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Trump says he’s cancelling all Biden orders that were signed using an autopen

Trump vows to terminate every document his predecessor signed, and if Biden lied about using an autopen, he would be charged with perjury

SCMP

Khushboo Razdanin Washington

Published: 4:44am, 29 Nov 2025Updated: 7:06am, 29 Nov 2025

US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he was nullifying all documents signed by autopen during the administration of his predecessor, Joe Biden.

“Any document signed by Sleepy Joe Biden with the Autopen, which was approximately 92% of them, is hereby terminated, and of no further force or effect,” Trump said on social media.

He added that he was “hereby cancelling all Executive Orders, and anything else that was not directly signed by Crooked Joe Biden, because the people who operated the Autopen did so illegally.”

Trump had already moved quickly after returning to the White House in January, issuing an order revoking nearly 80 Biden-era executive orders. Some of those remain in effect and may now be cancelled.

A Secret Service agent stands in front of framed images of US President Donald Trump and former US president Joe Biden’s autopen signature on the Presidential Walk of Fame in the colonnade of the White House on Tuesday. Photo: AP

During his presidency, from January 2021 to January 2025, Biden issued 162 executive orders, including on China’s national security risks, investment limits, sensitive tech controls, data restrictions, tariffs and supply-chain reviews.

Even if these executive orders ended, Trump’s recent new policies on investment, tech, trade and supply chains could restore similar restrictions with broader tools.

However, Trump did not specify which Biden-era existing orders will be impacted.

It is also not clear how many executive orders were signed using the autopen and who will validate Biden’s signatures. It’s not unusual for presidents to strike down directives signed by their predecessors.

The use of an autopen device is legal in the US for presidential signatures on legislation and executive actions, provided it is authorised by the president. Trump has claimed that Biden did not personally approve those signatures and suggested that, due to his age and alleged cognitive decline, he may have been unaware of his surroundings.

Trump on Friday threatened that if Biden says he was involved in the autopen process, “he will be brought up on charges of perjury”.

In a June statement, Biden rejected his successor’s allegations. “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false,” he said.

The statement came shortly after Trump directed the counsel to the president, in consultation with US Attorney General Pam Bondi and other officials, to investigate “whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President”.

Conservative legal commentator Ed Whelan said on social media that Trump was free to revoke executive orders, whether Biden personally signed them.

During his presidency, from January 2021 to January 2025, Joe Biden issued 162 executive orders. Photo: AP

“But he doesn’t have the same freedom with respect to ‘anything else’ (e.g., bills enacted by Congress, pardons) that Biden directed be signed by autopen,” he wrote.

In 2011, The New York Times reported that Barack Obama had become the first US president to sign a bill by autopen while in Europe. Paper versions are still sometimes flown to the president for signing.

In his last days in office, Biden issued pardons for people targeted by Trump – including Biden’s own son, lawmakers who probed Trump, a military general who had criticised Trump and the country’s top Covid-19 expert.

Additional reporting by AFP

Khushboo Razdan

Khushboo Razdan is a senior correspondent based in Washington. Prior to this, she worked for the Post in New York. Before joining the team, she worked as a multimedia journalist in Beijing and New Delhi for over a decade. She is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School.