In an interview with "Today's" Matt Lauer on Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump (and TIME Magazine's Person of the Year) revealed that he is getting along famously with President Obama throughout what many thought would be an awkward transition period.
“I really like him,” Trump said of Obama. “We have really good chemistry together. We talk. He loves the country. He wants to do right by the country and for the country.”
“I never met him before this, and I never spoke to him before this,” Trump added. “I really, I do like him. I love getting his ideas.”
Trump went on to share that he's even sought Obama's advice about potential cabinet appointments.
Last month, Trump was pleasantly surprised by his first meeting with Obama at the White House. The two spent 90 minutes together chatting in what was originally planned to be just half an hour. Since then, Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told the media that he and Obama had been talking regularly on a number of issues.
The chumminess between the two has shocked voters, considering the nasty rhetoric between the two over the past several years. Trump was the target of Obama's roast at the 2011 correspondent's dinner. On the Jimmy Kimmel show in October, he mocked Trump again and said he would never be president. As for Trump, he has questioned Obama's birthright and called him the "worst president" in American history.
Now, they're chatting like old friends on the phone. What a difference just one conversation makes.