Former President Joe Biden has shared Angela Merkel’s private views on Donald Trump in his new memoir, revealing what the former German chancellor told him behind closed doors.
In excerpts shared with News week from Biden’s upcoming White House memoir, Promise me, Americathe former president recalls how Merkel candidly discussed her difficult relationship with Trump during their first conversations after entering the White House in January 2021.
The former German chancellor described Trump as “emotional” and questioned his fascination with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other authoritarian leaders, Biden writes in his memoir.
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Biden writes that Merkel was particularly frustrated by Trump’s behavior during their meetings, including his refusal to shake her hand and his apparent preference for personal impulses over established facts.
“In our conversations… Angela candidly expressed her frustrations with my predecessor, who refused to shake her hand and who seemed ’emotional’ during their meetings, driven by mood swings rather than facts,” Biden wrote.
“She also wondered why he was ‘fascinated’ by Vladimir Putin and other politicians ‘with autocratic and dictatorial traits’.” It was a mystery that I couldn’t solve. »
The revelations offer a glimpse into private conversations Biden had with one of Europe’s most influential leaders as he sought to rebuild relations with traditional U.S. allies after four years of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy.
News week contacted Merkel and the White House for comment.
The difficult relationship between Merkel and Trump
Relations between Merkel and Trump were often tense throughout her first presidency, with disagreements extending beyond their personal interactions and touching on NATO, trade, climate policy and Germany’s energy relations with Russia.
One of their most memorable meetings took place during Merkel’s first visit to the Oval Office in March 2017.
Photographers captured an awkward moment where the two leaders sat next to each other and were repeatedly encouraged to shake hands. Merkel turned to Trump and asked softly: “Would you like a handshake?”
Trump did not respond, remaining seated with his hands clasped as cameras continued to take pictures.
Merkel also reflected on the meeting in her 2024 memoir, Freedomwriting that she initially approached Trump as if he were “someone completely normal.” She described their interactions as “a competition: you or me.”
Their disagreements have also become increasingly public.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Germany for failing to meet NATO’s defense spending target of 2 percent of gross domestic product, accusing Berlin of not contributing enough to the alliance and threatening to reconsider the U.S. commitment to NATO.
He also threatened to impose tariffs on German auto exports and criticized Germany’s support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, arguing that Berlin was becoming too dependent on Russian energy.
Merkel, meanwhile, opposed Trump’s decisions to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord and the Iran nuclear deal.
Following a controversial G7 summit in Sicily in 2017, she warned that Europe could no longer rely entirely on others.
“The days when we could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over,” Merkel said.
His comments reflect growing concern among European leaders about the reliability of transatlantic relations under Trump.
Biden’s efforts to rebuild relations with Europe
Biden’s conversations with Merkel were part of a broader effort to restore trust among U.S. allies when he took office in January 2021.
In Promise me, Americahe describes how he worked to reassure European leaders that Washington would re-engage with international institutions and traditional partners.
Merkel, who had served as German chancellor since 2005, was nearing the end of her 16-year term. During Trump’s presidency, she has increasingly become a central figure in European discussions on the future of the Western alliance.
Biden writes that restoring those relationships was a priority, especially as tensions with Russia continued to grow.
His account of Merkel’s concerns about Putin is particularly noteworthy given the developments that followed.
Biden reveals that US intelligence agencies increasingly tracked Russian military movements around Ukraine throughout 2021, months before Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022.
He writes that he initially struggled to convince European allies, NATO members and Ukrainian officials that Putin was preparing to invade the entire country rather than pursue a more limited operation in the Donbas region.
The president eventually shared intelligence about Russian plans for a coup in kyiv, including preparations for a propaganda video that he described as an elaborate, almost Hollywood-style production designed to manufacture a pretext for an invasion.
Biden also recounts sending CIA Director Bill Burns to Moscow in November 2021 and personally confronting Putin in a December 7 phone call.
Inside Promise me, America
Merkel is among several international figures who feature prominently in Biden’s retrospective on his presidency.
The memoir also contains candid accounts of his dealings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who Biden initially asked if he had the experience and resilience to withstand a large-scale military crisis.
Although Biden ultimately praised Zelensky’s wartime leadership, he wrote that they sometimes had a tense relationship, saying the Ukrainian leader could be “gloomy and stubborn” and “not as grateful as I would have imagined” as he repeatedly lobbied Washington for additional weapons and financial aid.
Biden also revisits the chaotic August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan in the book, writing that military and intelligence leaders assured him that the Afghan government and capital would remain standing for at least six months after U.S. troops left.
Instead, that assessment collapsed within days as Taliban forces advanced and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
The former president also reflects on his meetings with grieving families at Dover Air Force Base after the Abbey Gate bombing, which killed 13 U.S. service members.
He recognizes that some relatives considered him responsible for their suffering and that many would never forgive him.
Promise me, Americapublished by Little, Brown and Company, is scheduled for release on Tuesday, November 17.
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