Just days after Donald Trump was nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet, President Joe Biden denied that he had engaged in inflammatory rhetoric and claimed that it was the former president whose rhetoric was the problem.
In an awkward and at times combative interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt which aired last Monday, Biden was confronted with his recent comment calling for Donald Trump to be put “in a bullseye.”
At first, the president denied saying that, explaining that he didn’t say “crosshairs.”
Finally, Biden admitted that it was probably a mistake to use the word bullseye and in a rambling explanation, said that he meant to say that Democrats needed to “focus” on Trump and “what he’s doing.”
He said Democrats had to focus on Trump’s policies and “the number of lies he told in the debate.”
In his rambling response, Biden also claimed that Trump wanted to be a dictator and reminded Holt that he was not the one who “refused to accept the outcome of the election.” He said nobody should “only love your country when you win,” and that was what he meant when he used the word “bullseye.”
When Holt asked the president if he had done any “soul searching” about his rhetoric since the July 13 assassination attempt, Biden defended his inflammatory rhetoric against Trump, saying that the threat Trump posed to the country was too dangerous to ignore.
He demanded to know if Holt expected him not to warn voters that Trump is a “threat to democracy” simply because “it may incite somebody.”
Biden insisted that he has never “engaged in that rhetoric” that his opponent has engaged in.
Biden’s combative interview and his insistence to continue attacking Trump as a threat struck a very different tone than his Oval Office address the night before when he urged Americans to “lower the temperature” and stop viewing their political opponents as their enemies.
