Biden admits it was a 'mistake' to say it was 'time to put Trump in the bullseye' a week before assassination attempt

During an interview with NBC News' Lester Holt, Joe Biden admitted that it was a "mistake" to use the phrase "bullseye" when talking about Donald Trump. The president made the remark about his predecessor less than a week before the assassination attempt that nearly took Trump's life.

While Biden said he should have been more careful with his choice of phrasing, he nonetheless maintained that he would continue targeting Trump, as did the White House. He suggested it would be dangerous to stop criticising his opponent simply because it "may incite somebody" to take those words as a call to violence.

"It's really about language," Holt began. "What we say out loud and the consequences of those. You called your opponent an existential threat on a call a week ago; you said it's 'time to put Trump in the bullseye'. There's some dispute about the context, but I think you appreciate that words matter."

Biden responded by arguing that he "didn't say crosshairs," and had meant "bullseye" as in he wanted the American public to shift their attention to Trump. "It was a mistake to use the word," he added. "I meant focus on him; focus on what he's doing."

The president proceeded to repeat his laundry-list of claims about Trump, including that he said he would be a "dictator on day one," and wouldn't accept the outcome of the upcoming election. When Holt pressed him on whether he was concerned his rhetoric "could incite people who are not balanced," Biden questioned how careful one must be.

"How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says?" he asked. "Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody?" Biden claimed that he had "not engaged in that rhetoric," but that Trump had, once again repeating the debunked "bloodbath" hoax. Democrats and pundits continue to claim that Trump said there would be a "bloodbath" if he didn't win in November. Trump instead said that there would be a "bloodbath" of jobs in the American auto industry under Biden's plans to remake the industry for electric cars.

Earlier Sunday, Biden urged people to "cool it down" and "lower the temperature," however when  asked whether he would tone down his rhetoric, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said there would be "nothing different" about how he talks to the American people going forward.