Biden clarifies ‘bullseye’ remark directed at Trump during NBC interview – Elections 2024 live updates

Let’s start by recapping Joe Biden’s big interview with Lester Holt on NBC News last night.

In his latest attempt at a big reset in the wake of disastrous debate performance in Atlanta last month, the president admitted it was a “mistake” to use the word “bullseye” during a campaign call with supporters urging them to focus on Donald Trump’s agenda prior to the attempted assassination of the former president on Saturday.

“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden told Holt during their interview at the White House on Monday.

“I didn’t say ‘crosshairs’. I said ‘bullseye.’ Focus on what he’s doing. Focus on his policies. Focus on the number of lies he told in the debate.”

During a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, over the weekened the newly-confirmed Republican presidential nominee was clipped in the right ear by a sniper’s bullet by gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, whose motive remains a mystery.

Asked if the shocking attack on Trump had “changed the trajectory” of the presidential race, Biden told Holt: “I don’t know – and you don’t know either.”

He continued: “I’ve thought less about the trajectory of the case [than] two things: one, what his health is and number two what happens from here on, in terms of the kind of coverage that the president and vice president and former president and new vice president get.”

Here’s more from Alex Woodward.

“When I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and Barron’s life, were on the brink of devastating change,” the former first lady wrote in a statement shared on X on Sunday.

“I am grateful to the brave secret service agents and law enforcement officials who risked their own lives to protect my husband,” she said.

Nearly two dozen of Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress have called on him to end his reelection bid and allow the party to pick another standard bearer.

The focus this week will be squarely on Donald Trump.

Having consolidated party control, Trump could seize on the opportunity to deliver a unifying message or paint a dark portrait of a nation under siege by a corrupt leftist elite, as he has done at times on the campaign trail.

Trump has frequently turned to violent rhetoric in campaign speeches, labeling his perceived enemies as “vermin” and “fascists.”

Mr Biden has cast Trump as a threat to US democracy, comments that some Republicans say helped foster an atmosphere that prompted the shooting even though authorities have yet to determine the motive for the assassination attempt.

Following Saturday’s shooting, Mr Biden sought to lower the temperature after months of heated political rhetoric.

“There is no place in America for this kind of violence,” Mr Biden said in an address from the White House on Sunday.

In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Mr Biden said it was a “mistake” to tell donors last week it was “time to put Trump in the bullseye” but noted that Trump has often used incendiary words.

The assassination attempt on Donald Trump, followed by the RNC convention, has pushed Joe Biden to the background after weeks of speculation about whether he might drop out of the race following a disastrous debate performance last month.

Mr Biden again rejected the notion on Monday when pressed by NBC’s Lester Holt, focusing instead on the myriad falsehoods Trump unleashed during the debate.

The president has stepped up his unscripted appearances to try to demonstrate his capability but has yet to assuage some Democrats’ fears about his reelection chances.

The race between Trump and Mr Biden remains close, according to public opinion polls, though Trump leads in several swing states likely to decide the election.

Monday began with the latest in a string of recent legal victories for Trump, when US District Judge Aileen Cannon threw out federal charges in Florida accusing him of illegally retaining classified documents.

Trump is due to be sentenced in New York in September for trying to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the weeks before his 2016 election victory.

Officials are demanding to know how an armed man was able to get to the top of a building and shoot former president Donald Trump. A report of a suspicious man had reached police and witnesses pointed and shouted at an armed man on a roof nearby where Trump was speaking.

The attempted assassination left Trump and two other men wounded. A former fire chief, 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, was killed while protecting his family. Investigations will be launched in Congress — in addition to a review ordered by president Joe Biden.

Here’s a look at what we know so far about the attempt on Trump’s life and its aftermath:

Former classmates of the 20-year-old gunman authorities identified as the would-be assassin who fired several rounds at former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday remembered him as a somewhat unremarkable teen who enjoyed video games and didn’t make much noise about politics.

Justin Rohrlich has the story.

The 50-year-old father and retired fire chief killed at Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday made his final post on X just hours before he was shot dead.

“Trump rally! Butler, PA,” Corey Comperatore wrote on X in response to a question about users’ weekend plans.

The bystander who died to an assassin’s bullet at a Trump rally on Saturday used his last breaths to tell his family to take cover, his widow has said.

Comperatore reportedly threw his body over those of his wife and two children to shield them from the gunfire, and was shot in the head. His last words, his widow said, were simply “get down!”

“He’s my hero,” Helen Comperatore told The New York Post at the couple’s home on Monday. “He just said, ‘get down!’ That was the last thing he said.”

Arrests for illegally crossing the border from Mexico plunged 29 per cent in June, the lowest month of Joe Biden‘s presidency, according to figures released Monday that provide another window on the impact of a new rule to temporarily suspend asylum.

Arrests totaled 83,536 in June, down from 117,901 in May to mark the lowest tally since January 2021, US Customs and Border Protection said.

A seven-day average of daily arrests fell more than half by the end of June from Mr Biden’s announcement on 4 June that asylum processing would be halted when daily arrests reach 2,500, which they did immediately, said Troy Miller, acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner.