President Biden said Monday in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt that it was a “mistake” to say before the weekend assassination attempt on former President Trump that it was “time to put Trump on the spot.”
Biden, however, said all he meant was that the nation’s attention should be focused on Trump and the “threat to democracy” he represents. He also said Trump has repeatedly employed worse rhetoric, including “mocking” and “joking about” the attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, at their San Francisco home in 2022.
“I didn't say put your sights on the line. I was talking about focusing on something,” Biden said of his comment.
“Focus on what he’s doing, focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate. I mean, there’s a whole range of things,” Biden said. “Look, I’m not the guy who said he wanted to be a dictator on day one, I’m not the guy who refused to accept the outcome of the election.”
“You can’t only love your country when you win,” Biden said. “And that’s why the focus was on what he’s saying.”
Holt asked Biden if he had done “a little introspection” about things he had said that might “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 does? Do you say nothing because it might incite someone?” Biden asked.
“Look, I… I haven’t used that rhetoric. Now, my opponent has used that rhetoric. He talks about there being a bloodbath if he loses, he talks about he’s going to pardon all those… in fact, I assume he’s going to suspend the sentences of all those who were arrested and sentenced to prison for what happened at the Capitol” on January 6.
He asked Holt if he remembered when Trump mocked the attack on Pelosi.
The interview was set to air in full on Monday night. Holt described it as the first in an “unscripted environment” since the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The interview brought renewed political attention to Biden on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where Trump formally received the party's nomination.
Biden had already addressed the attack on Trump in remarks Saturday night, just hours after Trump was shot, when he said “everyone should condemn” political violence. On Sunday, he delivered a prime-time national address from the Oval Office, where he again condemned the violence and called on everyone, amid high passions, to “calm down.”
His campaign has pulled ads attacking Trump in the wake of the shooting. Still, critics on the right have seized on earlier campaign rhetoric denouncing Trump, including the “bullseye” comment, to suggest that Biden and Democrats more broadly were partly responsible for the shooting.
Biden told Holt he didn't know if the shooting had changed the trajectory of the race.
Monday’s interview, which was scheduled before the assassination attempt, was also Biden’s last chance to project competence after his disastrous performance in last month’s debate, which raised concerns, even within his own party, about his age and ability to lead.
Biden is 81. Trump is 78.
Biden told Holt that questions about his age were understandable, but that he is “only three years older than Trump” and that his “mental acuity has been pretty good.” He again insisted that he will not drop out of the race.
“I’ve accomplished more than any president in a long time in three and a half years,” Biden said, according to an NBC preview of the interview. “I’m willing to be judged on that.”
Biden has been under intense scrutiny since the June 27 debate, where he repeatedly lost his train of thought and failed to challenge Trump's arguments and falsehoods. He sounded hoarse and stiff, and his performance heightened many people's concerns about his age.
Biden rejected calls for him to step down in the days that followed, saying he may not be a “young man” anymore but that he still knew how to do his job well.
Biden gave an interview to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on July 5, in which he dismissed his debate performance as a “bad episode” and rejected the idea that he had any serious health conditions that could undermine his ability to do the job. He also rejected the idea of undergoing an independent medical evaluation, saying that the job of the presidency presented him with a “cognitive test every day,” which he said he is passing while also on the campaign trail.
On July 11, Biden held a nearly hour-long press conference in which he answered a series of questions from the media, including those related to foreign policy. There, he appeared defiant and boasted about his record of passing legislation.
He called himself “the most qualified person to run for president” and said he would defeat Trump in November. “I beat him once and I will beat him again.”
