Five current and former presidents gathered in the front pews of Washington National Cathedral for Jimmy Carter's funeral, dressed in dark suits and wearing solemn expressions.
As the service stretched for more than an hour, the bitterness and divisions from their past campaigns and political differences gave way to a reverent tribute for one of their own.
Barack Obama and Donald Trump, the first to arrive, exchanged a handshake and engaged in a lengthy conversation.
Despite their stark political divide, Trump, who is set to reclaim the Oval Office in just 11 days, leaned in to listen closely to his predecessor, at times sharing a smile.
Later that night, Trump returned to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida to meet with Republican governors.
When asked about his conversation with Obama, he remained tight-lipped but quipped, "It did look very friendly, I must say."
"I didn’t realize how friendly it looked. I said, 'Boy, they look like two people who like each other, and we probably do," he said. "We have a little different philosophies, right, but we probably do."
The president-elect added, "I don’t know. We just got along. But I got along with just about everybody."
Obama, who attended Carter's funeral without his wife, Michelle, shared a second-row pew with former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with their spouses.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrived last and sat in the pew just in front of them.
Members of the exclusive presidents' club were on their best behavior.
Bonded by the presidency, they rarely criticize one another or the White House’s current occupant – though Trump has flouted those rules frequently.
He has both praised and criticized Carter in recent days, and he complained that flags would still be at half-staff to honor the deceased president during his inauguration.
In one seemingly chilly moment, Trump looked up when Vice President Kamala Harris – whom he defeated in November's hard-fought election – entered the cathedral, but he didn't move to greet her as she and husband Doug Emhoff took seats directly in front of him and Melania Trump.
Nor did Harris acknowledge him.
After the service, Emhoff made a point to turn around and shake hands with Trump.
Obama, with Trump on his left, also turned to his right to chat with Bush. Clinton, with wife Hillary, was the last of the ex-presidents to take a seat and exchanged pleasantries with Bush as well.
The White House said the former presidents also met privately before taking their seats. There was no word on what was said then, though Trump later said of its participants, "We all got along very well."
Funerals are among the few events that bring members of the Presidents' Club together. In a way, former President Gerald Ford was there, too: Ford's son, Steven, read a eulogy for Carter that Ford had written before he died in 2006.
Busy with personal pursuits, charitable endeavors and sometimes lucrative speaking gigs, the former leaders don’t mingle often. They all know the protocol of state funerals well – each has been involved in planning his own.
During the 2018 funeral for George H.W. Bush, then-President Trump sat with his predecessors and their spouses, including the Carters, and the interactions were stiff and sometimes awkward.
This time, Trump also didn't appear to interact with Hillary Clinton, whom he defeated in the 2016 election.
Trump was seated in the pew in front of his former vice president, Mike Pence – one of the few times they have coincided at events since Pence refused to overturn the results of the 2020 election after Trump lost to Biden. The two shook hands but didn’t speak much beyond that. Pence’s wife, Karen, appeared to avoid engaging with the president-elect.
Trump, who largely avoided contact with the former presidents during his first term – and pointedly did not seek their advice – has been critical of Republican former presidents, particularly the Bush family, which made him an uneasy member of the former presidents' club. Carter didn’t particularly relish being a club member, at times criticizing its staid traditions.
Many past presidents have built relationships with their predecessors, including Bill Clinton, who reached out to Richard Nixon for advice on Russian policy, and Harry S. Truman, who sought counsel from Herbert Hoover.
One of the first calls Obama made after United States forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 was to George W. Bush to spread the word that the mission had been accomplished, said Kate Andersen Brower, author of *Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump."
"It's the loneliest job in the world, so usually they reach out and rely on each other," said Andersen Brower. "But Trump didn't have that in the first term, so this will just be another four years where he doesn't depend on anyone who came before him."
She noted that Carter spent years as a proud Washington outsider and skipped the unveiling of his own portrait to avoid being in the same room with the man who beat him in 1980, President Ronald Reagan.
"Carter and Trump, even though they have the least in common about everything else, are similar," Andersen Brower said, "in just how they approach telling what they actually think."