Trump tells 37 people on death row with commuted sentences to ‘go to hell’
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On Truth Social, president-elect also lashes out at Chinese troops in Panama Canal and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau. Donald Trump has told 37 people on death row who had their sentences commuted by Joe Biden to “go to hell” in a lacerating Christmas Day social media post.
The president-elect – long a vocal advocate of capital punishment – lashed out at Biden’s decision on his Truth Social platform, after wishing a merry Christmas to political opponents he addressed as “Radical Left Lunatics”. He then turned to those shown clemency by Biden in a decision announced on Monday: “ … to the 37 most violent criminals, who killed, raped, and plundered like virtually no one before them, but were just given, incredibly, a pardon by Sleepy Joe Biden. I refuse to wish a Merry Christmas to those lucky ‘souls’ but, instead, will say, GO TO HELL!”.
Biden’s move reduced the death sentences of 37 out of 40 prisoners on federal death row to life imprisonment without parole and followed pressure from campaigners who warned that they were likely to be executed on Trump’s return to the White House.
The exceptions applied to three men who had been convicted of offences regarded as terrorism or hate crimes, including Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found guilty of carrying out the 2013 Boston marathon bombing attack. Biden – a one-time adherent of capital punishment – said in a statement that “guided by my conscience … I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level. I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted.”.
