Donald Trump skipped Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration in January 2021, but he left his successor an unexpectedly warm handwritten letter in the Oval Office, predicting that Biden would make his mark on history.
Biden described the letter as “very generous” on his first day in office but declined to reveal its contents then. He details it in his forthcoming memoir, “Promise Me, America,” which comes out Tuesday. The New York Times first reported on the letter.
“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.”
The letter, addressed “To ‘46,’” referencing Biden as the 46th president, was handwritten in black Sharpie on White House stationery.
To Biden, it was as if there were two Donald Trumps. One had spent weeks trying to overturn his defeat, an effort that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The other wrote with the warmth of an old friend.
Biden recalled seeing that side of Trump again in November 2024, when he welcomed him to the Oval Office after Trump won a second term, according to an excerpt from the memoir published in the Atlantic.
“Trump was immediately chatty and surprised me by adopting a tone so friendly that I thought he might be putting me on,” Biden wrote. “It bordered on fawning.”
The geniality from both men is a stark contrast to the way the political opponents characterized each other as threats to the nation.
As they campaigned for the presidency, Trump called Biden “the worst candidate” in American history, warned that a Biden presidency would unleash violence in American cities, questioned his mental acuity and accused him of corruption. Biden called Trump an “existential threat” to the United States during a June 2019 campaign stop in Iowa, arguing that Trump was undermining American values and dividing the country. Trump still falsely claims the 2020 election was rigged.
In September 2025, Trump unveiled his Presidential Walk of Fame along the West Wing colonnade. In the frame reserved for Biden, the White House hung a photograph of an autopen signing his name, a reference to Trump’s allegation that Biden was too impaired to govern and that aides had acted in his stead.
Biden said on Sunday that his treatment for Stage 4 prostate cancer would limit how much he could travel to promote the memoir. In an interview with People published Wednesday, he said two tests had shown no further spread of the cancer, which he disclosed in May 2025 had reached his bones. He said he takes eight pills a day.
Biden said he was unaware he had cancer while in office and would have stepped down if the diagnosis had come earlier.
“There’s no evidence of it — if I had known that I was feeling lousy because I had cancer, I would have resigned,” he said. “I would’ve not gone forward, because I don’t think an 80-year-old man with cancer should be running for [president]. But that wasn’t the case. … I believe that on an objective basis, I was the best-equipped person to do the job.”
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