During a recent event in New Hampshire, President Joe Biden told a small crowd of supporters, “We gotta lock him up,” referring to former President Donald Trump. Following the comments, the president has been the subject of substantial backlash for allegedly supporting the perpetual lawfare waged against Trump ahead of the presidential election.
Biden’s controversial remark came as he touted hostile rhetoric toward the Republican presidential candidate, which painted him as a threat to Democracy and someone who would undermine the stability of the nation. “He is talking about doing the entire Department of Education. He’s talking, he means it not. This is not a joke,” Biden began.
“This the guy who also wants to replace every civil servant, every single one thinks he has a right under the Supreme Court ruling on immunity to be able, if need be, if he was the case, to actually eliminate, physically eliminate, shoot, kill someone who is he believes to be the threat to I mean, so I know this sounds bizarre,” the president continued.
Biden then said, “It sounds like if I said this five years ago, he’d locked me up.” The president then asserted, “We gotta lock him up.” However, after Biden called to “lock up” Trump, he paused for a moment before clarifying, “Politically lock him up.” However, conservatives on social media were not buying Biden’s apparent backtracking at the end of his statement, accusing him of promoting lawfare against Trump.
Conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk wrote, “14 days before the presidential election, Joe Biden calls for the incarceration of Donald Trump: “We gotta lock him up.” This is the “tell” as to why the Democrat machine has been feverishly working to imprison Trump. It’s all been intentional.” Many others joined Kirk, expressing this same sentiment.
Suggesting Biden was outright calling for Trump to be imprisoned because they can’t beat him in the election, the Virginia GOP wrote on X, “Why is Joe Biden calling for President Trump to be jailed right before the election. “We gotta lock him up.” Democrats can’t win at the ballot box so they use lawfare. We must defeat them and end this abuse of power.”
Sen. Ted Cruz also weighed in on the comment from the president, posting on social media, “Biden said that he wants to lock Trump up. The Biden-Harris DOJ has indicted Donald Trump, and they are trying to send him to prison on phony charges. Kamala Harris is a threat to our democracy, and she is turning our country into a banana republic.”
However, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended Biden’s statement, maintaining that he called “politically” lock up Trump. “So look, and the President spoke about this very clearly as well in his statement, and he and he said he meant lock him out. Politically. Politically lock him out. That’s what he said, and that’s what we have to do. That was a part of his quote that he said last night while he was in New Hampshire,” she told a reporter in a recent press briefing.
Watch the comments from President Biden below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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