President Joe Biden defended his suggestion that Donald Trump should be “put in the bullseye” in an NBC News interview Monday following the assassination attempt on his Republican opponent.
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“Was it—it was a mistake to use the word—I didn’t mea—I didn’t say say crosshairs, I said bullseye, I meant focus on him, focus on what he’s doing,” Biden said. “Focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate.”
Biden criticized Trump for his role in raising the temperature in the nation’s political discourse, as he brushed aside Republican accusations his own words have coarsened the political conversation.
“Look, I’m not the guy that said I want to be a dictator on day one. I’m not the guy who refused to accept the outcome of the election,” Biden said.
The President’s defensive interview underscored his precarious political position in the aftermath of the debate and attempted assassination. Biden on Monday said it wouldn’t be fair to blunt criticism of Trump, considering the stakes of the November election.
“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a President says things like he says?” Biden said. “Do you just not say anything because it might incite somebody?”
Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have criticized Biden for telling donors in a private phone call that it was time to put Trump “in the bullseye” as the President sought to shift attention from his rocky debate performance. J.D. Vance, the U.S. senator from Ohio named Monday as Trump’s running mate, directly blamed Biden for the attack, even as law enforcement officials say they have not yet determined a motive.
The prime-time NBC interview interview was Biden’s latest attempt to stabilize his beleaguered reelection bid at a pivotal moment in the campaign.
Talk among Democrats of replacing Biden was put off, at least temporarily, after the shooting. But the shocking outburst of violence, and Trump’s defiant response to it, helped supercharge the former President’s reelection campaign by further galvanizing the party around its nominee.
By contrast, Democrats remain deeply split over Biden almost three weeks after his poor debate performance triggered panic about his mental acuity. The shooting has temporarily forced Biden to pivot from the one strategy that has united his fractious party: attacking Trump as a threat to democracy.
Biden, 81, acknowledged in the interview that age “is a legitimate question to ask” but downplayed those concerns, saying his “mental acuity has been pretty damn good” and pointing out Trump is only three years younger.
Asked who he consults about whether to stay in the race, Biden said, “me,” adding “I’ve been doing this a long time.”
Oval Office
The NBC interview had been set to take place in Austin, Texas, around an event marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. That trip was postponed in the wake of the attempted assassination, and Biden’s television encounter was moved to the White House.
The President was betting that appealing to national unity in a rare Oval Office address following the shooting would help demonstrate leadership at a fraught moment for the country.
But the attack also laid bare the unfulfilled promise of Biden’s 2020 campaign: that he would restore calm and normalcy following Trump’s chaotic term in the White House.
Striking the right tone in the days ahead is a complicated task for Biden. The shooting in Pennsylvania has limited the opportunity, at least for now, that Biden has to go full-bore attacking Trump.
At the same time, Biden’s fellow Democrats have long wanted him to step up his case against the former President.
He had just begun to do that before the shooting. At a rally last Friday in Detroit, Biden assailed the so-called Project 2025 effort by Trump allies to lay out a second term agenda of slashing federal agencies, socially conservative policies, politicizing the civil service and mass deportations. The attempt on Trump’s life happened just around 24 hours later.
Drawing contrast
The President’s campaign has said he would return to drawing contrasts between his agenda and Trump’s. The first signs of that shift emerged Monday when Biden’s political operation bashed Trump’s selection of Vance, invoking the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law,” said Biden campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon.
Biden won’t be off the road for long. He departed for Las Vegas on Monday, where over the next two days he will address gatherings of major Black and Latino advocacy groups and sit for an interview with BET.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended Biden’s ability to go after Trump in the wake of the shooting.
“It’s OK to have our differences, and it is OK to speak to someone’s record, to speak to someone’s character,” she told reporters Monday.
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