President is considering whether to grant pre-emptive presidential pardons to Liz Cheney and Anthony Fauci
Joe Biden said he told Donald Trump not to follow through on his campaign vows to pursue retribution against his political adversaries once he returns to the White House.
Talking to USA Today, Biden said he proffered the advice when he hosted Trump at the White House in November after his election victory over Kamala Harris. The president-elect did not respond directly but did not reject the suggestion, Biden said.
“I was very straightforward with Trump when he got elected,” Biden told USA Today in the hour-long interview, one of the few one-on-one interviews he has given in his four-year term. “I tried to make it clear that there was no need, and it was counterintuitive for his interest to go back and try to settle scores.”
Asked if Trump answered, Biden acknowledged that he did not, but added: “But he didn’t say, ‘No, I’m going to…’ You know. He didn’t reinforce it. He just basically listened.”
Biden’s comments were made in the context of a question about whether to grant pre-emptive presidential pardons to figures such as Liz Cheney, the former number three Republican in the House of Representatives, and Anthony Fauci, the former US public health official who spearheaded the country’s response to Covid-19.
The president said he is considering doing so before leaving office in less than two weeks time, but that his final decision depended on whom Trump appointed to certain positions.
Trump has repeatedly said that Cheney should face a military tribunal for her role in the House select committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. His supporters have also called for a prosecution against Fauci, who advocated mandates on mask-wearing during the pandemic.
Biden also revealed that Trump – in contrast to his fulminating public criticism of the Democrat’s presidential record – was complimentary when the two men met.
“He was very complimentary about some of the economic things I had done … He thought I was leaving with a good record,” Biden said.
Publicly, Trump has labelled Biden’s presidency a “disaster” and called him “the worst president in American history”.
In other remarks, Biden said he believed he could have beaten Trump in November’s election if he had stayed in the race rather than step aside for Harris – which he did after a dire debate performance last June intensified concerns about his age and acuity and triggered a fall in his poll standing.
“It’s presumptuous to say that, but I think yes, based on the polling,” he said. But he also admitted that at age 82 he might not have had the vigour to serve another four years as president.
“I also wasn’t looking to be president when I was 85 years old, 86 years old,” he said. “And so I did talk about passing the baton [before his 2020 victory over Trump]. But I don’t know. So far, so good. But who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?”
