WASHINGTON — President Biden joked Monday about trying to “cut” former President Donald Trump out of the November election.
The 81-year-old Democratic president appeared to improvise his punchline during a Cinco de Mayo celebration in the White House Rose Garden after declaring that his Republican foe “wants to cut Social Security and Medicare.”
“He says we can do a lot in terms of reduction,” Biden said, referring to a recent interview given by Trump, 77.
“I have a very serious idea about how to cut,” Biden added, pausing and laughing before adding “a candidate.”
Biden made the joke even though Trump accuses him almost daily of orchestrating his four current criminal prosecutions, including his ongoing secret trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records in 2016.
“It’s (Democratic Manhattan District Attorney) Alvin Bragg who is doing it for political reasons in favor of Biden,” Trump told reporters at the courthouse Monday morning. “It’s a Biden trial. He’s a corrupt president.”
Trump pointed out that Matthew Colangelo, the prosecutor leading the case against him in New York, was previously Biden’s third-ranking Justice Department official before joining Bragg’s case against him in December 2022.
A criminal conviction would not prevent Trump from running for office, although some Democratic officials have tried to prevent him from voting, arguing that he led an insurrection during the 2021 Capitol riot that disrupted the certification of Biden’s victory. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down those efforts in March.
Biden’s reference to Trump’s desire to cut Social Security and Medicare was to a recent CNBC interview in which the ex-president said: “There’s a lot you can do in terms of rights, in terms of reduction. »
Trump later told Breitbart News: “There are so many cuts and so much waste in so many other areas, but I will never do anything that would harm Social Security.” »
New York Post
