Joe Biden, the President of the United States, has acknowledged it was a "mistake" to suggest it was time to put Donald Trump "in the crosshairs," just days before the former president survived an assassination attempt.
The 76-year-old presidential candidate was the target of gunfire from Thomas Matthew Crooks during a campaign event in Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 13. Crooks was later shot by Secret Service agents. Following this incident, Biden has retracted his recent comments made during a private call with a donor.
In an interview with Lester Holt on NBC, Biden stated, "It was a mistake to use that word. No, I didn’t say crosshairs. I meant focusing on him, focusing on what he’s doing."
Despite his retraction, Biden stood by other statements he made regarding Trump, who has been officially nominated as the 2024 Republican presidential candidate at a political convention in Milwaukee. Biden emphasized the seriousness of democracy when he remarked, "How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he does? Should we just remain silent because it might incite someone?"
When asked about moments where he seemed "confused," Biden responded defensively, saying, "Lester, look… Why don’t you ever talk about the 18 to 28 lies he told? Where are you on this? Why has the media never addressed that? Twenty-eight times he lied in that debate. I had a bad, bad night. I wasn’t feeling well. And I had been… well, I’m not going to make any excuses… I messed up."
Earlier this week, Trump expressed hopes that the assassination attempt would "unite the country." He shared this sentiment in an interview with the Washington Examiner, stating, "The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be incredible. If this hadn’t happened, it would have been one of the most amazing speeches. Honestly, now it will be a completely different speech. It’s an opportunity to unite the country, even the world. The speech will be very different from what it would have been two days ago."
The former ‘Apprentice’ star explained that he shifted from planning to attack Biden’s policies and energize his voter base to emphasizing his belief that the attempt on his life has significantly altered the trajectory of the campaign. He felt he narrowly escaped death by stepping away from the crowd to look at a screen with data for his speech.
He remarked, "Reality is hitting. I rarely take my eyes off the crowd. If I hadn’t looked away at that moment, well, we wouldn’t be talking today, would we?"
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