U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks following the incident that occurred at a campaign rally for former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, U.S., July 13, 2024.
Tom Brenner | Via Reuters
President Joe Biden said he should not have used the language, “put Trump in the bulls-eye,” a remark he made to donors in a private call days before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally.
“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden said, according to excerpts of a Monday interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt. “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.”
“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says?” Biden asked rhetorically. “Do you just not say anything, because it may incite somebody?”
“Look, I have not engaged in that rhetoric,” Biden said. “Now, my opponent has engaged in that rhetoric. He talks about being a bloodbath if he loses.”
On Saturday, several shots were fired at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, killing one attendee in the crowd and critically injuring two others. The former president’s ear was bloodied before Secret Service covered him and rushed him off stage. The alleged gunman, 20-year old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed several moments after shots were fired.
Questions and conspiracy theories soon poured out across social media as the public processed the horrific events of Saturday evening.
Several Republican lawmakers blamed Democratic campaign rhetoric for inciting the shooting, including Biden’s ill-timed “bulls-eye” comment.
In the days since the Saturday shooting, some have begun to ask the uncomfortable but inevitable question of how the tragic events could have political ramifications on the presidential race.
“I don’t know,” Biden said in the Monday interview, noting that political fallout was not his primary concern after the shooting.
Political redemption mission
Biden’s interview served as his campaign’s counter-programming to the much-hyped Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump officially became the party’s nominee for president on Monday.
Trump also formally announced his vice president pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, on Truth Social Monday.
Vance was an example of what he sees as Trump’s desire to “surround himself with people who agree completely with him.”
The Monday sit-down comes as Biden works to save his own faltering presidential campaign, following his disastrous debate performance in June.
Since then, concerns about Biden’s age and fitness have become his foremost political liability. He has faced pressure from Democratic lawmakers, donors and strategists to drop out of the race against Trump and allow a new nominee to carry the party’s standard through November.
As he has over the past several weeks, Biden dug his heels in during the Monday interview, defiantly pledging to remain in the race.
“Fourteen million people voted for me to be the nominee of the Democratic Party, OK? I’ll listen to them,” Biden said.
He criticized the media for what he sees as a disproportionate focus on his public gaffes rather than Trump’s political vulnerabilities: “Why doesn’t the press talk about all the lies [Trump] told?”
While the president said that questions about his age were “legitimate” to ask, he largely rejected the notion that his age would disqualify him from beating his Republican rival.
“I’m only three years older than Trump, No. 1,” he said. “And No. 2, my mental acuity has been pretty damn good.”