Biden: Shouldn’t Have Said to Put Trump in Bullseye, I ‘Meant Focus on’ His Rhetoric, Policies

During a portion of an interview with NBC News on Monday, President Joe Biden said that it “was a mistake” to say that he wanted to put 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump in the bullseye and that he “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.”

“NBC Nightly News” host Lester Holt asked, “Well, let’s talk about the conversation this has started, and it’s really about language, what we say out loud and the consequences of those. You called your opponent an existential threat on a call a week ago, you said it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye. There’s some dispute about the context. But I think you appreciate –.”

Biden then cut in to say, “I didn’t say crosshairs, I was talking about focus on — 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.”

Holt then said, “Yeah, the term was bullseye.”

Biden responded, “It was a mistake to use the word — I didn’t say crosshairs. I meant bullseye. 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. Focus — there’s a whole range of things that — look, I’m not the guy that said I want to be a dictator on day one. I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election. I’m not the guy who said that I wasn’t going to 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 the idea –.”

Holt then cut in to ask another question about rhetoric.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett