By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday he made a mistake when he told supporters to put rival Donald Trump in a “bullseye” in an effort to focus attention on his rival’s behavior but said Trump regularly employed rhetoric that was inflammatory.
“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden said in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt. “I meant focus on it, focus on what he’s doing,” Biden said.
On July 8, Biden, 81, spoke to some of his biggest donors and said they needed to shift the election campaign’s focus from him and his poor debate performance to former President Trump, the Republican nominee in the Nov. 5 election.
“I have one job and that’s to beat Donald Trump … We’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye,” he said.
Some Republicans zeroed in on that comment as they blamed Biden for creating a climate that sparked the assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. Biden has repeatedly decried political violence.
The president has endured more than two weeks of questions about his political future, so far facing down calls to step aside as the Democratic presidential candidate after his poor performance against Trump in the debate on June 27 sparked a crisis within his party.
He reiterated in the interview that he is not leaving the race, while acknowledging that people’s questions about his age were legitimate.
Biden also weighed in on Trump’s selection of Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio as his running mate.
Asked by NBC’s Lester Holt what Vance’s selection said about Trump’s values, Biden replied: “He’s going to surround himself with people who agree completely with him.” Biden, chuckling, also noted some of Vance’s previously critical comments about Trump.
The president has sought to turn attention to his opponent, highlighting Trump’s falsehoods, his refusal to accept the 2020 election results and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
“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,” Biden said.
He said Trump had engaged in inflammatory rhetoric, citing the former president’s comments about a bloodbath ensuing if he loses the 2024 election and making fun when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul was attacked by an intruder with a hammer at their home.
“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 said. “I have not engaged in that rhetoric. Now … my opponent’s engaged in that rhetoric.”
Biden, who is seeking to prove that he is fit to stand for reelection and govern for a second four-year term despite concerns about his age, noted that millions of people had voted for him to be the Democratic Party’s nominee. “I listen to them,” he said.
