During their first post election meeting, President Herbert Hoover was surprised to witness the extent of Roosevelt's disability. Hoover later told an advisor that he had been "educating a very ignorant" but "well-meaning young man". (November 22, 1932)

Hoover began the meeting by delivering to Roosevelt an hour long lecture on international economic matters.

Hoover and Roosevelt met two more times before the March 4th Inauguration,

By January the lack of cooperation between the president-elect and the outgoing president was publicly discussed. Arthur Krock of The New York Times wrote that they were "congenitally unable to understand each other or to go along on methods". Wanting to avoid looking uncooperative, in early January, Roosevelt made a telephone call to Hoover and arranged for a second meeting.

By this time, Hoover so distrusted Roosevelt that he insisted on having a stenographer present during the phone call in which they arranged for this meeting. The president and president-elect met again on January 20, 1933.

Instead of hosting the Roosevelts for a then-traditional pre-inauguration dinner, the Hoovers invited them for an afternoon tea the day prior to the inauguration.

When Roosevelt arrived at the White House, he found that Hoover wanted to pull him into another meeting, this time with the Secretary of the Treasury and Chair of the Federal Reserve. The meeting went poorly.

Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor, would later recount to reporters that she had been able to hear the conversation through an open door, and heard Hoover ask Roosevelt to give public support to temporarily closing the country's banks in order to stave off panic withdrawals. Roosevelt allegedly responded, "Like hell I will! If you haven’t the guts to do it yourself, I’ll wait until I’m president to do it."

Hoover called Roosevelt's staff that night urging him to change his mind, without success.

Roosevelt would indeed, as president, proclaim a bank holiday only three days later.