WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden said on Monday he made a mistake when he asked his supporters to put rival Donald Trump “center” in an effort to focus attention on his rival's behavior, but said Trump regularly used incendiary rhetoric.
“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden said in an interview with from NBC Lester Holt: “I meant to say that you have to focus on that, focus on what you're doing,” Biden said.
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 performance in the debates and toward former President 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, so far facing calls to step down as the Democratic presidential candidate after his poor showing against Trump in the June 27 debate sparked a crisis within his party.
He reiterated in the interview that he was not giving up on the race, although he acknowledged that people's questions about his age were legitimate.
Biden also weighed in on Trump's choice of Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate.
Asked by from NBC Asked by Lester 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.” Biden, laughing, also mentioned some of the critical comments Vance had previously made about Trump.
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 attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“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 said Trump had used incendiary rhetoric, citing the former president's comments about a bloodbath that would occur if he lost the 2024 election and mocking 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.”
Biden, 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, noted that millions of people voted for him as the Democratic Party's nominee. “I hear you,” he said.
