Former President Donald Trump reemerged this week after staying relatively quiet since leaving office, but that doesn’t mean he’s spoken to President Biden.
Before leaving the White House, Trump left a letter for Biden in the Oval Office. Biden promised on his first day to keep the note private until the pair had spoken and Trump provided consent for its release.
“I don’t have any update. I don’t have any calls to report on. There are no calls to report on, I should say. And I don’t have any update on the letter,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday.
Trump launched his post-presidency office this week and met with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to discuss plans on how Republicans can take back the House and Senate in the 2022 midterm elections.
During Friday’s White House briefing, Psaki said Biden would sign his immigration executive orders next Tuesday after delays in Homeland Security Secretary-designate Alejandro Mayorkas’s Senate confirmation process. He’ll also visit the State Department next week.
Psaki also confirmed on Friday that Robert Malley, a top adviser to former President Barack Obama, would be Biden’s special envoy for Iran and that Biden specifically called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to release opposition leader Alexei Navalny in their phone call this week.
Navalny was detained this month after returning to Russia following his poisoning last summer. He’s expected to remain in jail after he was accused of violating the probation terms of a suspended sentence he received for a 2014 money-laundering conviction.
