A high-ranking BBC presenter from the UK has ignited a firestorm by suggesting President Biden should have Donald Trump murdered.
David Aaronovitch, who presents Radio 4's "Briefing Room" show, caused an uproar with a now-deleted X post reading, "If I was Biden, I'd hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America's security."
David Aaronovitch, who presents Radio 4's "Briefing Room" show, caused an uproar with a now-deleted X post reading, "If I was Biden, I'd hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America's security."
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00:00This is shocking and fascinating.
00:04So in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling
00:07that presidents have immunity for official acts,
00:10quote, official acts, official acts,
00:13a BBC host has said,
00:17why not President Biden?
00:20Why don't you murder or have Donald Trump murdered?
00:25Yeah, don't do it yourself.
00:26Don't do it yourself.
00:27Have Donald Trump murdered
00:28on the basis that he's a threat to America's security
00:32and you could do that now
00:33and you would be immune from prosecution.
00:36Yes, that's what David Aronovich,
00:38he posted on X
00:41and you can imagine the kind of reaction that got
00:45on both sides of the aisle
00:47and it actually has made him back off of this now.
00:53Back off in a big way.
00:54He's deleted that.
00:55He's deleted that
00:56and says that he was getting attacked from the right.
01:00He says, there's a far right pylon
01:02suggesting that my tweet about the Supreme Court's ruling
01:05on presidential immunity is an incitement to violence
01:09when it's plainly a satire.
01:11So I'm deleting it.
01:12If nothing else though,
01:14it's given me a map of some of the daftest people
01:16on this site and he's British.
01:17So look, yes, he's British.
01:19So look, we are not co-signing on anything he said.
01:23However, I think this is,
01:25the reason it got a lot.
01:26It wasn't satire.
01:27I think he was pointing out why this decision
01:32by the Supreme Court is so important
01:35because the decision by the Supreme Court
01:39theoretically could authorize this
01:40and here's why I say it.
01:42During the oral argument,
01:44Justice Sotomayor asked Donald Trump's lawyer,
01:47what if a president had one of his political rivals
01:52assassinated as an official act?
01:56Would that give him immunity?
01:58And the lawyer said, yes.
02:01And so that issue is on the table
02:04and she even wrote about that in her dissent.
02:09And the overlay to all of this, remember,
02:11is Donald Trump talking about,
02:13I could kill somebody on Fifth Avenue
02:14and nobody would do anything about it.
02:16That is a little off point,
02:18but it was in Donald Trump's mind.
02:20And now you have the Supreme Court addressing that issue.
02:25Addressing that issue.
02:26Yes, sir, you could.
02:27As long as you could make sure that it was an official act
02:29to kill that person on Fifth Avenue.
02:31And the justification, again, we're not co-signing on this,
02:35but the justification that the BBC host gave
02:38was a threat to America's security,
02:40which is what Democrats have been saying
02:42for several years now.
02:43Yeah, look, this was a jaw-dropping exchange
02:45that you alluded to between Sotomayor and the lawyer
02:47where he said, yeah, that could be an official act,
02:49but if you think about it,
02:51presidents have ordered assassinations of foreign leaders.
02:53Remember, Trump bragged about killing al-Baghdadi,
02:56a foreign leader to protect national security.
02:59We killed Osama bin Laden.
03:00We killed Osama bin Laden.
03:02Osama bin Laden as well.
03:03You could imagine that you're protecting against
03:04domestic threats as well, you know,
03:06the Timothy McVeigh's of the world and so forth.
03:08But where it gets muddy is when it's a political rival.
03:10It's also someone who you have a vested interest
03:13and a self-interest in defeating.
03:15But Derek, it was addressed squarely by the Supreme Court.
03:18And Sotomayor even wrote scenarios,
03:22and then she kept saying, immune.
03:24Another scenario, immune.
03:26And she raised this.
03:28So she has that exchange during oral arguments
03:32with Trump's attorney, and yet,
03:34so then the court makes their ruling,
03:36and they say that, yeah, these official acts.
03:40So obviously, they didn't specifically say.
03:43But the way it landed on Sotomayor
03:46did not land on five other justices, on six other justices.
03:50That's right, I mean, rhetorically,
03:51she was trying to back the lawyer into a corner,
03:53giving a ridiculous example of something
03:55that surely couldn't be immune.
03:56And the lawyer played ball.
03:57The lawyer embraced it.
03:58The lawyer said, yes, that could be an official act.
04:00So now, it's hard to read the opinion otherwise
04:03that it can at least provide a defensible rationale
04:06for ordering the assassination of a political rival
04:08who you deem to be a national security threat.
04:10Can you address the part of this that,
04:12I mean, what the court said, right,
04:13is that they're not saying what an official act is.
04:17Right.
04:17Which I think is almost, is that almost more dangerous?
04:20Like, you're saying that they're immune.
04:22Well, they can't do it.
04:23Presidents are immune to an official act.
04:24They can't do it because they're not gonna do
04:26every hypothetical official act.
04:28But the point is, so the president's gonna do it,
04:31and then we'll have to defend in a court.
04:33Or not.
04:34Whether or not it's an official act.
04:35Or not.
04:36Not even defend, to not get too wonky,
04:38but it will be presumptively official
04:39unless they can prove it is not official.
04:41So the tie goes to the president saying,
04:43it's official, you prove otherwise.
04:45So on the other side today, or actually last night,
04:51Carl Bernstein famed the Watergate scandal,
04:55which he broke.
04:56The journalist who broke it, yeah.
04:58He was on CNN last night talking to Anderson Cooper.
05:01And this kind of goes along with somebody
05:04you may have seen on our show yesterday,
05:06Alex Thompson from Axios, who talked about Biden
05:10only working from 10 to four in the White House.
05:16And this goes to his mental state.
05:17So Carl Bernstein, who has just,
05:21has dogged Donald Trump for years and years,
05:24thinking he is just an existential threat to democracy,
05:28had this to say about what he learned about Biden.
05:32Well these are people, several of them,
05:34who are very close to President Biden,
05:36who love him, have supported him,
05:38have been among them are some people
05:40who have raised a lot of money for him.
05:43And they are adamant that what we saw the other night,
05:47the Joe Biden we saw, is not a one-off,
05:52that there have been 15, 20 occasions
05:55in the last year and a half
05:56when the president has appeared somewhat
05:59as he did in that horror show that we witnessed.
06:03And what's so significant is the people
06:05that this is coming from,
06:07and also how many people around the president
06:10are aware of such incidents,
06:12including some reporters, incidentally,
06:14who have witnessed some of them.
06:16So, you know, Charles, we talked about this yesterday,
06:18but again, I have, and I think I told you about this
06:22months and months and months ago,
06:24that, you know, I know some people
06:27who are really in the middle of a lot of this
06:30and was told that the working precept in the White House
06:36is Biden should not be doing any public events
06:39after eight o'clock at night,
06:41or even fundraising events,
06:43because he starts to meander, he's not a trail off.
06:48How can you not demand this guy step down today,
06:50then, if that's the case?
06:51Well, there are people-
06:52It's not about the election.
06:53I know everyone's in this election mode.
06:55He is operating the country right now.
06:57You're talking about the 25th Amendment,
06:59which was actually raised during Trump's tenure.
07:02But you're talking about the 25th Amendment.
07:04Right, you can't only be cognizant and functional
07:08for six hours of the day.
07:09What about the other 18?
07:11Yeah, but you know what the issue there is?
07:12That right now, the turf war is over
07:16whether Biden becomes the nominee.
07:18And to raise that now would so muddy the waters
07:22that that would probably never happen.
07:24That they've, you know, if there's a focus,
07:26the focus is there, right?
07:29It is interesting that the speech last night was at 7.45.
07:33Was it at 7.45?
07:33It was 7.45.
07:35I thought that was kind of interesting.
07:37It did kind of align, although, you know,
07:39Biden didn't take any questions from reporters.
07:42He read and he walked out.
07:43But-
07:44He spoke today also, briefly.
07:47Yeah, he was much better today too, Charles.
07:48I mean, he seemed to have energy,
07:50but I think it's reading off the teleprompter.
07:52Yeah, exactly, and that's-
07:53Well, but it's also just, look, I mean,
07:55there are people, like Bill Maher just wrote an opinion
07:58piece for the New York Times yesterday saying,
08:01you know, he's been a noble servant.
08:04This is the time to pass the torch.
08:07So there is a lot of talk right now.
08:11You know, you're hearing-
08:12A lot of talk about, yeah, no,
08:13there's definitely that talk,
08:14but there's also a lot of talk that it's too late
08:18and that this is who they gotta go with.
08:20March 31st, 1968 is the day Lyndon Johnson announced
08:25that he would not seek or accept the nomination
08:29for presidency and run again.
08:31March-
08:321968, your recall on certain things is remarkable.
08:34March 31st, 1968, and Robert Kennedy had announced
08:38two weeks before March 16th, and they had a convention.
08:44They had, although they did have a couple of primaries,
08:47which we're not having now, but it did happen.
08:50So there's precedent for it.
08:51What did you have for lunch yesterday?
08:53I don't remember.
08:55Hi, it's Nene from Atlanta,
08:57and honestly, Biden being our candidate
08:59does make a lot of people uneasy,
09:00especially after the debate, but what do we have left?
09:04We have Donald Trump who does not care about violence.
09:07He says it in all his speeches.
09:09He's willing to go that far to get into that office.
09:12Do we wanna really have a dictator who promotes violence,
09:16or do we wanna have somebody
09:17who actually has a little bit of common sense?
09:20Yes, Biden did have a couple of one-offs,
09:22but I'm gonna put my vote behind somebody I know
09:27that does not wanna push violence
09:28towards everybody and everything.
09:31And wanting to take out your opponent, what is that?
09:33We are not in a dictatorship, we're in a democracy,
09:36and we will lose that democracy
09:38if we allow one of our presidents
09:40to do such a thing on this soil.
09:42That's true.
09:43I do have one quick question for you.
09:45If it's apparent that Biden can't win,
09:51because I know what you're saying,
09:53do you wanna ride that horse to the finish line,
09:56or do you wanna change horses?
09:58Honestly, I cannot remember this guy's name,
09:59but he's predicted every president
10:01for the past 10, 15 years,
10:02and he said, if we take Biden out of the running now,
10:06we may lose.
10:07I know everyone's looking at Gavin Newsom
10:08as the next guy to step in,
10:10but honestly, I'm going with him.
10:12If we do take Biden out of the race and he steps down,
10:15I think we are going to be in a dire state
10:18of watching Trump walk into that office
10:20and decide that he is king.
10:22We don't need a king, we don't need a dictator.
10:24A lot of people will lose a lot of rights.
10:27Project 2025 will come into effect,
10:30and Trump will not want to step down.
10:31And I'm sorry, I don't want to live in that world.
10:34Gotcha. All right.
10:35All right.