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President Joe Biden said it was a “mistake” to use the word “bullseye” during a campaign call urging supporters to focus on Donald Trump’s agenda, as the former president’s allies attempt to cast blame on Democrats for the attempt on Trump’s life.
Last week, Biden told supporters on a private call to shift focus away from his poor debate performance last month and “put Trump in a bullseye” instead.
“The truth of the matter was, and I guess [what] I was talking about at the time was, there was very little focus on Trump’s agenda,” Biden said in an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt on Monday.
On Saturday, a gunman struck Trump’s ear with a bullet at a campaign rally and killed a man in the crowd. There is currently no evidence that the 20-year-old gunman fired an AR-15-style rifle because he was influenced by Biden’s “bullseye” line, despite Holt’s questioning.
“It was a mistake to use the word. I didn’t say ‘crosshairs’. I said ‘bullseye.’ Focus on what he’s doing. Focus on his policies. Focus on the number of lies he told in the debate,” Biden told Holt during an interview at the White House on Monday.
“Look, I’m not the guy who said I want to be a dictator on day one,” he added. “I’m not the guy who refused to accept the outcome of the election. I’m not the guy who said he won’t accept the outcome of this election automatically. You can’t only love your country when you win, and so the focus was on what he’s saying, and I mean, the idea—”
Holt interrupted the president to ask whether he has “done a little soul searching on things you may have said that could incite people who are not balanced.”
“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when the president says things like he says? Do you just not say anything?” Biden replied.
Critical objections to Trump’s platform were previously waved away by his supporters as alarmist or fear-mongering, but his allies now appear to be blaming those statements for Saturday’s assassination attempt.
During a call with donors last week, Biden said he is “done talking about the debate” after his disastrous performance against Trump on June 27 prompted prominent Democrats to call for him to publicly end his re-election campaign. Biden has insisted he is staying in the race.
“We need to move forward. Look, we have roughly 40 days til the convention, 120 days til the election. We can’t waste any more time being distracted,” Biden said on the private call, according to Politico.
“I have one job, and that’s to beat Donald Trump,” he added. “I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that. So, we’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
Trump’s allies also have repeatedly dismissed warnings from law enforcement officials that Trump’s rhetoric has fuelled credible threats of violence, and that Trump-allied far-right extremism poses a threat to national security.
Biden appeared frustrated at the apparent false equivalency.
“I am not engaged in that rhetoric,” Biden said on Monday. “Now, my opponent is engaged in that rhetoric. He talks about there being a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses, talks about how he’s going to forgive … suspend the sentences of all those who were arrested and sentenced to go to jail because of what had happened at the Capitol.”
Asked by Holt whether he believes the attempted assassination had “changed the trajectory” of the presidential race, Biden replied: “I don’t know and you don’t know either.”
“I’ve thought less about the trajectory of the case [than] two things: one, what his health is, and number two, what happens from here on, in terms of the kind of coverage that the president and vice president and former president and new vice president get,” he said.
“I’ve never been in a circumstance when you ride through certain rural areas of the country and people stand there with big Trump signs saying ‘F Biden’ and a little kid is standing there putting up his middle finger,” Biden said. “That’s the kind of stuff that is just inflammatory and vicious.”
