President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday lashed out at President Joe Biden over his decision to commute the death sentences of almost every federal prisoner on death row.
Biden’s decision has met with criticism from individuals on both sides of the aisle. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said, “When you hear the acts of each [death row inmate], you won’t believe that he did this.”
In a subsequent post, the president-elect declared that when he takes office, he “will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.”
President-elect Trump has been an avid supporter of the death penalty. At several points during the 2024 campaign, he argued in favor of applying capital punishment to drug dealers, human traffickers, and others.
Did you know that President Trump has vowed to seek the DEATH PENALTY for child traffickers?
— Reed Cooper (@ReedMCooper) May 20, 2023
Trump has the greatest & most extensive plan to end child trafficking!
"Drug dealers & human traffickers get the death penalty. Watch it stop & watch it stop quickly."
🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/sKs4Lzx4ky
Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 people on Monday. The inmates will now be serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. However, he did leave some on death row.
Only three men behind bars for “terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder” will remain on federal death row: “Robert D. Bowers, 52, who in 2018 gunned down 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh; Dylann Roof, 30, the white supremacist who in 2015 opened fire on Black parishioners at a church in Charleston, S.C., killing nine people; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 31, one of the two brothers who carried out the bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013 that killed three and maimed more than a dozen others,” according to The New York Times.
Even some Democrats have criticized the move. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) said he has “real concerns overall with the death penalty” but also indicated that he has “concerns with the executive branch overturning cases that have been decided by courts across the country.”
Republicans have highlighted the nature of the brutal and gruesome crimes committed by some of the former death row inmates.
One of the men whose sentences Biden commuted killed a woman and her 11 month old infant daughter. The mother was going to testify against him for rape.
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) December 24, 2024
They offered to take the death penalty off the table if he helped them find infant's body, but he refused.
The man is… pic.twitter.com/mgQyIJdrSR
Demetrius Minor, National Director of anti-capital punishment organization Conservatives Concerned, told Townhall that he supports Biden’s decision because of the waste of taxpayer funds and the inevitability that innocent people will be executed.
“The federal death penalty has wasted taxpayer dollars by failing to stop crime or improve public safety, and we have learned it risks executing innocent people. So we applaud President Biden’s decision to stand by his pledge to end the death penalty. His action values life and allows the next administration to focus on policies that will make better use of our country’s limited financial resources.”
The latest Gallup poll shows support for capital punishment declining over the past two decades. In 2024, about 53 percent of respondents indicated they were in favor of the death penalty for murders, while 43 percent opposed it.