Biden Attempts to Clarify Controversial ‘Bull’s-eye’ Remark about Trump Days Before Assassination Attempt

President Joe Biden on Monday attempted to clarify the “bull’s-eye” comment he made about former president Donald Trump five days before a shooter attempted to assassinate Trump during a campaign rally.

Biden addressed his July 8 rhetoric during a prime-time interview with NBC anchor Lester Holt on Monday, saying that he was trying to describe how not enough attention was being brought to Trump’s promises for a second term.

“Look, the truth of the matter was, what I guess I was talking about at the time was there was very little focus on Trump’s agenda,” Biden said.

“It was a mistake to use the word. . . . 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,” Biden said after Holt lightly pressed him.

Holt followed up by asking Biden if he did any “soul-searching” regarding his rhetoric during a call with top donors and whether it might have incited people who are mentally imbalanced.

“Look, 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 might incite somebody?” Biden replied. He proceeded to criticize Trump’s rhetoric about the January 6 Capitol rioters and the attack on former Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

Shortly after the assassination attempt, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and many other conservatives criticized Biden’s “bull’s-eye” comment. A bullet pierced Trump’s ear, nearly killing him. One member of the crowd, 50-year-old retired firefighter Corey Comperatore, was killed and two others wounded during the shooting at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday.

“President Biden himself said in recent days, ‘It’s time to put a bull’s-eye on Trump.’ I know he didn’t mean what is being implied there, but that kind of language on either side should be called out,” Johnson said.

Before the assassination attempt on Trump, Biden’s interview with Holt was highly anticipated because of the ongoing public conversations about whether Biden should be replaced atop the Democratic ticket following his disastrous debate performance.

Biden’s marquee press conference on Thursday came with its fair share of gaffes and stumbles, as he coughed, whispered, and sometimes lost streams of thought, but he remained adamant that he will remain the presidential nominee.

Now, the debate regarding Biden’s future has taken a back seat to the fallout from the assassination attempt and the many questions that have yet to be fully answered. Biden gave multiple addresses over the weekend to condemn the attack on Trump and urge Americans to lower the intensity of political rhetoric, given the situation.

None of his addresses touched on his own intense and existential rhetoric toward Trump or the Democratic Party’s frequent warnings that Trump’s election would pose a grave threat to American democracy.

With Trump’s selection of Senator J. D. Vance (R., Ohio) as his running mate Monday afternoon, the Biden campaign’s strong rhetoric immediately returned to what is was before the assassination attempt.

The controversy over Biden’s use of “bull’s-eye” recalls the political firestorm that erupted after Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D., Ariz.) was critically injured in a mass shooting in 2011. Democrats attacked Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin because her political action committee had circulated a map showing 20 House districts with crosshairs superimposed on them, including Giffords’s.