MILWAUKEE — President Biden seemed to justify his statement that Democrats should put Donald Trump in a “bullseye” just days before the former president was shot, clarifying, “I didn’t say crosshairs.”
“I was talking about ‘focus on,’” the 81-year-old president explained to NBC anchor Lester Holt in an interview on Monday.
“Look, the truth of the matter was, what I guess I was talking about at the time was there was very little focus on Trump’s agenda.”
Biden scheduled the interview before the assassination attempt on Trump to defend himself against fellow Democrats urging him to withdraw following a poor performance in the June 27 debate.
Instead, he found himself defending his controversial words about his Republican opponent.
Holt noted, “Yeah, the term was ‘bullseye.’”
Biden initially seemed to call the term a “mistake” before stopping mid-sentence and then differentiating between a bullseye — a target with concentric circles used in archery or darts — and a gun’s crosshairs.
“It was a mistake to use the wor — I didn’t say crosshairs, I meant bullseye, I meant focus on him, focus on what he’s doing, focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate,” Biden said.
“Look, I’m not the guy that said ‘I want to be a dictator on day one, I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election, I’m not the guy who said that he wouldn’t accept the outcome of this election automatically.”
Holt asked Biden, “Have you taken a step back and done a little soul-searching on things that you may have said that could incite people who are not balanced?”
“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says, do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody?” Biden responded.
“Look, I have not engaged in that rhetoric. Now my opponent has engaged in that rhetoric, he talks about there will be a bloodbath if he loses, talking about how he’s going to… I guess suspend the sentences of all those who were arrested and sentenced to go to jail because of what happened in the Capitol.”
Biden shared that his conversation with Trump was “cordial.”
“I told him how concerned I was and wanted to make sure I knew how he was actually doing. He sounded good. He said he was fine and he thanked me for calling him,” Biden recounted.
“I told him he was literally in the prayers of Jill and me and I hoped his whole family was weathering this.”
When asked if the shooting had changed the direction of the campaign, Biden replied, “I don’t know and you don’t know either.”
Biden spoke with Holt at the White House shortly after Trump named Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, 39, as his running mate.
“It’s not unusual, He’s going to surround himself with people who agree completely with him, whose voting record supported him,” Biden commented in the interview — before later criticizing Vance to reporters as “a clone of Trump on the issues.”
Biden indirectly referred to Vance’s previous criticisms of Trump, saying to Holt before trailing off, “If you go back and listen to the things that J.D. Vance said about Trump — heh, heh.”
In 2016, Vance wrote, “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a–hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
During his interview with Holt, Biden expressed concern about driving through “certain rural areas of the country and people have signs there, big Trump signs with little signs saying ‘[Curse] Biden’ and a little kid standing there [doing an inappropriate gesture].”
“That’s the kind of stuff that is just inflammatory and a kind of viciousness,” he added.
When asked if he had moved past calls from Democrats to step aside and let someone else run against Trump on Nov. 5, Biden said, “Look, 14 million people voted for me to be the nominee in the Democratic Party, OK? I’d listen to them.”
Biden mentioned he’s only seen “pieces” of his confused performance at the first presidential debate but “I’ve not watched the whole debate.”
Republicans have criticized Biden for his rhetoric leading up to the assassination attempt — including Biden saying Friday at a Michigan event that Trump would regain power “over my dead body” and tweeting Friday that Trump would be “a dictator.”
Last Monday, Biden urged Democrats to shift their focus from his muddled debate performance to targeting Trump.
“We’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye,” Biden told donors.
Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, grazed Trump with a bullet after climbing onto a roof near his rally in Butler, Pa. Two other rally attendees were injured, and one was killed.
Authorities have not yet revealed any links between Crooks’ attack and Democratic rhetoric, but Trump’s allies quickly condemned the incumbent president for what they termed reckless language about his Republican rival.
Biden used a rare Oval Office address on Sunday night to urge Americans to “lower the temperature” of the campaign.
{Matzav.com}