As promised, Barack Obama and John McCain met on Monday at Obama's transition headquarters in Chicago.

The two former opponents were each joined by one ally. In Obama's case, it was his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. McCain brought along his friend and colleague, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

The substantive parts of the meeting were not open to the press, but afterwards, Obama and McCain released a joint statement. It reads: 

At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time. It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family. We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation’s security.