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President-elect Donald Trump’s communications director Steven Cheung on Monday afternoon slammed President Joe Biden’s sentence commutations for 37 federal death-row inmates, calling it a “slap in the face” to the victims.

Biden announced earlier in the day that he is commuting the sentences of 37 of 40 federal, death-row inmates. The move converts the punishments from possible execution to life imprisonment, just weeks before Trump takes office in January.

“These are among the worst killers in the world and this abhorrent decision by Joe Biden is a slap in the face to the victims, their families, and their loved ones,” Cheung said in a statement. “President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people.”

The White House defended the decision in a statement on Monday, saying president believes the death penalty should be reserved for people who commit acts of terrorism or hate-motivated mass murder. It said the three people who are still on federal death-row have committed such crimes.

Those federal inmates are Dylann Roof, who killed nine black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015;  the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of life Synagogue in 2018, according to the Associated Press.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.