Transition Ramps Up as Obama, Bush Meet at White House

JUDY WOODRUFF:

For more on the preparations to hand off power from President Bush to President-elect Obama, I'm joined by New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny.

Jeff, good to see you again.

JEFF ZELENY, New York Times:

Good to see you, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF:

It hasn't even been a week since we've had an election, and already you've had I guess what's described as the earliest meeting between a president and a president-elect. Why so quick?

JEFF ZELENY:

Well, I think one thing: Mr. Obama wants to send the message, both visually and substantively, that he is engaging, he is digging in on all these big challenges that are known.

And when he was flying today from Chicago to Washington, he was very serious. He was reading. He's not in a joking mood, if you will. He's in a very substantive mood. So that's what this meeting was all about.

I think it was also a sense to sort of get it out of the way. You know, this is definitely looming. There's the White House global economic summit coming, which Mr. Obama is not going to, so if not now, you know, the meeting at the White House might sort of run into Thanksgiving and things.

He wanted to get the meeting out of the way. He's likely not to go back to the White House until, you know, some January 20th or so.

And I think he generally wanted to take President Bush up on his offer to see the White House. And there was also another very important meeting going on in the East Wing with Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Bush.