Your Independent Journal from the Heartland
Longtime conspiracy theorist Donald Trump promoted a new anti-Joe Biden conspiracy theory over the weekend, even as he and other Republicans face fears about a looming recession.
Last week, the stock market had its worst week since 2023, as Trump began a trade war with multiple countries and those countries responded in kind, leading to increased consumer costs and economic upheaval—in stark contrast to the recovery Trump inherited from Biden. Polling shows the public now souring on Trump, particularly on economic issues.
So Trump reignited his obsession with Biden, who has now been out of office for nearly two months.
On his Truth Social account, Trump posted a meme alleging that Biden’s autopen was in the presidency from 2021-2025 and that Biden was not in control.
“The person who was the real President during the Biden years was the person who controlled the Autopen!” Trump wrote in another post.
An autopen is a device used to remotely sign documents and has been used by multiple American presidents for decades to sign legislation, executive orders, and other documents. Presidents ranging from Harry Truman to George W. Bush to Barack Obama have used the device and it hasn’t really been an issue until Trump needed a new conspiracy to push.
The source of Trump’s theory appears to be a thinly sourced report from the pro-Trump New York Post—which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News. The Post alleged in a story sourced to an anonymous person who purportedly served in the Biden White House that a “key aide” made decisions on what documents were signed via autopen and not Biden.
In the story, the Post all but concedes the entire thing could be a fabrication, noting a “lack of concrete evidence and refutations by other colleagues.”
Trump’s autopen conspiracy also seems to come from the right-wing Heritage Foundation (the people behind Project 2025). The group alleged that multiple documents signed by Biden were done so via autopen, but for their analysis Heritage sourced digital copies from the National Archives—which are not the originals. Newsweek noted that there is photographic evidence of Biden signing documents that Heritage claims were done via autopen.
This led to Trump declaring in another post that pardons issued by Biden “are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.”
The statement was meant to invalidate the pardons Biden issued to figures like former Reps. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and others as a preemptive action to protect them from Trump, and Trump said those figures would now be “subject to investigation at the highest level.”
Trump was first impeached for using his office to attack his political enemies and has resumed that behavior in his second term.
Trump’s weekend tirades are a return to form for a conspiracy theorist. For years he pushed racist birth certificate conspiracies, mostly against former President Barack Obama but has also done so versus former Gov. Nikki Haley. Trump also promoted the nonsensical idea that climate change was a “hoax” from the Chinese government.
What is happening in reality is Trump is attempting to assume authoritarian control over the government while badly stumbling on economic issues. Ranting about Biden and pens is a way to avoid taking responsibility for serious problems affecting millions of Americans and the world.
See the online version, with links, at https://www.dailykos.com/
