President Donald Trump launched into a rant about former President Joe Biden’s use of an autopen during an Oval Office meeting with the new German leader.
“Well, in this case, I‘m talking about the battlefield,” Trump told Chancellor Friedrich Merz during a discussion about the war between Ukraine and Russia. “You know, the soldiers on soldiers. But you could also say that too with the cities. The cities are being hit also. So it‘s a terrible, terrible thing.”
Without skipping a beat, the president then directed his attention to the audience of reporters and began a tirade against his predecessor.
“Did somebody say autopen?” the president said.
“Did I hear the word autopen?” Trump said again. “I’m just curious because I think it‘s the biggest scandal maybe in the last 100 years in this country. So when I hear that word, I think it has to be discussed because the fake news will try and hide it, and we can‘t do that.”
Since March, Trump has argued that pardons and other orders signed by Biden are invalid because of his use of an autopen on the documents. The device replicates a person’s signature.
Trump on Wednesday directed his Justice Department to probe whether an autopen was used to cover up Biden’s “mental decline.” The goal of the investigation is to figure out “who ran the United States while President Biden was in office.”
After the announcement, Biden fired back, asserting that he was the one responsible for the decisions during his presidency.
“I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations,” he said. “Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
In the Oval Office Thursday, Trump’s fixation on the autopen took the form of a rambling monologue.
“I could give you the names of some of the people that use the autopen because I‘m here and I ask questions about people that were here,” the president said. “Also, there were a lot of people that were here when that happened, and they are here right now, and they‘ll answer your question very accurately.”
The German chancellor silently sat by while Trump spoke.
Trump said he was aware of specific aides who used the autopen on Biden’s behalf.
“Those are not the people that had the same ideology as Joe Biden,” the president said. “These were radical left lunatics that used that, and they didn‘t get elected. He didn‘t get elected either, actually.”
Autopens have been used by other presidents, including Barack Obama. Legal experts have suggested that even if Biden did sign documents with the device, it would not automatically invalidate them.
Biden, 82, has long faced questions about his cognitive sharpness while in office. He was forced out of the 2024 race by a disastrous debate showing against Trump that exacerbated concerns about his advanced age.
The former president’s mental acuity returned to the spotlight in May, when CNN’s Jake Tapper published a book reporting that Biden’s declining mental and physical health were concealed by aides and loved ones.
Alongside the Justice Department investigation, the House is also probing Biden’s use of an autopen. House Oversight Chair James Comer, a Republican, said in May that he was bringing in former Biden aides for questioning.
