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President Biden laid blame for the country’s overheated rhetoric at the feet of former President Donald Trump in an interview Monday and said he sees no need to change his own behavior.
A day after asking all sides to “cool” their words and two days after a gunman narrowly failed to assassinate Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden told NBC that it’s Republicans who have crossed the lines — and particularly Mr. Trump’s “inflammatory” words.
“I’m not engaged in that rhetoric. Now my opponent is engaged in that rhetoric. He talks about ‘bloodbath’ if he loses,” Mr. Biden said.
He specifically rejected the idea that he needs to do any soul-searching about his own words.
“Well I don’t think — look, how do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when the president says the things he says?” Mr. Biden said. “Do you just not say anything because it might incite somebody?”
Mr. Biden, 81, repeated his determination to stay in the race as the Democratic nominee, and told his party — and the press — to stop focusing on his age and repeated gaffes and instead attack Mr. Trump’s “lies.”
“My mental acuity’s been pretty damn good,” he said, pointing to his record. “I’m willing to be judged on that.”
He said he would stick to his commitment to debate Mr. Trump again in September, though he rebuffed calls to schedule another one-on-one with his Republican opponent.
Mr. Biden scheduled the interview to coincide with the first night of the Republican National Convention. The interview aired just hours after Republicans officially nominated Mr. Trump for a rematch with Mr. Biden.
The opposing candidate has traditionally taken a low-key approach to politicking during the other party’s convention, but 2024 is proving to be an unusual campaign year and Mr. Biden is facing unprecedented challenges that have forced him from his presidential cocoon.
Chief among those challenges is an insurrection within his own party after a disastrous debate performance last month. The president stumbled over answers and reminded voters he was already the oldest president in history, even before his desired second term.
Mr. Biden was more coherent Monday, though he did stumble over words. Several times, he veered in one direction with an answer before stopping midsentence and going another way.
When NBC’s Lester Holt prodded Mr. Biden on his own rhetoric and use of the term “bull’s-eye” in relation to Mr. Trump during a recent call with supporters, the president struggled to deliver a clear answer. He seemed to walk back, clarify and embrace his use of the word — all at the same time.
“It was a mistake to use the — I didn’t use crosshairs, I meant bull’s-eye, I meant focus on him, focus on what he’s doing, focus on his policies,” Mr. Biden said.
During his 18-minute interview with Mr. Holt, recorded at the White House, Mr. Biden repeatedly chided NBC and other news outlets for being too focused on his age and his debate performance. He said they should instead be challenging Mr. Trump on his answers.
He demanded that NBC cover “the 18, 28 lies he told.”
When Mr. Holt insisted his network had done so, Mr. Biden challenged him.
“No, you haven’t,” the president said.
“We’ll provide you with them,” Mr. Holt retorted.
Mr. Biden recounted his conversation this weekend with Mr. Trump after the would-be assassin’s bullet nearly killed the Republican candidate.
“I told him he was literally in the prayers of Jill and me,” Mr. Biden said.
The president delivered a brief address to the country on Sunday from the White House, where he pleaded for less-divisive politics. He compared the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump to the Jan. 6, 2021, mob invasion of the Capitol, a kidnapping plot against a Democratic governor and the vicious beating of Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Conservatives noted that in neither his Sunday speech nor his Monday interview did the president mention the supporter of Sen. Bernard Sanders who attempted a massacre of Republicans practicing for the Congressional Baseball Game in 2017 or the man who has been arrested on charges of plotting to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.
On Monday, Mr. Biden again focused on events seen as right-wing violence, including Jan. 6, the attack on Mr. Pelosi and the race-tinged clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
“This doesn’t sound like you’re turning down the heat,” Mr. Holt said.
Mr. Biden declined Mr. Holt’s invitation to call the assassination attempt a security failure. He said he had asked for a review of the performance of the Secret Service and local police.
He then pivoted to complaining about the events of Jan. 6 and Mr. Trump’s attitude toward them.
“When you say there’s nothing wrong with going to the Capitol, breaking in, threatening people, a couple cops dying, hanging — putting up a noose or gallows for the former vice president and then you say you’re going to forgive people for that?” he said. “Violence is never appropriate.”
On other topics, Mr. Biden said he disagreed with a judge’s decision earlier Monday to toss one of the two federal criminal cases against Mr. Trump.
Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, said the Biden administration bungled by appointing Special Counsel Jack Smith to lead the prosecution because Mr. Smith wasn’t nominated by a president and confirmed by the Senate.
The case involved Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office.
Mr. Biden turned the question into a discussion of his own criminal investigation on charges of mishandling documents, saying he was “totally cooperative” with that probe.
“They looked at me and concluded I didn’t do a damn thing wrong,” Mr. Biden said. “But my generic point is that it’s, umm… Well. The — based upon which the case was thrown out I find specious.”
In fact the special counsel that probed Mr. Biden, Robert Hur, said the president did willfully keep and share classified information after his time as vice president in the Obama administration. But Mr. Hur said the case shouldn’t be prosecuted because a jury would be sympathetic to Mr. Biden, seeing him as a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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