Former President Joe Biden wrote in his forthcoming memoir that President Donald Trump’s actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection should “follow him to his grave.”
In an excerpt published Monday in The Atlantic, Biden issued sweeping criticisms of the Trump administration. He repeatedly accused the president of shielding himself and his supporters from criminal liability.
Biden tore into Trump’s decision to issue clemency to more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters.
“The criminals who attacked law-enforcement officers that day didn’t deserve pardons,” Biden wrote. “They deserved prison terms.”
Trending
Trump defended the mass pardons in a Sunday interview with “60 Minutes.”
“I don’t think any group has been treated more unfairly than them,” Trump said of the rioters. He also reiterated his intent to issue “tremendous numbers” of preemptive pardons to his White House staff.
Biden blamed the Supreme Court and a “supine Congress” for enabling Trump’s undermining of the law. He criticized a 2024 Supreme Court decision that granted the president broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. Biden called the ruling “indefensible” and a “death knell for accountability.”
“There was no precedent for that ruling. Common sense didn’t support it. There was no constitutional basis for it,” he wrote.
Biden’s presidential memoir, “Promise Me, America,” will be published Nov 17. On Sunday, he announced on X that he would limit promotional events for the book because of his ongoing cancer treatment.
Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer in May 2025. That summer, it was announced that the cancer spread further into his body and metastasized into his bones. His wife, Jill Biden, said that she expects him to live with cancer for the rest of his life.
“I won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped,” Biden wrote on X. “However, I’m hopeful the words on the page speak for themselves.”
Author
