In a fiery Christmas Day post on Truth Social, President-elect Donald Trump lashed out at 37 death row inmates whose sentences were commuted by President Joe Biden, telling them to “go to hell.” Trump, a staunch advocate of capital punishment, criticized Biden’s decision to reduce their sentences to life imprisonment without parole, calling the inmates “the most violent criminals” who had committed heinous acts.
Biden’s commutation order, announced on Monday, affected 37 out of 40 federal death row prisoners, following pressure from campaigners concerned about the potential resumption of executions under Trump’s administration. The exceptions included three men convicted of terrorism or hate crimes, such as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber.
In his statement, Biden, who once supported capital punishment, expressed his conviction that the federal death penalty should be abolished, stating, “I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”
Trump’s post also included sarcastic Christmas greetings to Chinese troops in the Panama Canal and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whom he mockingly referred to as “Governor.” He suggested that Canada would benefit from becoming the 51st state of the United States, with lower taxes and increased military protection.
Additionally, Trump extended holiday wishes to the residents of Greenland, reiterating his previous call for Denmark to sell the territory to the US. He also mentioned meeting retired Canadian ice hockey star Wayne Gretzky and encouraging him to run for the prime minister’s office, though Gretzky declined.
Biden’s commutation order received praise from campaigners, including Martin Luther King III, who highlighted the racial disparities among those affected. The Death Penalty Information Center noted that 38% of the commuted inmates are Black.
Trump’s history with the death penalty dates to a 1989 full-page ad calling for its reinstatement after the Central Park jogger case, in which five Black and Latino teenagers were wrongfully convicted and later exonerated.
