President-elect Donald Trump is re-upping a campaign promise after President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of nearly every prisoner on the federal government’s death row.
Trump said Tuesday he plans to direct the Justice Department to pursue the death penalty for violent offenders, a promise he made on the campaign trail if he won. Thirteen federal inmates were put to death during Trump’s first term.
“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”
Trump has not laid out how he plans to expand the death penalty, but he would not be able to undo any commutations that Biden issued.
Biden announced Monday that he will commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 men condemned to death, saying “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
He added that he could not allow the incoming administration to restart executions for those he had spared over the last four years.
“Joe Biden just commuted the Death Sentence on 37 of the worst killers in our Country,” Trump said in another post. “When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense. Relatives and friends are further devastated.”