White House Fires Back After Biden Breaks Post-Presidency Tradition With Trump Criticism

In a departure from the longstanding practice of former presidents refraining from criticizing their successors, Joe Biden took aim at President Donald Trump during an interview published Wednesday. The remarks quickly drew a fiery response from the White House.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung blasted Biden on X, formerly Twitter, suggesting the former president had "lost all mental faculties" and adding, "Sadly, this feels like abuse."

Biden, whose presidency is widely seen as one of the least effective since Jimmy Carter, appeared determined to defend his administration while attacking Trump. One of the most pointed accusations he made was that President Trump was engaging in "modern-day appeasement" in relation to Ukraine—comparing him to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who infamously conceded territory to Adolf Hitler in the 1930s in a failed attempt to prevent war, as reported by the BBC.

During the interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson, Biden was asked about President Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier this year. After a dramatic pause, Biden responded, “I found it sort of beneath America, in the way that took place.”

For context, Trump recently met again with Zelenskyy at the Vatican ahead of Pope Francis’s funeral. Following that meeting, the U.S. and Ukraine signed a new agreement on natural resources.

Continuing his criticism, Biden mocked Trump’s style and proposals, saying, “The way we talk about now, that, ‘Well, this is the Gulf of America,’ or ‘Maybe we’re going to have to take back Panama … maybe we need to acquire Greenland … maybe Canada … What the hell’s going on here? What president ever talks like that? That’s not who we are.”

When asked about President Trump’s first 100 days in office, Biden said, “I’ll let history judge that. I don’t see anything that was triumphant”—a statement that contradicted his call to let history be the judge.

Cheung’s reaction was swift and sharp. “Joe Biden is a complete disgrace to this country and the office he occupied,” he wrote. “He has clearly lost all mental faculties and his handlers thought it’d be a good idea for him to do an interview and incoherently mumble his way through every answer.”

NBC News noted that Biden at times sounded hoarse, apologized for a recurring cough, and occasionally slurred his words—calling back memories of the debate performance against Trump that led to Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 race.

In the interview, Biden addressed his exit from the race and whether he should have stepped aside earlier. “I don’t think it would have mattered. We left at a time when we had a good candidate. She was fully funded,” he said.

He added, “And what happened was, what we had set out to do, no one thought we could do. And we’d become so successful in our agenda, it was hard to say, ‘Now I’m going to stop now.’”

However, critics argue that Biden’s “success” amounted to a historic border crisis, the worst inflation levels in four decades, and a record-setting $8.4 trillion in deficit spending during his single term.

Regardless of how Biden seeks to frame his presidency, President Trump and his administration are now focused on reversing the damage and restoring stability both at home and abroad.