President Joe Biden sparked a furor Tuesday night by suggesting Donald Trump should be in prison just 14 days before the presidential election.
“We have to lock him up,” the 81-year-old president said at an event in New Hampshire.
Biden seemed to realize what he said and tried to correct himself by saying “we have to lock him down politically.” Leave it out. That’s what we have to do.”
It comes after Democratic vice president candidate Kamala Harris took it upon herself to try to silence the “lock him up” chants that have appeared at her campaign rallies.
She routinely says to leave the matter to the courts.
The chants clash with her campaign based in part on preserving democracy and the longevity and order of what she calls the Trump threat, and are similar to the “lock her up” chants at Trump’s 2016 rallies that Democrats continue to scream.
‘Lock him up’: President Joe Biden said at a campaign event in New Hampshire that it was time to ‘lock him up,’ deviating from the message for Harris’ campaign when describing Donald Trump.
Trump has long focused his own campaign on challenging criminal cases against him and accuses his rivals of practicing “legal warfare” against him.
He faces sentencing in September following his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, which could technically land him in jail, although many experts say the first-time white-collar offender is likely to avoid jail time. .
His son, Donald Trump Jr., addressed Biden’s comments.
‘They’re not even hiding it. The war against my father was always aimed at electoral interference!’ published in X.
Trump’s own campaign rhetoric has included multiple threats to go after people he calls the “enemy within,” including Senate candidate Adam Schiff.
He experienced a surge in polls and campaign donations during his hush money trial in New York, and has criticized the “unhinged” special prosecutor Jack Smith who brought charges against him related to his attempt to overturn the Sept. 6 election. January.
Biden made the statement while visiting a campaign office in Concord, New Hampshire.
Biden returned to the campaign trail on a day when former President Barack Obama spoke at a large rally for Harris.
Biden, who only occasionally hits the campaign trail after making a series of gaffes, made the comment after saying Trump was talking about abolishing the Department of Education.
‘This is a guy who also wants to replace all the officials. Each. Things that he is entitled to, under the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity, to be able to, if necessary… eliminate, physically eliminate, shoot, kill someone who he believes is a threat to him. I know this sounds strange. “If I said this five years ago, they would lock me up, they have to lock him up,” he said.
“Lock him up politically,” he added.
Although Trump has repeatedly criticized his political opponents and threatened to use the machinery of government to persecute them, he has not talked about being able to kill people who pose a threat to him.
He continues to try to turn Democrats’ own rhetoric against him.
“If we lose this election, we may no longer have a country,” he said Monday at his Doral golf club. ‘They say we may never have elections again in this country. That’s where we’re going,’ he said.
Democrats have expressed growing concern about whether Trump will again declare victory and refuse to accept the election results, as he did in 2020.
He played coy once again when asked Saturday at a suburban McDonald’s drive-thru whether he would accept the election results regardless of the outcome.
“Yeah, sure, if it’s a fair election,” Trump said. ‘I would always accept it. “They have to be fair elections,” he said.
He goes on to call for a victory that is “too big to throw away,” implying that his rivals will cheat without offering evidence.