The White House defended President Joe Biden from former President Donald Trump‘s claim that the incumbent’s rhetoric that his predecessor is a “threat to democracy” could have motivated the young man who tried to kill him.
“The president has always been very clear: When it comes to violent political rhetoric, there’s no place, no place here in this country, in our nation, for it,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday. “He’s always spoken about that. He’s spoken about that for the past, you know, the past several years, throughout his career.”
Jean-Pierre also cited Biden’s Oval Office address after the assassination attempt earlier this month in Butler, Pennsylvania, as a more recent instance, underscoring how he called for “lowering the temperature” as his campaign suspended his ads, in addition to his calls for an independent investigation into how Trump was shot, the bullet grazing his ear.
“We saw how the president spoke against Jan. 6,” she said. “When Paul Pelosi was attacked by a hammer, the president also spoke out about violent political rhetoric. … So if anything, this is a president [who] has been constantly and proactively called out on all Americans to come together and oppose political violence, regardless of our views.”
Jean-Pierre’s response comes one day after some Republicans expressed concern that Biden told reporters en route to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, for remarks commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act that House Speaker Mike Johnson was “dead on arrival.” Earlier in the day, Johnson had described Biden’s Supreme Court reforms as “dead on arrival” in his chamber of Congress. During his address, Biden clarified that Johnson’s thinking was “dead on arrival.”
“I would just refer you to the president himself,” Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday.
“So he misspoke?” a reporter asked.
“I don’t think he misspoke,” the press secretary replied.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
During a rally last week in North Carolina, Trump suggested that Democrats criticizing him as a “threat to democracy” could have contributed to the 20-year-old gunman trying to kill him.
“Such a distressed, sick world but you know what could be caused when they call you a threat to democracy,” Trump said. “You never know what causes it. I’m a threat to them. They’re a threat to democracy. They’re a threat. They’re a threat to our country, period.”