Posted on 11/30/25
| News Source: FOX News
Fox News contributor Marc Thiessen appeared on Fox News' "Saturday in America" with host Kayleigh McEnany this weekend, where the two discussed a September report from Axios alleging that top Biden administration officials questioned and criticized the way the former president’s team handled pardons and made use of an autopen in the waning days of his White House term.
The Sept. 6 report has resurfaced after President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will be terminating all documents allegedly signed by former President Joe Biden via autopen.
While McEnany acknowledged that autopen use is "par for the course" in the White House and that "every president does it," she argued that the Biden administration’s use of the tool was unusual, pointing to the Axios report as evidence.
McEnany, who formerly served as press secretary during Trump's first administration, noted that the report claimed the staff secretary responsible for managing Biden's "paper flow" repeatedly requested additional details to confirm the president's intentions with the autopen.
"It wasn't ordinary for me to question whether Trump approved something or not," she added before asking Thiessen if he had the same experience while serving as President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter.
Thiessen pointed out that there was a ruling by the Office of Legal Counsel which deemed the use of autopen to be legal as long as the president intended to use it, and shared a story that revealed the great lengths Bush went to in order to avoid using the tool.
"Bush didn't want to have any doubts about things. So I remember once there was a continuing resolution to keep the government open, and he was at the APEC summit out in Asia, and they actually took an aide and flew the bill out to Asia so that he could physically sign the bill," he recalled. "So, you know, that's how seriously [Bush] took this."
The former Bush staffer argued that the problem for Biden is that "everybody now knows he was non compos mentis" — meaning not of sound mind — and that there were "people making decisions for him all the time."