President Biden doubled down on his assertion that Donald Trump is a “threat to democracy” during an interview with NBC News on Monday, despite repeatedly calling on Americans to lower the temperature in U.S. politics in the wake of a failed assassination attempt against the former president.
In a 20-minute interview that aired unedited Monday evening, NBC anchor Lester Holt asked Biden whether he has done any “soul searching” about whether his own political rhetoric could 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 says?” Biden replied. “Do you just not say anything because it might incite somebody?”
He went on to claim that he has not engaged in heated rhetoric, but he accused Trump of doing so.
“He talks about, ‘It’ll be a bloodbath’ if he loses,” Biden said, taking out of context a comment Trump previously made about the hypothetical state of the economy if Biden wins reelection.
Biden went on to note that Trump has said he would commute the sentences of his supporters who are serving prison time for Capitol riot–related crimes and that the former president previously joked about the brutal hammer attack against former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
“This doesn’t sound like you’re turning down the heat, though,” Holt pushed back.
Biden’s response again took aim at Trump.
“No, no, no. What I’m turning down — we have to stop the whole notion that there are certain things that are contrary to our democracy that we’re for,” he said, pointing to Trump’s false claims around the 2020 election.
Asked what Biden himself can do to lower the temperature, the president replied: “Continue to talk about the things that matter to the American public. It matters whether or not you accept the outcome of elections.”
During a political rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, a 20-year-old gunman shot Trump in the ear, killed a rally attendee, and critically injured two others.
The victim who was killed has been identified as former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore, 50, who died protecting his family from bullets.
And while Biden urged Americans in a rare address from the Oval Office on Sunday to take a step back and “lower the temperature in our politics,” the president and his fellow Democrats have so far failed to take accountability for their own heated political rhetoric, which has frequently targeted Trump.
Just last month, Biden posted on X calling Trump a “genuine threat to this nation.”
“He’s a threat to our freedom,” the post said. “He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for.”
In a separate post less than two weeks ago, Biden warned that Trump “really could become the dictator that he promised to be on day one,” after the Supreme Court ruled that the former president is immune to criminal prosecution for official acts taken while in office, but affirmed that he can be prosecuted for unofficial acts.
Asked during his Monday interview to answer for his previous comments that Trump should be put in a “bull’s-eye,” Biden said 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,” he said.