Retiring President Biden stunned listeners Tuesday by saying his predecessor Donald Trump should be locked up — 14 days before the presidential election in which Trump is the Republican nominee.
Joe Biden just called for Trump to be jailed.
I repeat: The President of the United States just called for jailing the candidate who’s on track to win the Presidential election where he’s facing off against the President’s VP.
Democrats are the real threat to Democracy! pic.twitter.com/m520NwCguF
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 22, 2024
“If I said this five years ago, you’d lock me up: We gotta lock him up,” Biden, 81, said during a visit to a Democratic campaign office in Concord, NH, the Granite State’s capital.
After a four-second pause during which his audience enthusiastically applauded, Biden added in an apparent backtrack attempt: “politically, lock him up — lock him out, that’s what we’ve got to do.”
A person close to Biden, who often misspeaks in public, told The Post that the president’s follow-up comment meant that he hadn’t intended to call for Trump to be incarcerated.
However, the president and his aides typically refrain from commenting at all on the four pending criminal cases against Trump, who contends that a quartet of local and federal indictments last year were politically motivated to aid Biden’s then-re-election campaign.
Biden has tauntingly referenced Trump’s legal woes before, however, saying last week that “I think he’s running to stay out of jail” during an appearance in Pennsylvania.
Trump, 78, was convicted in May by a Manhattan jury of 34 criminal counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.
The 45th president’s sentencing in that case, which was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat, is scheduled for Nov. 26.
Trump also faces pending federal and state charges in Georgia related to challenging his 2020 election defeat by Biden. And federal prosecutors are attempting to revive another case out of South Florida accusing Trump of mishandling classified records, which a judge dismissed in July.
If Trump becomes the 47th president on Nov. 5, the new administration’s Justice Department leaders likely would seek to set aside the two federal cases.
Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, are in a close contest according to swing-state polling — with RealClearPolitics averages showing Trump marginally ahead across the board, but within survey margins of error.
Harris, 60, usually treads carefully when discussing whether Trump should be jailed — often telling supporters who chant “lock him up!” at her rallies that the court system will make that decision.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on Biden’s remarks, which quickly triggered outrage among Trump’s supporters.
