Donald Trump “Talks About Bloodbath If He Loses,” Joe Biden Reminds Lester Holt In Preview Of Primetime NBC Interview

In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump this past weekend, Joe Biden said from the Oval Office last night that “there is no place in America for this kind of violence.”

But in a tight race presidential race leaning towards his predecessor, Biden made it very clear to NBC’s Lester Holt that he isn’t interested in playing a game of false equivalency.

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“I’m not the guy that said, I want to be a dictator on Day One,” Biden said of the language Trump has been using on the campaign trail for ages. “I’m not the guy that refused to accept the outcome of the election,” he added of the 2020 race, and Trump’s statements that it was stolen from him. “I’m not the guy who said he wouldn’t accept the outcome of this election automatically.”

“Look, I’m not engaged in that rhetoric,” Biden told Holt in an interview that took place this afternoon in the White House, after he was questioned about comments he has made in the past that may be seen as incendiary.

“Now my opponent is against that rhetoric. He talks about bloodbath if he loses, talking about how he’s going to forgive …I guess suspend the sentences of all those who were arrested and sentenced to go to jail because of what happened to the Capitol,” Biden added of the January 6 mob that Trump and his MAGA supporters refer to as “political prisoners.”

While certainly engaging in some verbal wallops and out-and-out dog whistling over the past decade, the Trump campaign has long claimed that the “bloodbath” comment made by its candidate in March in Ohio has been taken out of context by Democrats and others. They say Trump’s “it’s going to be a bloodbath for the country” had nothing to do with the ballot box and was a reference to Biden’s economic polices for the manufacturing industry and the toll imported cars can take on domestic workers.

Watching the footage from that speech, the context and tone do leave a certain amount of ambiguity — especially in the wake of remarks Trump made in the same speech about immigrants who break the law in America. “In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion,” Trump told the crowd that day. “But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”

Originally set to be filmed in Texas after Biden gave a speech at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, today’s sit-down was moved to the White House in the hours after shots were fired at Trump at a rally in Butler, PA. In an obvious attempt by the White House to take a bit of thunder away from the opening day of the GOP convention, the full and unedited interview will be seen tonight at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT in a special on NBC and its corresponding cable news channels.

Scheduled before the assassination attempt on the now official GOP nominee, the sometimes punchy interview with the seasoned Holt is another effort by Biden to right the ship of his campaign after his terrible debate performance against Trump on last month on CNN. Biden addressed a question from Holt about staying in the race by reminding him that 14 million Democrats voted for him in this year’s largely uncontested primaries, and he was going forward for them.

Asked if and how the shooting of Trump could affect the “trajectory” of the 2024 race, the often longwinded and halting Biden was curt and clear. “I don’t know, and you don’t know either,” he told Holt, who agreed.

Giving far fewer network interviews over his first term than those who previously sat in the Oval Office, the 81-year-old Biden has been on top form again in teleprompter-supported situations but seemed to still struggle slightly in a previous live-to-tape interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on July 5 and an hourlong press conference last week.

Then again, despite a glaring slip saying “Vice President Trump” at the latter event, Biden did pick up steam as the presser went on, even giving almost universally praised answers on foreign policy issues like Ukraine, Gaza and China.

While the assassination attempt against the 78-year-old Trump may have shifted the focus from Biden’s own situation, it is only a matter of time before questions and critics reemerge in the final stretch before the Democratic National Convention next month in Chicago.

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