Biden’s Memoir Reveals Trump’s Handwritten 2021 Oval Office Letter

Dated Jan. 20, 2021, the note on White House stationery wished Biden well and told him he would “be true to yourself and the American people,” according to an excerpt and a photocopy reviewed by The New York Times.

Trump wrote the letter by hand with his signature black Sharpie as Biden was sworn in and the outgoing president declined to attend the inauguration.

A Tone at Odds With the 2020 Fight

The Times described the letter as discordant with Trump’s public comments about Biden and the 2020 election. Trump did not criticize his successor or challenge the results in the note, the newspaper said, writing instead “almost poetically” about working in the White House.

“Many presidents have come and gone who simply governed as Republicans or Democrats,” Trump wrote. “Largely, they did not change history, they were just swept along in its relentless tide. This will not happen to you because I know how much you love the American people.”

He added that Biden carried “the hopes and dreams of the entire nation” on his shoulders, and that “the gravity of that fact never leaves you, it is the anchor that grounds every decision you make.”

The letter closed: “May God bless you and Jill, and may God bless America!”

After losing the 2020 election, Trump repeatedly claimed it had been stolen, challenged the results in court and pressed allies to block certification of the outcome. The dispute culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, an episode later examined in Trump’s personal messages from that day.

Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration later that month, breaking with a custom observed by most living former presidents. He has continued to deny the 2020 results and, after returning to office last year, pardoned more than 1,000 people involved in the riot. His public attacks on Biden have also persisted, including later remarks that he could have done “very bad things” to Biden, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

‘Two Donald Trumps’

Biden had previously called the note “very generous” but declined to disclose its contents. In the memoir, he writes that it was “as if there were two Donald Trumps,” and that his predecessor “deeply destabilized our democracy” and had “not offered the traditional meeting between presidents.”

“But here he was, offering his best wishes in warm language that sounded like it was coming from an old friend.”

White House Pushes Back

White House communications director Steven Cheung, in a statement to the Times, said Biden “should have heeded the president’s wise words, but instead he tried to destroy this country and weaponize the justice system against his political enemies.”

“Biden is a disgrace, and America is better off with him no longer as president,” Cheung added.

The book, “Promise Me, America,” is scheduled for release on Nov. 17 by Little, Brown and Company, two weeks after the U.S. midterm elections.

Biden, 83, said on Nov. 8 that cancer treatment would limit how many appearances he could make to promote the book. “Sometimes it slows me down,” he said. “I’m hopeful the words on the page speak for themselves.”