Pizzas galore!

Rahm Emmanuel, Mr Obama's chief of staff, said that the president-elect would spend the next two months putting his team in place and honing his ideas.

“I think that the basic approach has been he’s going to be ... in Chicago, setting up his economic, not only his economic team, but the policies he wants to outline for the country as soon as he gets sworn in, so we hit the ground running,” Mr Emanuel said.

Mr Obama has also pledged to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office, although says he will consult the Iraqi government and US commanders before ordering any drawdown.

Speaking on Fox television, Mr Podesta said that Mr Obama was working to build a diverse Cabinet likely to include Republicans and independents, part of the broad coalition that supported Obama during the race against McCain.

Robert Gates, Mr Bush's Defence Secretary, may also be kept on in post. “He’s not even a Republican,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said on CNN. “Why wouldn’t we want to keep him? He’s never been a registered Republican.”

Congress is to debate a second economic stimulus package in hopes of stopping America’s downward economic spiral during a forthcoming session already written off as "lame duck".

Mr Obama said at a news conference on Friday that his priority on taking office was such a package that he would work to push through if Congress fails to pass the legislation or if should Mr Bush veto it.

Mr Emanuel would not commit to a Democratic proposal to help the failing American auto industry with some of the $700 billion approved last month by Congress to help the financial sector.

Valerie Jarrett, co-chair of the Obama transition team, told NBC television that Michelle Obama, the next first lady, would first focus on settling her daughters into their new life at the White House.

Then, Ms Jarrett said, the next first lady wanted to help women juggling a career and motherhood, assist military spouses and promote volunteerism.

Today Mr Obama sets foot in the Oval Office for the first time when he meets Mr Bush for a private sit-down talk to discuss the transition of power, a rite of passage between presidents and successors that extends for decades.

The two men are expected to review the nation’s enormous economic downturn and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr Obama will also be given a tour of his new home.

“I’m going to go in there with a spirit of bipartisanship, and a sense that both the president and various leaders of Congress all recognise the severity of the situation right now and want to get stuff done,” Mr Obama said last week.

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