Barack Obama hosts Donald Trump at White House
Washington: President Barack Obama hosted a triumphant Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Thursday for talks on executing a smooth transition of power and steadying nerves after a vote that shocked the world.
Anger over the Republican property mogul's upset election win over Hillary Clinton spilled out onto the streets of US cities late Wednesday as chanting protesters lit bonfires and snarled traffic.
The billionaire president-elect arrived at his soon-to-be home on Pennsylvania Avenue at roughly 11:00 am (1600 GMT), a US official said, for what may be an awkward meeting with Obama ahead of the January 20 inauguration.
Trump, 70, championed the so-called "birther movement" challenging that Obama was actually born in the United States - a suggestion laden with deep racial overtones - only dropping the position recently.
The Democratic commander-in-chief in turn has described the celebrity businessman as "uniquely unqualified" to be president.
But in the day after Trump's shock election win, which virtually no poll had predicted, both sides spoke of healing the deep divisions sown in a bruising two-year battle for the White House.
His vanquished Democratic rival Clinton, holding back the bitter disappointment of not becoming America's first female president, urged the country to give Trump a chance.