When President-elect Donald J. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday to press him for a Gaza ceasefire deal, he had someone on speaker: Brett H. McGurk, president. Longtime Biden Middle East negotiator.
It was a striking example of cooperation between two men representing bitter political rivals whose relationship has been described as poisonous. Rarely, if ever, have teams of current and new presidents from different parties worked together at such an important moment, with the fate of American lives and the future of a devastating war at stake.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden have publicly claimed credit for the breakthrough.
“This EPIC ceasefire agreement could only have happened following our historic victory in November,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media site before the agreement was even officially announced in the Middle East.
At the White House, Mr. Biden told reporters that his administration had worked tirelessly for months to convince both sides to end the fighting. He called it “one of the most difficult negotiations I have ever experienced” and praised “an extraordinary team of American diplomats who worked non-stop for months to make this happen.”
As he left the room, a reporter asked Mr. Biden, “Who gets the credit for this, Mr. President, you or Trump?” Mr. Biden stopped, turned and smiled.
“Is this a joke?” he asked.
But despite tensions between the current president and the next, their representatives in the Middle East have described a cooperative working relationship in the weeks since Election Day.
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