President Biden wants to “lock him up.”

In a visit Tuesday to a Democratic campaign office in New Hampshire, the Democratic president said former President Donald Trump should be jailed.

“If I said this five years ago, you’d lock me up: We gotta lock him up,” the 81-year-old Mr. Biden said.

His audience enthusiastically applauded the sentiment, according to a report in the New York Post.

Mr. Biden himself then seemed to try to downplay what he’d just said.

“Politically, lock him up — lock him out, that’s what we’ve got to do,” said the president whose Justice Department is in fact trying to jail Mr. Trump literally.

Mr. Trump has repeatedly said the four batches of criminal cases against him are politically motivated witch hunts.

Administration officials take pains to avoid stoking such complaints by saying things like the Justice Department prosecutors are independent and the outcome of court trials is not in their hands.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Mr. Trump to succeed Mr. Biden as president, often has supporters at her rallies chant “lock him up!” about Mr. Trump.

While Ms. Harris usually says words to the effect of that is a matter for courts to decide, she will often crow that she is a former prosecutor and Mr. Trump a convicted felon.

Mr. Trump was convicted in May of 34 criminal counts brought by elected Democratic District Attorney Alvin Bragg for falsifying business records to conceal hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.

His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 26.

He also is facing criminal charges in Georgia for trying to overturn that state’s 2020 election outcome and two batches of federal charges.

One of the federal cases concerns his challenges to the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, and the other is about his handling and retention of classified material after leaving the presidency.

All three are tied up in litigation over presidential powers, prosecutorial misconduct and the special counsel process.

None will see trials before the election and if Mr. Trump wins, the two federal cases will undoubtedly be dropped.

• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.