washington, Trump will also make a stop near the Capitol to meet with House Republicans.

House Republican leaders took an early victory lap on Tuesday as the party inches closer to a "trifecta" -- or control of the White House, the Senate and the House. ABC News has not yet projected the balance of power in the House, though Republicans are three seats away from a majority.

"It is a new day in America," Speaker Mike Johnson proclaimed. He said Republicans were ready to begin delivering on Trump's agenda on Day 1 of his administration.

ABC News' Justin Gomez and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) -- For the first time in four years, Democrats are leaderless. But chaos is a ladder, as the saying goes, and the party is packed with climbers.

Democrats are still sifting through the rubble of last week's election results, and many said that a period of grieving and soul-searching is due after Vice President Kamala Harris' loss. But over a dozen operatives said that the leadership vacuum fueled by her defeat will attract members of the party's deep bench who likely won't wait long to cast themselves as the messenger Democrats need to bounce back ahead of the 2028 election.

"I have not seen any outreach from the national party to folks for 2028. I think they're too busy playing the blame game, they're too busy knifing each other," said one person who has spoken to multiple potential 2028 candidates. "In terms of donors reaching out to their candidate of choice, that has been never ending over the course of the last four or five days. And then there's a lot of local outreach to people."

Democrats boast several governors, senators, House members and more rumored to have national ambitions.

Among them are California Gov. Gavin Newsom; Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker; Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear; Maryland Gov. Wes Moore; Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer; North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro; Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock; New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker; Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman; California Rep. Ro Khanna; and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, could also play some role in guiding the party, though it's unclear how much of an appetite there is in the party to allow the bench to take on a supporting role to members of the losing ticket.

Already, the jockeying is underway, albeit not yet in full force.

Shapiro has received calls from Democrats in his state, a source familiar with the matter confirmed, as has Beshear, who also wrote a New York Times op-ed examining his party's woes. Newsom held a call with his grassroots donor network and is set to be a top Trump antagonist, and Khanna is mulling a media blitz and listening tour to areas that have borne the brunt of deindustrialization, sources familiar with their thinking said.

Buttigieg has traversed the country touting the administration's infrastructure achievements, often goes behind enemy lines to appear on Fox News and moved his residency to Michigan, which has an open gubernatorial race in two years. Fetterman has been vocal about what he calls his party's disconnect from working-class voters.

All have some kind of argument, whether it's a blue-collar appeal the party has been missing, proven electoral experience in red or purple areas, or something else, and most hit the campaign trail for Harris this year. More maneuvering is expected to come, especially once Trump takes office and his policies go into effect, likely galvanizing Democrats' base.

"I think that what you'll probably see beginning in January, is people who are at least considering being candidates come out with really detailed, expansive programs. Some may be about jobs, some may be about education, some may be about who knows what else. But it will probably be policy-based," said Dan Fee, a Democratic strategist and donor adviser based in Pennsylvania.

"I think you're going to see a lot of a lot of governors and a lot of other folks do the speaking circuit thing, be going to events, certainly heading into '26, you're going to see a lot of people endorsing folks," added one senior Democratic strategist, referencing the 2026 midterms.

There is no clear frontrunner in the beefy field, but some did see their personal stock rise during the Biden administration or as the result of the election.

Newsom, in particular, could benefit, given that his California roots and political base overlapped significantly with Harris'. But Buttigieg also boasts a beefier resume after four years in President Joe Biden's Cabinet, Shapiro and Beshear were vetted as part of Harris' veepstakes, and many hit the trail -- especially to the early primary state of New Hampshire -- throughout the year, helping them building relationships with local groups and voters.

Still, anything can happen in four years.

Republicans, not too long ago, were walking in the political wilderness themselves after President Barack Obama won reelection in 2012, sparking a famed autopsy. Four years later, now-President-elect Donald Trump won his first term, ushering in two years of unified Republican control but a series of fits ever since over the identity of the party and how much it should hew to his brand.

Democrats too were on a high after Biden's win in 2020, a euphoria reinforced after the party defied the odds in the 2022 midterms to expand its Senate majority and limit its House losses. Now, they're conducting a postmortem of their own.

What's more, positioning oneself for higher office is more art than science. Appearing too eager risks turning off voters, while not stepping on the gas hard enough risks ceding ground to other aspirants.

But promoting oneself isn't the only way to improve one's standing amid the jockeying, and operatives predicted that the knives will be out.

"I think the [opposition research] books are probably already being built," said the operative who has spoken to multiple potential 2028 candidates.

For all the preparation, though, would-be party leaders can't make themselves so just by themselves. And party donors may not quite be ready to indulge a 2028 free-for-all as it analyzes its 2024 loss, especially after Harris' team boasted of smashing several fundraising records only to get swept in all seven swing states.

"People were being told this is a toss-up, and so, their biggest problem is going to be getting fundraising," said John Morgan, a prominent donor to Democratic candidates and causes. Donors "do not trust people with the money. Nobody does."

That's not expected to make a bench full of ambitious politicos collectively pump the brakes, though.

Several of the operatives who spoke to ABC News predicted a gargantuan 2028 primary field, even eclipsing that of 2020, which boasted over two dozen candidates.

"It's gonna make the 2020 presidential primary look like it was a small gathering. This is going to be frenzied, it's going to be competitive. There will be no punches pulled. And I think that's a good thing," a former Fetterman staffer said. "I hope we let it all out this time and the strongest person emerges."

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(WASHINGTON) -- The judge overseeing the Arizona "fake elector" case against several of Donald Trump's allies has recused himself from the case after accusations of personal bias.

Last week, defense attorneys for State Senator Jacob Hoffman filed a motion to disqualify Judge Bruce Cohen, alleging that an email published by a media outlet revealed "politically charged statements" made by Cohen while overseeing the case.

"While Judge Cohen is entitled to his political opinions and speech, his rhetoric and exhortation precisely mirrors the evidence of hostile partisan political zealotry at the heart of the motions to dismiss that have been languishing before the Court for months," the attorneys said in the filing last week.

"Judge Cohen's impartiality can readily be questioned because of his apparent personal prejudice against President Trump and his supporters," the attorneys added.

In an email sent in August, Cohen urged fellow members of the bench to speak out against attacks made against Vice President Kamala Harris. He also lamented the failure to speak out against Nazism, according to the attorneys.

"When we cannot or do not stand with others, the words of Martin Niemoller are no longer a historic reference to the atrocities of WWII, those words describe the present," Cohen wrote.

"But it is time for me to state my piece or be complicit in the depravity," he added.

In response to the filing, Cohen had initially scheduled a conference hearing to discuss the issue but on Tuesday afternoon, he sent a notice of recusal to the defense attorneys.

In the notice, Cohen defended the email that surfaced, saying it was not reflective of bias.

"As noted in the subject e-mail, the same cry for decency and respect would have been made about disparaging comments from either political sphere," Cohen wrote. "That said, within hours after sending the August e-mail solely to other judicial officers and not in any public forum, an apology was sent out to those same judicial officers."

"Out of a commitment to justice, even the appearance of bias cannot be allowed to undermine the fundamental fairness that is extended by the court to all who come before it," Cohen added.

"It is for that reason alone that this court is recusing itself from all further proceedings in this matter."

All those indicted in the case pleaded not guilty earlier this summer to charges of fraud, forgery, and conspiracy for their alleged efforts to overturn the state's election results. Trump's former attorney Jenna Ellis subsequently reached a cooperation agreement with prosecutors in exchange for the state dropping the charges against her.

Trump was not charged in the case.

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