Obama to host Trump

President Barack Obama was to receive a triumphant Donald Trump yesterday for talks on executing a smooth transition of power and steadying nerves after a vote that shocked the world.

Anger over Trump's election win spilled out onto the streets of US cities late Wednesday as chanting protesters lit bonfires and snarled traffic. In Los Angeles an orange-headed Trump head was burned in effigy.

Forty-eight hours after Trump's upset win, the 70-year-old president-elect and Obama will meet in the Oval Office for what may be an awkward meeting to prepare ahead of the January 20 inauguration.

Trump 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.

Vanquished Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, holding back the bitter disappointment of not becoming America's first female president, urged Americans to give Trump a chance, at least from the outset.

"We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead," she said in a concession speech.

Obama, addressing disconsolate staff in the White House Rose Garden, played down Trump win as part of the messy "zig-zag" movement of a democracy.

"Sometimes you lose an argument," he said, adding that all Americans would now be "rooting" for Trump's success.

"We are Americans first. We're patriots first. We all want what's best for this country," Obama said as staff wiped away tears.

In the battle for the soul of America, those who helped elect America's first black president now appear to be in retreat and pondering whether his eight years in power had come to naught.

Both Obama and Clinton issued a faint but clear warning, too, that Trump must respect institutions and the rule of law if a modicum of goodwill is to hold.

In remarks that would once have seemed unthinkable, the president of the world's foremost democracy and military power subtly urged his successor to respect the 240-year-old system of governance.

"The country," Obama said "needs a sense of unity, a sense of inclusion, a respect for our institutions, our way of life, rule of law, and a respect for each other."

The Republican Party leadership, too, embraced their newfound champion.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had distanced himself from Trump in the final month of the campaign, pledged to "hit the ground running" and work with him on conservative legislation.

But Ryan also called for healing, saying the bitterly contested race must be followed by a period "of redemption, not a time of recrimination."

Trump also sounded a tone of reconciliation in his victory speech in New York, saying "it is time for America to bind the wounds of division" and pledging to work with Democrats in office.