Former US President Joe Biden says in his upcoming memoir, “Promise Me, America,” that he refused a request from Donald Trump’s transition team to authorize direct negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin before Trump takes office. Reporting on excerpts also includes Biden’s sharp descriptions of key leaders during the Ukraine war era.
Across the outlets, Biden is described as accusing Putin of behaving like a “teenager,” including slouching and using a “petulant” tone during meetings. The memoir extracts also portray Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “moody and stubborn” and less grateful than Biden expected, while framing Biden’s own stance as resisting what he saw as concessionary negotiations. The reports additionally mention that Biden characterizes his refusal as a way to avoid what he called a “de facto capitulation” involving Ukraine’s interests.
Some coverage adds broader context about the contrast between Biden-era support for Ukraine and what the later Trump administration approach may be, including references to alleged shifts in negotiations and diplomacy toward Russia. The common thread, however, is that all accounts rely on excerpts from Biden’s memoir and attribute both the blocked negotiation mandate and the “teenager” characterization to Biden’s unpublished writing.
