Biden Memoir Hits Trump on Jan. 6: 'Should Follow Him to His Grave'

Biden's book, titled Promise Me, America, lands Nov. 17, and The Atlantic ran a first look on Monday. In it, the former president says Trump's conduct on Jan. 6, 2021, should never be forgotten and that it should follow him to his grave. He also accuses Trump of having led an insurrection. NBC News said it reached out to the White House for comment on the excerpt.

The pardons drew some of Biden's harshest words. He wrote that the criminals who attacked law-enforcement officers that day deserved prison terms, not pardons, and accused Trump and his backers of posing as friends of law enforcement while ignoring officers who were punched, speared, sprayed and brutalized. Trump issued sweeping pardons to Jan. 6 defendants.

Biden's pardon criticism cuts both ways. In a September interview with Time magazine, Trump said he was weighing preemptive pardons for members of his own administration before his term ended, pointing at Biden's own use of the power. Biden had issued preemptive pardons to his son Hunter Biden and other family members, lawmakers on the congressional Jan. 6 committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley.

The memoir also revisits the post-2024 election meeting between the two men, a traditional briefing from the outgoing president to the incoming one. Biden writes that Trump's tone bordered on fawning, and that Trump told him that if it weren't for politics, he believed they'd be good friends, a remark Biden said left him too stunned to respond. Trump also called Biden's job creation record extraordinary and said he was relieved he hadn't had to run against him, according to the excerpt.

Over roughly two hours, Biden said he tried to walk Trump through the global issues he expected to dominate his presidency. Trump nodded appreciatively, Biden wrote, but kept steering toward the personalities of world leaders, as if the two were trading gossip at a dinner party rather than discussing matters of global significance.

Biden said Sunday on X that he won't manage as many conversations about the book as he had hoped because of his fight with cancer. Some days are better than others, he wrote, adding that it hasn't stopped him but sometimes slows him down.