Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on CNN’s “while in America,” an email about U.S. politics to readers around the world.
CNN
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It might be a little cold inside the president’s armored limousine on the morning of January 20th.
President Joe Biden and his predecessor and successor, Donald Trump, were anything but friendly. The current commander-in-chief believes the next president is a deadly threat to the soul of America. Trump has long insulted “Sleepy Joe” Biden, claiming Biden ordered multiple indictments despite a lack of evidence.
As the inauguration approaches, the atmosphere between the two men worsens day by day.
Biden continues to land jabs at Trump. And the president-elect is venting his lumps on social media.
Biden warned on Wednesday that no one should “jump to conclusions” about the terrorist attack in New Orleans. Hours later, President Trump did just that, implying on social media that the suspect was a foreign terrorist who had recently crossed the southern border. In fact, he was from Texas and a natural-born American citizen. The president-elect appears to be basing his claims on false media reports.
On Sunday, Biden was asked what President Trump should take away from Jimmy Carter’s life following the 39th president’s death. “Civility. Politeness. Politeness,” he answered.
“Can you imagine Jimmy Carter just walking past someone who needed something?” Biden asked. “Can you imagine Jimmy Carter referring to someone by the way they look or the way they talk? I can’t.” In what appeared to be an implicit criticism of Trump’s personality and leadership style, Biden said Carter “The rest of the world is paying attention to us…and he was someone worth paying attention to.”
In a further repudiation of Trump, Biden on Thursday awarded one of America’s highest civilian honors to Liz Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming who fell out with Trump over her refusal to accept the 2020 election results. did. She served as vice chair of the bipartisan Congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, mob attack on the Capitol. Cheney, who lost her House seat to a pro-Trump primary challenger, received a lengthy standing ovation at the White House when she received the Presidential Citizens Medal for “pushing the American people to their party.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill are threatening to investigate Cheney over her role in pursuing Trump. And even though there is no indication she broke the law, there is some speculation that Biden may grant her a preemptive pardon to protect her from criminal prosecution by the incoming Justice Department.
Trump, on the other hand, is not holding back. Despite his implicit rebuke, Biden once again tried to obscure the truth about the New Orleans truck attack that killed 14 people. “With Biden’s ‘open borders policy,’ as I have said many times during rallies and elsewhere, Islamic extremist terrorism and other forms of violent crime have become so much worse in the United States that it is impossible to imagine or believe.” ” Trump wrote on his Truth social network. “Times are worse than we ever imagined. Joe Biden is the worst president in American history and a complete and utter disaster.”
President Trump was not wrong to raise the possibility of terrorists crossing the southern border into the United States. Biden’s own Department of Homeland Security warned of this very scenario earlier this year. But the president-elect has also misleadingly implied that the attack on New Orleans is such an example. In fact, this is a sign of something the FBI is even more concerned about. The attack was carried out by an American citizen who appears to have been inspired by ISIS to commit a massacre of his own accord.
Biden and Trump officials said the new and outgoing administrations worked well together on important national security issues and that America’s adversaries should not try to exploit the transition. But the two presidents are more estranged than ever.
Still, Mr. Biden is paying tribute to Mr. Trump for offering the one important thing the 45th president did not: an uncontested and peaceful transfer of power after a democratic election.
