President-elect Obama and Sen. John McCain are meeting today for the first time since voters took to the polls two weeks ago.

At Obama's transition headquarters in Chicago, the press pool was allowed in for only about three minutes. Obama and McCain were joined by Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who Obama has tagged as his White House chief of staff, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate.

"We're going to have a good conversation about how we can do some work together to fix up the country, and also to offer thanks to Sen. McCain for the outstanding service he's already rendered," Obama said, on the goal of the meeting.

**UPDATE**
Obama and McCain released a joint statement:

"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."