By Jeff MasonReuters
US President Joe Biden says he made a mistake when he told supporters to put rival Donald Trump at the “center,” but says Trump regularly used incendiary rhetoric and repeatedly lied in their debate last month.
A day after urging Americans to lower the political temperature following the attempted assassination of Trump, Biden renewed his criticism of Trump’s actions, from his role on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol, to his regular use of incendiary and disparaging rhetoric.
“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden said in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, referring to the “bullseye” comment.
“I meant to say that we should focus on that, that we should focus on what he is doing… that we should focus on the amount of lies he told in the debate.”
Pressed over his shaky performance in the June 27 debate that called into question his re-election hopes, Biden confronted Holt.
“What do you think about that?” Biden asked, leaning forward. “Why isn’t the press talking about all the lies he told?”
On July 8, Biden, 81, spoke to some of his top donors and said they needed to shift the focus of the campaign away from him and his poor debate performance toward Trump, the Republican nominee in the Nov. 5 election.
“I have one job and that is to defeat Donald Trump… We’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump on the spot,” he said.
Some Republicans focused on that comment, blaming Biden for creating a climate that sparked the attempted assassination of Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. Biden has repeatedly denounced political violence.
The president has endured more than two weeks of questions about his political future, and has so far faced calls to step down as the Democratic presidential candidate after the debate sparked a crisis within his party.
Trump repeated well-known falsehoods during the debate, such as that he won the last election. Biden beat Trump in 2020.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the verdict in former President Donald Trump’s hush hush trial and on the Middle East, from the State Dining Room of the White House on May 31, 2024, in Washington.
Photo: Evan Vucci/AP
The president reiterated in the interview that he was not abandoning the race, although he acknowledged that people’s questions about his age were legitimate.
The president has sought to draw attention to his opponent, highlighting Trump’s falsehoods, his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election and his role in the January 6, 2021 attack.
Biden returned to those themes repeatedly during the NBC interview.
“I’m not the guy who said he wanted to be a dictator on Day 1. I’m not the guy who refused to accept the outcome of the election,” Biden said.
He cited the former president’s comments about a bloodbath that would ensue if he lost the 2024 election and mocked when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked by an intruder with a hammer in their home.
“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he does? Do you stop saying things because it might incite someone?” Biden said. “I have not used that rhetoric. Now… my opponent has used it.”
The president said he would debate Trump again in September.
He said he had not spoken to former President Barack Obama, for whom he served as vice president, in about two weeks but dismissed the suggestion that Obama and his wife, Michelle, might provide him with more support amid calls for him to resign.
“They’ve been there for me from the beginning. My job is to make this happen,” Biden said.
The president, who is seeking to show he is fit to run for re-election and serve a second four-year term despite concerns about his age, said millions of people had voted for him to be the Democratic Party’s nominee.
“I hear you,” he said.
Biden also weighed in on Trump’s choice of Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate.
Asked by Holt what Vance’s selection said about Trump’s values, Biden replied: “He’s going to surround himself with people who agree with him completely.”
Laughing, Biden noted that Vance had made critical comments about Trump before.
– Reuters
