Table of Contents
MILWAUKEE — President Biden repeatedly scolded NBC anchor Lester Holt in an interview Monday — exclaiming at one point, “What’s with you guys? Come on, man!” — as he defended his criticism of Donald Trump despite calling on Americans to “lower the temperature” after the assassination attempt on the former president Saturday.
The 81-year-old president lashed out when Holt pressed him on his disastrous June 27 debate performance and bristled when the journalist asked him about former Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance.
“Are you seeing what [viewers] saw, which was moments of frankly, that appeared to be — you appeared to be confused?” Holt asked the president.
“Lester, look, why don’t you guys ever talk about the 18, the 28 lies (Trump) told? Where are you on this? Why didn’t the press ever talk about that? Twenty-eight times it’s confirmed he lied in that debate,” Biden exclaimed.
“Seriously, you won’t answer the question, but why didn’t the press talk about all the lies he told? I haven’t heard anything about that.”
When Holt protested, “We have reported many of the issues,” Biden snapped back.
“No you haven’t! No you haven’t! God love you,” fumed Biden — who falsely claimed at the debate that no troops died on his watch and confusingly said he “finally beat Medicare.”
Later, Biden raised the fact that Vance, an Ohio Republican senator, had criticized Trump in 2016.
“Well, he said something about you,” Holt replied.
“He said some things about me, but see what he said about Trump. What’s up with you guys? Come on, man,” Biden chided.
At one point in the interview, Holt challenged the president when he launched into an extended criticism of Trump — despite using a rare Oval Office address Sunday night to call on Americans to “lower the temperature” following the Trump assassination attempt.
“This doesn’t sound like you’re turning down the heat though,” Holt said.
“Well, no, no, no, no,” the president replied, before launching into yet another diatribe against the Republican presidential nominee.
“Look, what I’m turning down — we have to stop the whole notion that there are certain things that are contrary to our democracy that we’re for. the idea of saying that you, that I didn’t win the election when every court in the land… including the conservative Supreme Court said we won, the idea of having a loyalty pledge from all of the folks,” he said, before trailing off.
Biden grew flustered yet again when Holt pressed him on whether he would agree to an extra debate against Trump to prove his mental prowess — in addition to the second and final scheduled debate on Sept. 10.
“Is there a sense of wanting to get back on the horse?” Holt asked.
“I’m on the horse, where have you been?” Biden rebuked the veteran journalist.
“I’ve done 22 major events … I’m on the horse, what I’m doing is going out and demonstrating to the American people that I’m in command of all my faculties.”
Asked if he had discussed his political future with former President Barack Obama, Biden said evasively, “I may have, I don’t think so.”
“The idea that I’m the old guy? I am. I’m old. But I’m only three years older than Trump, number one. And number two, my mental acuity has been pretty damn good,” he said.
Biden concluded the interview with another lecture.
“Sometimes come and talk to me about what we should be talking about. Okay? The issues,” the commander in chief signed off
“Always happy to talk,” Holt sheepishly replied.
‘I DIDN’T SAY CROSSHAIRS’
Biden appeared to defend saying that Democrats should put Donald Trump in a “bullseye” less than a week before the former president was shot, saying “I didn’t say crosshairs.”
“I guess I was talking about at the time was there was very little focus on Trump’s agenda,” the commander in chief said.
“Yeah, the term was ‘bullseye’,” Holt pointed out.
Biden briefly seemed to say the term was a “mistake” before breaking off the thought mid-sentence and again distinguishing a bullseye — a target made of concentric circles for archery or darts — and a gun’s crosshairs.
“It was a mistake to use the wor — 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” Biden said.
Republicans have slammed Biden for his rhetoric in the runup to the Saturday assassination attempt — including Biden saying Friday at a Michigan event that Trump would regain power “over my dead body” and tweeting Friday that Trump would be “a dictator.”
VANCE PICK ‘NOT UNUSUAL’
Biden said he wasn’t surprised that Trump picked Vance, 39, as his running mate.
“It’s not unusual, He’s going to surround himself with people who agree completely with him, whose voting record supported him,” Biden said in the interview — before later dissing Vance to reporters as “a clone of Trump on the issues.”
Biden referenced Vance’s past criticisms of Trump, saying to Holt before trailing off, “If you go back and listen to the things that J.D. Vance said about Trump — heh, heh.”
In 2016, Vance wrote, “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a–hole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
‘OPEN QUESTION’ IF SECRET SERVICE FAILED
Biden said that it’s an “open question” whether the Secret Service failed in its duties to protect Trump before he was shot Saturday in an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania after gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, climbed a building about 130 yards from Trump and opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle.
“I feel safe with the Secret Service,” the president told NBC anchor Lester Holt in an interview.
The question is, should they have anticipated what happened, or should they have done what they needed to do to prevent this from happening? That’s a question that’s an open question,” Biden said when questioned about the performance of the presidential protection agency.
Biden said that security concerns recently have prevented him from glad-handing supporters.
“I like to meet people. I like to walk out, shake hands, move, look at people in the eye, see what they’re thinking. It’s really curtailed that ability, on my part, and everybody’s part,” Biden said.
‘DIDN’T DO A DAMNED THING WRONG’
Biden falsely told Holt that he was completely exonerated by special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation of his mishandling of classified documents from his vice presidency and Senate years — when in fact Hur found evidence that he “willfully” mishandling the records — a crime — and that he improperly shared classified information with his ghostwriter.
Biden made the brazen claim when asked about a federal judge dismissing the pending criminal case against Trump Monday. The ex-president faced 450 years in prison for allegedly mishandling records after leaving office as president in 2021.
“I had an independent prosecutor look at me. They spent months of mine going through — and I was totally cooperative …. There were like 10, 12 agents in my house for nine hours unaccompanied going through every single thing I had. That’s appropriate. And they looked at me and concluded I didn’t do a damn thing wrong.”
In fact, Hur concluded that Biden should not face criminal charges in part because “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
