On Monday, President Donald Trump teased reporters by waving a letter that President Joe Biden left for him in a drawer of the Oval Office's Resolute Desk.
It is part of the tradition where a president leaves a welcome note for his successor.
Now its contents can be revealed.
“As I bid farewell to this sacred office, I wish you and your family all the best in the next four years,” Biden wrote, according to Fox News.
“The American people – and people around the world – look to this house for stability through the inevitable storms of history, and my prayer is that the years ahead will be a time of prosperity, peace and grace for our nation.
“May God bless and guide you as He has blessed and guided our beloved country since our founding.”
It was signed by Joe Biden and dated January 20, the day he left office.
And its content reflects a warmer tone between the two than their bitter partisan attacks during the campaign, when Biden warned that Trump was a threat to democracy and the Republican portrayed his opponent as the head of a criminal family.
President Donald Trump pulled the note from the Resolute Desk drawer on Monday
On his first day in office, Trump was asked by reporters whether Biden had left the traditional letter.
'Maybe. Don't they leave it on the desk? I don't know,” he said before reaching through the drawers and pulling out a white envelope addressed to the 47th president.
He thanked Fox News reporter Peter Doocy for asking the question.
“It could take years for us to find this thing,” he said.
Trump described the contents of the letter a day later.
“It was a very nice letter,” he told reporters in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
'It was a bit of an inspiring letter. Enjoy it, do your job well. Important, very important. How important the job is.”
President Ronald Reagan is said to have started the tradition in 1989 when he left a note for George HW Bush, his former vice president.
It was addressed to '47'. Trump is the 47th president (and the 45th) to hold this position
Biden followed a tradition dating back to Ronald Reagan in 1989
The Trumps saw the Bidens heading to their helicopter after Monday's inauguration
He delivered it with a light touch on stationery decorated with turkeys climbing an elephant and the legend: “Don't let the turkeys get you down.”
“I cherish the memories we share and I wish you all the best,” he wrote. “You will be in my prayers.”
He added that he would miss their lunches together
Trump declined to attend Biden's 2021 inauguration as he pursued baseless claims that the election was rigged.
But he left a letter anyway.
“The president wrote a very generous letter,” Biden said. “Because it was private, I won't talk about it until I talk to him, but it was generous.”
Its contents have never been released.
