Biden claims ex-Katie Couric colleagues told him they’d flee US if Trump wins again in 2024: ‘Embraces political violence’
President Biden claimed Thursday that two of Katie Couric’s former colleagues told him that they’ll flee the country if Donald Trump returns to the White House next year — after claiming Wednesday that “nine heads of state” told him that “my democracy is at stake if the other guy wins.”
“Two of your former colleagues — not at the same network — personally told me if he wins, they will have to leave the country because he’s threatened to put them in jail,” Biden told Couric, who was in his audience for a high-dollar Silicon Valley re-election fundraiser, according to a pool report.
Couric, 67, has worked for NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN, in addition to Yahoo — leaving many options for journalists Biden may have spoken with, though the president has given far fewer interviews than his recent predecessors.
“I’m not the gift of all presidents, but I’m sure as hell better than the last guy,” the 81-year-old Biden told his audience at the home of wealthy low-income housing developer Robert Klein.
“He embraces political violence. No president since the Civil War has done that. Embrace it. Encourage it,” Biden went on, referring to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot in which thousands of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to disrupt certification of Biden’s victory in the Electoral College.
“He calls them patriots, saying if he gets elected he’s going to pardon them. They killed cops. They killed people.”
Trump, 77, is expected to face Biden in a rematch in November after winning early-voting Republican primary states by wide margins. He’s expected to trounce his final major party rival, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, in the Saturday primary in her home state.
While speaking to donors, Biden also asserted that the US-Mexico border is in “chaos” — as Democrats try to turn around an election liability by pointing out that congressional Republicans blocked a compromise that they argued did too little to slow illegal immigration.
“The border is in chaos. They don’t have the personnel,” Biden said, adding that Republicans are holding up funds “for the machines to detect the fentanyl that’s coming in.”
Republicans have for years hammered Biden on the border, pointing to record-high illegal crossings and mounting deaths from fentanyl, a potent synthetic opioid that can kill in extremely small doses.
More than 200,000 Americans have died from largely China-sourced fentanyl since Biden took office, as the compound is increasingly cut into non-opioid drugs such as cocaine and counterfeit prescriptions.
Meanwhile, December set a record with more than 302,000 people arrested for illegally entering the US from Mexico — equivalent to the populations of Pittsburgh or Newark.
Republicans say that Biden’s policies are to blame for the border crisis, including his decision to allow most asylum applicants to await rulings on their claims of persecution inside the US — where they receive work permits and government support — after Biden ended Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy.
A record of nearly 2.5 million people — almost as many people as live in Chicago — were apprehended after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border in fiscal 2023, which ended Sept. 30, in addition to an estimated 670,000 “gotaways” who evaded authorities.
Fiscal 2022 previously set a record of nearly 2.4 million apprehensions — up from 1.7 million in fiscal 2021, which at the time had been considered by Republicans a crisis.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last month that more than 85% of those detained for illegally crossing the border were being released into the US — up from 71% in October and 74% in November.
The House of Representatives impeached Mayorkas on Feb. 13 for allegedly failing to enforce the country’s laws and for allegedly misrepresenting the degree of border security in congressional testimony. His Senate trial has not yet been scheduled.
