Joe Biden saved his harshest judgment of Donald Trump for the page, and the first excerpt of his White House memoir shows exactly how harsh it is.
The Atlantic published that excerpt on Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, ahead of the Nov. 17 release of “Promise Me, America,” the 46th president’s account of his single term in office. Biden, 83, devotes much of it to Trump, 80, at once his predecessor and his successor.
“Donald Trump led an insurrection,” Biden wrote. “His goal was to remain in power after the American people had voted him out of office.”
Biden wrote of the attack on the U.S. Capitol: “What Trump did on January 6, 2021, should never be forgotten. It should follow him to his grave.”
He rejected the idea that the crowd was peaceful, writing that the rioters arrived armed to stop the certification of an election Trump had lost. On his first day back in office, Trump granted clemency to Jan. 6 defendants, issuing more than 1,500 pardons. Biden wrote that those who attacked officers had earned prison sentences instead. He also faults Trump for never holding a formal ceremony honoring the officers who defended the building.
The Case That Never Reached a Jury
Biden’s own Justice Department spent years pursuing the question and never settled it. In November 2022, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to take over the core of the Jan. 6 probe. Smith brought charges against Trump in August 2023, and Trump pleaded not guilty.
After Trump’s 2024 victory, Smith moved to dismiss the case because Justice Department policy bars prosecuting a sitting president. He later wrote in his final report that the evidence would have been enough to win and sustain a conviction at trial had the election gone the other way. Biden also took aim at the Supreme Court’s 2024 presidential immunity ruling, calling the decision unprecedented and “a death knell for accountability.”
Trump Told Him They’d Be Friends
Eight days after the bruising 2024 campaign, on Nov. 13, 2024, Biden welcomed the president-elect to the Oval Office for a meeting that ran nearly two hours. Trump’s tone, Biden wrote, “bordered on fawning.”
“You know, Joe, if it weren’t for politics, I believe we’d be good friends,” Trump said, according to Biden.
Biden wrote that he was too stunned to respond. Trump kept going, saying that without politics the two of them would spend all their time on a golf course. He called Biden’s record on job creation extraordinary and said he was relieved he had not had to run against him. Biden wrote that he could not work out the purpose of the flattery and cut it off to get to business.
He then gave Trump what he called “a tour of the world.” Trump, Biden wrote, “focused on the personalities” of foreign leaders rather than the substance. The meeting did nothing to ease Biden’s worry that his successor would dismantle much of his presidency.
He Tore Down the East Wing
Biden wrote that Trump “took a wrecking ball to our traditions,” and the demolition was at times literal: the East Wing of the White House came down after Trump promised that it would not.
He criticizes Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, the withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, expanded oil drilling, the end of federal support for electric vehicles and the cancellation of wind and solar projects.
He also faults the withdrawal from the World Health Organization and the cuts to federal funding for Democratic states.
‘The Worst President in American History’
Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, called Biden “the worst president in American history.”
The book lands less than a week after Democrats trounced Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections, securing broad House and Senate majorities and flipping control of several statehouses. In a lengthy post on X on Sunday, Nov. 8, Biden pitched the memoir as his best chance to explain the challenges he faced and the decisions he made.
He also used the post to discuss his health. Diagnosed in May 2025 with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, four months after leaving office, Biden said his doctors remain encouraged by his response to treatment, but that some days are harder than others and the illness will keep him from doing as many conversations about the book as he had hoped.
His previous memoir, “Promise Me, Dad,” recounted the death of his elder son, Beau, from cancer.