‘I didn’t use ‘crosshairs.’ I meant ‘bullseye.’ I meant focus on him, focus on what he was doing, focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate.’
By Chuck Ross, The Washington Free Beacon
President Joe Biden, who called for unity in the wake of the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump, said Monday that his call to put Trump “in the bullseye” was a “mistake.”
Moments later, he insisted he had not used inflammatory rhetoric toward Trump.
In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, Biden spoke extensively about Saturday’s assassination attempt, in which 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump in the ear as he spoke at a rally in Butler County, Pa.
Holt asked Biden about his statements to donors last week that Trump poses an “existential threat” to the country and should be put “in the bullseye.”
“It was a mistake to use the word,” said Biden. “I didn’t use ‘crosshairs.’ I meant ‘bullseye.’ I meant focus on him, focus on what he was doing, focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate.”
But Biden stopped short of apologizing for the remarks.
And when asked whether he has done any “soul searching” on comments that “could incite people that are not balanced,” Biden replied: “Look, I have not engaged in that rhetoric. My opponent has engaged in that rhetoric.”
He also called Trump a threat to democracy and argued that incitement is no reason to refrain from saying as much.
“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when [Trump] says things like he says?” Biden asked. “Do you just not say something because it may incite somebody?”
Biden’s defiant remarks were a far cry from the call for national unity the octogenarian leader issued in a rare Oval Office address on Sunday.
“We must not go down this road in America. The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated,” Biden said. “It’s time to cool it down.”
His comments in the wake of Saturday’s shooting prompted mainstream outlets such as Politico to call Biden the nation’s “unifier in chief.”
In his interview with Holt, however, Biden embraced such “heated” rhetoric.
In addition to his assertion that Trump is a “threat to democracy,” Biden veered off into a diatribe about the “viciousness” of rural Trump supporters after Holt asked him whether Saturday’s assassination attempt will alter the trajectory of the presidential election.
“I’ve never seen circumstances where you ride through certain rural areas of the country, and people have signs they’re standing—big Trump signs with a middle—sign that says ‘F Biden’ and a little kid standing there putting up his middle finger,” Biden said.
“I mean, that’s the kind of stuff that’s just inflammatory and a kind of viciousness. It’s a very different thing to say, ‘Look, I really disagree with Trump’s—the way he takes care of taxes.’”
The interview touched on other topics, including Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month and the growing calls for him to quit the race over concerns about his mental fitness. Biden showed flashes of those mental lapses during the interview.
Asked whether he has talked to former president Barack Obama since the debate, Biden said, “I may have. I don’t think so.”
At another point, Biden said he had “heard from” the director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, who he referred to as “him.” Biden appointed Cheatle, a woman, in 2022.
Still, Biden characterized his debate performance as a temporary blip. He said he plans to show up for the second scheduled debate in September. “I had a bad, bad night. I’m—I wasn’t feeling well at all. I screwed up,” said Biden.
Biden battled Holt at several points over what the president insisted was the media’s failure to scrutinize Trump.
He said media outlets failed to fact check dozens of falsehoods Trump told at the debate. When Holt pointed out that NBC and others have fact-checked Trump, Biden insisted: “No, you haven’t. No, you haven’t.”
“Sometimes come and talk to me about what we should be talking about, ok?” Biden told Holt. “The issues.”