Kevin Rector | (TNS) Los Angeles Times
President Joe Biden said in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Monday that it was a “mistake” to say before the weekend assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump that it was “time to put Trump in the bullseye.”
Biden, however, said he simply meant that the nation’s attention should be focused on Trump and the “threat to democracy” he poses. He also said Trump has repeatedly made worse remarks, including “mocking” and “joking” about the violent attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, at their San Francisco home in 2022.
“I didn’t talk about line of sight. I talked about focusing,” Biden said of his remark.
“Focus on what he’s doing, on his policies, on the number of lies he told in the debate. I mean, there’s a whole range of things,” Biden said. “Look, I’m not the guy who said he wanted to be a dictator from Day One. I’m not the guy who refused to accept the outcome of the election.”
“You can’t just love your country when you win,” Biden said. “So the emphasis was on what he was saying.”
Holt asked Biden if he had done “a little bit of soul searching” about some of the things he said that might “incite people who are not balanced.”
“How can we talk about the threat to democracy, which is very real, when a president says things like he says? Can we not say anything for fear of inciting someone to react?” Biden asked.
“Look, I haven’t made that kind of speech. My opponent has. He talks about bloodshed if he loses, he talks about how he’s going to pardon all the people who were arrested and sentenced to prison because of what happened at the Capitol” on January 6.
He asked Holt if he remembered when Trump mocked the attack on Pelosi.
The interview was scheduled to air in full Monday night. Holt described it as the first in an “unscripted setting” since the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The interview brought political attention to Biden on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump formally received the party’s nomination.
Biden had already addressed the attack on Trump in remarks Saturday night, just hours after the attack, when he said that “everyone must condemn” political violence. On Sunday, he delivered a prime-time national address from the Oval Office, where he again condemned the violence and asked everyone, amid heightened passions, to “calm down.”
His campaign pulled ads attacking Trump in the wake of the shooting. Yet critics on the right have seized on previous campaign rhetoric denouncing Trump, including the “bullseye” comment, to suggest that Biden and Democrats in general were partly to blame for the shooting.
Monday’s interview, scheduled before the assassination attempt, was also Biden’s latest opportunity to showcase his competence after his disastrous performance in last month’s debate, which raised concerns, including within his own party, about his age and ability to lead.
Biden is 81 years old. Trump is 78 years old.
Biden has been under the microscope since the June 27 debate, where he repeatedly lost his train of thought and failed to challenge Trump’s arguments and lies. His voice was hoarse and stiff as he spoke, and his delivery reinforced existing concerns about his age.
Biden rebuffed calls for his resignation in the days that followed, saying he may no longer be a “young man” but that he still knows how to do his job well.
Biden gave an interview to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on July 5, where he called his debate performance a “bad episode” and rejected the idea that he had a serious health condition that could compromise his ability to do his job. He also rejected the idea of undergoing an independent medical evaluation, saying that the job of president presents him with a “daily cognitive test” — which he said he passes while on the campaign trail.
On July 11, Biden held a nearly hour-long news conference in which he fielded a series of questions from the media, including on foreign policy. He was provocative and boasted about his record on passing legislation.
He billed himself as “the most qualified person to run for president” and said he would defeat Trump in November. “I beat him once and I’ll beat him again.”
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