As one-term former U.S. President Joe Biden continues his ongoing treatment for prostate cancer, he is set to release a deeply candid memoir later this month, with a searing excerpt published by The Atlantic on Monday laying bare his unvarnished condemnation of sitting President Donald Trump’s actions surrounding the 6 January 2021 Capitol riots. Biden’s scathing critique frames the deadly insurrection, which unfolded as pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol to block the certification of his 2020 election victory, as a moral transgression that ought to haunt Trump for the rest of his life. The former president takes specific issue with Trump’s mass pardon of more than 1,000 people convicted for their roles in the riot, issued shortly after Trump returned to the White House in 2024, alongside commuted sentences for a dozen leaders of far-right extremist groups the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. “The criminals who attacked law-enforcement officers that day didn’t deserve pardons. They deserved prison terms,” Biden writes in the memoir, arguing that Trump turned a deliberate blind eye to the brutal violence inflicted on Capitol police, including officers who were punched, speared, sprayed with chemical irritants and otherwise brutalized, while falsely framing himself as a champion of law enforcement. “What Trump did on January 6, 2021, should never be forgotten. It should follow him to his grave,” Biden states, adding that the Trump administration’s broader agenda was rooted in a deliberate effort to dismantle longstanding U.S. democratic institutions and stoke dangerous partisan hatred across the country. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing related to the Capitol riot, and defended his mass pardons by claiming the hundreds of rioters had been unfairly “destroyed” by the U.S. justice system. In a sharp official response to Biden’s comments shared with the BBC on Monday, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis dismissed the former president as “the worst president in American history,” and went on to level a litany of counter-criticisms against the Biden administration, claiming it created the worst border crisis in U.S. history, pursued soft-on-crime policies that drove public safety declines, fueled the worst 40-year high inflation crisis of the modern era, and pushed “America-Last” policies that undermined U.S. global standing. The memoir excerpt also details a lengthy, unexpected private meeting between Biden and Trump shortly after Trump’s 2024 presidential election victory, where Biden says he was left completely stunned when Trump unprompted remarked, “if it weren’t for politics, I believe we’d be good friends.” According to Biden, Trump went on to praise his predecessor’s job creation record as “extraordinary” and noted he was relieved he did not have to run against Biden as an opponent in the 2024 race, leaving Biden confused as to why the sitting president was lavishing him with unanticipated flattery. The release of Biden’s memoir comes on the heels of a strong Democratic performance in last week’s U.S. midterm elections, though the former president has maintained a very low profile on the campaign trail in recent months as he prioritizes his prostate cancer treatment. In a Sunday social media update sharing an update on his health journey, Biden noted that his treatment schedule has forced him to scale back the planned promotional tour for his new book, adding, “Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me. But sometimes it slows me down.”
Biden says Trump should carry weight of US Capitol riots ‘to his grave’ in new book
