Joe Biden has used the power of the presidency to address the American people three times in 24 hours in the wake of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
Sunday night, Biden gave a short address from the Oval Office in which he haltingly read from a teleprompter. Verbal fumbles aside, the speech is praised for its calls for unity. But Megyn heard something different from the president.
On Monday’s show, she discussed the rhetoric from Biden and the left in the wake of the shooting and the problem with ‘both sides-ing’ the situation.
The Speech
Biden made a rare Oval Office address on Sunday evening to once again respond to the violence against Trump and his supporters. “There were first reports that he was going to put this on tape and he couldn’t even do a two-minute address from the Oval Office live,” Megyn noted. “And then we heard, no, he’s going to do it live… [and] he did it live.”
The 81 year old did flub some of the words in the teleprompter speech. He said “battle box” instead of “ballot box” on more than one occasion and referred to former President Trump as “former Trump.” But, as Megyn noted, there were issues with the content, too.
BIDEN: I want to speak to you tonight about the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics… Tonight, I want to speak to what we do know, a former president was shot, an American citizen killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate with his choosing… Violence has never been the answer. Whether it’s with members of Congress of both parties being targeted and shot, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on January 6, or a brutal attack on the spouse or former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or information and intimidation on election officials, or the kidnapping plot against the sitting governor, or an attempted assassination on Donald Trump…
In America we resolve our differences at the battle box. Now that’s how we do it, at the battle box. Not with bullets. The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of would-be assassins…
In Megyn’s view, Biden attempted to be “the sober leader from the Oval Office,” but the message fell short. “The need to ‘both sides’ the attempted assassination of former president is abhorrent,” she said. “This is in a category of its own and does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as what happened to Nancy Pelosi’s husband… or the plot against Gretchen Whitmer… or January 6. If you’re gonna go January 6, why don’t you mention BLM?”
All Talk, No Action
But Megyn said it also goes further than that. “The nerve for him to say ‘we really need to lower the temperature’ as it is his DOJ that is prosecuting Donald Trump in not one but two federal cases – one of which just got dismissed this morning, no thanks to him,” she noted. “He didn’t say, ‘And, therefore, I am withdrawing lawfare against Donald Trump.'”
While the Biden campaign was busy pulling tens of millions of dollars in ad campaigns in the wake of the shooting, Megyn said the president should take a look at his own rhetoric on the campaign trail. “After his non compos mentis performance at that debate, he started to go into a downward spiral and panic,” she said. “And the rhetoric he’s been using against Trump has gotten more severe, pointed, and problematic.”
From harping on Trump’s legal cases to calling Trump and his supporters “extremists” that “threaten the foundations of the republic” to calling for a “bullseye” to be places on his opponent, Megyn said Biden should take his own advice. “Spare me the ‘lower the temperature’ talk until you do it yourself,” she concluded.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 838 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.