(Headline USA) Former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield encouraged Democrats to “turn their fire” on former President Donald Trump just days after he narrowly avoided an assassination attempt.
Bedingfield made the comment during a CNN panel on Tuesday after being asked whether President Joe Biden should abandon his reelection bid as Trump continues to climb in the polls.
“[Biden] has said many, many times after having been questioned many times about this that he’s not stepping down and that he’s going to be the nominee,” Bedingfield said.
“So at some point, Democrats have to decide that they want to try to win this election and turn their fire on Donald Trump,” she added.
Immediately recognizing how inflammatory her comment was, Bedingfield tried to walk it back.
“I shouldn’t have said ‘turn their fire’—I apologize, that was not the phrase that I meant. They need to turn their focus on Donald Trump,” she said.
The remark comes amid increased scrutiny over Biden and the leftist media’s rhetoric regarding Trump following the attempt on his life at a campaign rally last week.
Biden himself was forced to clarify a comment he made to donors last month, when he insisted that Democrats needed to “put [Trump] in the bullseye.”
He told NBC’s Lester Holt, “It was a mistake to use the word. I didn’t say ‘crosshairs’ — when I said ‘bullseye,’ I meant focus on him. Focus on what he’s doing. Focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies that he told in the debate.”
However, Biden went on to justify making hyperbolic comments about Trump, insisting that doing so does not incite violence.
“How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when a president says things like he says? Do you just not say anything because it may incite somebody?” Biden said. “Look, I am not engaged in that rhetoric. Now, my opponent is engaged in that rhetoric.”
