Joe Biden appeared to suggest Donald Trump should be locked up but then quickly clarified that he meant “politically”, though not before triggering a rightwing backlash.
In a speech to Democratic campaign workers in Concord, New Hampshire, where he appeared to speak without the aid of a teleprompter, Biden argued that Trump represents a threat to democracy: “This is a guy who also wants to replace every civil servant, every single one; thinks he has a right under the supreme court ruling on immunity to be able, if need be … to actually eliminate – physically eliminate, shoot, kill – someone who … he believes would be a threat to him.
“So I know this sounds bizarre. [If] I said this five years ago, you’d lock me up. We got to lock him up.”
As applause began, Biden added a qualifier: “Politically lock him up.”
He continued: “Lock him out. That’s what we have to do.”
The comment evoked Trump’s frequent references to jailing or prosecuting his political adversaries, but Trump has repeatedly made plain he means it literally, not politically.
Trump suggested in a debate with Hillary Clinton, his opponent in the 2016 presidential election, “you’d be in jail” under his presidency and repeatedly egged on supporters in chants of “lock her up” at his campaign rallies.
Clinton has never been charged let alone convicted of any crime whatsoever, while Trump has been convicted of 34 felony charges by a New York state court relating to the payment of hush money to a porn actor in an effort to interfere with the 2016 election.
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He also faces criminal charges in three other cases regarding alleged election interference and the improper retention of classified documents.
Trump has made baseless claims that the president has weaponised the justice department against him in a political witch-hunt. His campaign claimed Biden’s remarks were somehow proof that Trump was a victim of political persecution, and made no reference to Trump’s own repeated promises to enact political persecution himself.
“Joe Biden just admitted the truth: he and Kamala [Harris’s] plan all along has been to politically persecute their opponent, President Trump, because they can’t beat him fair and square,” said Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson. “The Harris-Biden administration is the real threat to democracy. We call on Kamala Harris to condemn Joe Biden’s disgraceful remark.”
The campaign’s communications director, Steven Cheung, invoked a failed assassination attempt against Trump. “Biden also talks about ‘shooting’ … while President Trump is the only candidate who was shot in the head in a failed assassination attempt. What a piece of shit Biden is,” he wrote on X.
Charlie Kirk, a pro-Trump activist and co-founder of the rightwing Turning Point USA advocacy group, posted: “This is the ‘tell’ as to why the Democrat machine has been feverishly working to imprison Trump. It’s all been intentional.”
A White House official pointed to Biden’s two immediate clarifications as to how his comments should be interpreted, NBC reported.
Trump has publicly and privately mooted prosecuting his political critics if he returns to the White House. He has suggested that Liz Cheney, the former Republican member of Congress, should face a military tribunal for participating in a congressional inquiry into his role in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
He has also said Gen Mark Milley, who was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff during his presidency, should be executed for treason.
Trump has further charactered his domestic political opponents as “the enemy within”, a description he applied to the elected public representatives Adam Schiff, a Democratic congressman from California, and Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker.
He has also advocated using the military against opponents who cause election “chaos”.
Harris has highlighted the statements in recent speeches to depict Trump as “unstable and unhinged”, and has also agreed with suggestions that he is fascist.
But she discouraged chants of “lock him up” aimed at Trump at recent rallies, telling her supporters: “The courts are gonna handle that. We’re going to beat him in November.”
