JEKYLL AND TRUMP

Biden Reveals Weird Secret Letter Trump Left in Oval Office

After months of insulting Biden, Trump left him a baffling letter full of warmth and encouragement in the Oval Office.

Joe Biden has revealed an astonishingly gracious letter Donald Trump left him in the Oval Office.

Trump and Biden’s relationship appeared to have hit rock bottom by the time the departing president penned the letter on Jan. 20, 2021.

Rather than attend Biden’s swearing-in ceremony that day, Trump broke tradition by flying directly from the White House to Palm Beach. He had spent the preceding months relentlessly lobbing personal attacks at Biden before launching an effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

And yet, Trump left behind a letter of striking warmth for Biden, entirely at odds with his bitter public comments, according to Biden’s forthcoming book Promise Me, America, in which he reprinted the letter in full.

“You now have the opportunity to choose your place in history, and I know you will be true to yourself and the American people,” Trump, then 74, wrote, according to The New York Times, which obtained an excerpt of Biden’s book.

“Many presidents have come and gone who simply governed as Republicans or Democrats. 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.”

The letter contained no attacks on Biden, then 78, or challenges to the election results. Instead, he reflected on the presidency and offered his successor words of encouragement.

“I hope you take a moment every single day to take stock of where you are and the people who came before you, the titans who shaped the course of human events,” he wrote. “You now have the opportunity to choose your place in history, and I know you will be true to yourself and the American people.”

Trump, who had called Biden “the worst candidate” in U.S. history, added, “Your strength, your deepest reservoir of energy, comes from the knowledge that millions upon millions of people are depending on you. Their ambitions and aspirations are the reason you are here, with so many counting on your success.”

Biden, now 83, writes in his book that Trump’s private words left him feeling “as if there were two Donald Trumps.”

He “deeply destabilized our democracy” and had “not offered the traditional meeting between presidents,” Biden writes, “But here he was, offering his best wishes in warm language that sounded like it was coming from an old friend.”

Publicly, Trump kept up his attacks as Biden took office, escalating them as the two men moved toward a 2024 rematch.

But in an excerpt published in The Atlantic, Biden writes that Trump was once again remarkably cordial when the two met in the Oval Office after his 2024 victory—the same courtesy Trump had refused to extend to Biden four years earlier.

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“Trump was immediately chatty and surprised me by adopting a tone so friendly that I thought he might be putting me on,” Biden writes.

“You know, Joe, if it weren’t for politics, I believe we’d be good friends,” Trump told him, according to his book. “Yes, if it weren’t for politics, we’d spend all our time golfing together.”

When reached for comment, Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung told the Daily Beast, “Joe 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.”

Biden, who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that spread to his bones after leaving office, said on X Sunday that treatment would limit his public appearances promoting the book.

“Some days are better than others. It hasn’t stopped me,” he wrote. “But sometimes it slows me down. What that means is, unfortunately, I won’t be able to do as many conversations about my book as I’d hoped. However, I’m hopeful the words on the page speak for themselves.”

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