President-elect Trump’s team slammed President Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates on Monday, calling the move “abhorrent” and a “slap in the face.”
“These are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people,” Cheung concluded.
Biden’s announcement, less than a month before he leaves office, included a jab at Trump on Monday. He defended his decision ahead of the new administration that he warned will resume executions.
Trump, during the 2024 campaign, called for tougher criminal sentences for drug traffickers, like the death penalty, and he said in 2018 there should be the “ultimate penalty” for drug dealers.
“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” the president said.
Only three federal death row inmates weren’t included in Biden’s list; those convicted for the mass killings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018; the Mother Emanuel AME Church mass shooting in South Carolina in 2015; and the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.
The president, in announcing the commutations, said he is “more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
Other Republicans also criticized Biden, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who called it a slap in the face of victims and a way to let criminals “off easy.” And, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) called the move “politically convenient.”
