President Donald Trump marked his first Memorial Day as commander-in-chief in his second term Monday with ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, delivering remarks that included pointed criticism of the previous administration after earlier sharing a Truth Social post calling former President Joe Biden a “decrepit corpse.”
Newsweek reached out to the White House and Biden’s office, via his presidential library, for comment on Monday.
Why It Matters
Trump’s Memorial Day address signals an intensification of his attacks on the Biden administration, particularly regarding immigration policy and questions about Biden’s fitness for office during his presidency.
The timing of these remarks—just days after Biden’s cancer diagnosis and amid reports showing deportations below 2024 levels—demonstrates Trump’s strategy of using Biden’s health revelations to validate claims about the previous administration’s governance.
The escalating rhetoric, including accusations of treason against Biden’s aides, suggests Trump plans to make the previous administration’s handling of immigration and Biden’s cognitive capacity central themes of his second term, even during traditionally apolitical ceremonial events honoring fallen service members.
President Donald Trump gestures and Vice President JD Vance looks on in the amphitheater at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on Memorial Day, May 26, 2025.
President Donald Trump gestures and Vice President JD Vance looks on in the amphitheater at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on Memorial Day, May 26, 2025.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
What To Know
During the ceremony on Monday, Trump participated in the traditional wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and addressed attendees at Memorial Amphitheater at about noon ET.
The ceremony followed long-standing Memorial Day traditions, with Trump accompanied by Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Commanding General of U.S. Military District of Washington Major General Trevor Bredenkamp.
“Those young men could never have known what their sacrifice would mean to us, but we certainly know what we owe to them,” Trump said in his speech. “That valor gave us the freest, greatest and most noble Republic ever to exist on the face of the Earth. A republic that I am fixing after a long and hard four years.
“Who would let that happen? People pouring through our borders unchecked. People doing things that are indescribable and not for today to discuss. We will do better than we’ve ever done as a nation, better than ever before. I promise you that.”
In his earlier Truth Social posts, Trump said Biden “was not for Open Borders…where criminals of all kinds, shapes, and sizes, can flow into our Country at will,” instead blaming policies on “the people that knew he was cognitively impaired, and that took over the Autopen.” An autopen is a mechanical device that replicates signatures, which Trump has previously used to challenge the validity of presidential pardons issued by Biden.
Between January 2021 and January 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 7.2 million encounters with suspected illegal immigrants, up from 2.4 million during Trump’s first term.
However, despite Trump’s campaign promises of mass deportations, Mexican officials report that 32,537 Mexican nationals were returned during the first three months of 2025, compared to 47,659 during the same period in 2024.
A senior DHS official told Newsweek that 142,000 deportations since January 20 were “just the beginning.”
From left: President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Major General Trevor Bredenkamp, commanding general of the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region and the U.S. Military District of Washington, look…
From left: President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Major General Trevor Bredenkamp, commanding general of the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region and the U.S. Military District of Washington, look on after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on Memorial Day, May 26, 2025.
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SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
What People Are Saying
President Donald Trump, on Truth Social last week: “Joe Biden was not for Open Borders, he never talked about Open Borders, where criminals of all kinds, shapes, and sizes, can flow into our Country at will. It wasn’t his idea to Open the Border, and almost destroy our Country, and cost us Hundreds of Billions of Dollars to get criminals out of our Country, and go through the process we are going through now. It was the people that knew he was cognitively impaired, and that took over the Autopen.
“They stole the Presidency of the United States, and put us in Great Danger. This is TREASON at the Highest Level! They did it to destroy our Country. The Joe Biden that everybody knew would never allow drug dealers, gang members, and the mentally insane to come into our Country totally unchecked and unvetted. All anyone has to do is look up his record. Something very severe should happen to these Treasonous Thugs that wanted to destroy our Country, but couldn’t, because I came along. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
The Migration Policy Institute this month, in a brief on the U.S.-Mexico relationship: “No country is more critical for U.S. migration management than Mexico. The former administrations of U.S. President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador worked together toward a system in which migrants who reach their countries’ shared border would do so through lawful means.”
Mark Shanahan, an American politics expert who teaches at the University of Surrey in the U.K., previously told Newsweek: “Donald Trump’s ‘open borders’ comment switching the blame from Joe Biden to his team is fascinating. It’s not in his character to be sympathetic to his political enemies, but perhaps he sees Biden, out of office and weakened by cancer, as no longer a threat?”
“But maybe there’s something a little more insidious at play. Trump will leave office, by January 2029 at the latest, through age, ill health or possibly on the back of a Republican defeat. He will be accountable for his actions but is likely to lay the blame on everyone else. Perhaps he’s setting the scene now? For Trump, the president can never do anything wrong, but when they do, it’s because of the failings of someone else.”
Adriana Minerva Espinoza Nolazco, Baja California’s Migrant Affairs Office director: “The numbers predicted by President Donald Trump are well below what we are seeing in terms of deportations.”
What Happens Next
Trump’s budget currently in Congress is designed to empower U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to increase removals, as his administration faces ongoing challenges in meeting mass deportation goals.