President Joe Biden perhaps experienced a Freudian slip when questioned about whether he thought there would be a peaceful transfer to the next administration.
“Are you confident that there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January 2025?” CBS News correspondent Robert Costa asked.
“If Trump wins, no I’m not confident at all,” Biden answered before correcting himself, “I mean if Trump loses I’m not confident at all.”
“He means what he says. We don’t take him seriously. He means it. All this stuff about if we lose, there’ll be a bloodbath,” the president continued.
At a rally in March, Trump said there would be an economic “bloodbath” in the U.S. auto manufacturing industry if Biden won.
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The rest of the interview, which was the president’s first since announcing his plans to not to seek a second term, will air on “CBS News Sunday Morning.”
Here’s a question worth pondering: Have right or left wing protesters engaged in more political violence in the last eight or so years since Trump was first elected?
If Trump wins, will the left allow power to transfer peacefully?
Yes: 0% (0 Votes)
No: 0% (0 Votes)
And the answer is the left, by far.
Let’s go back to Trump’s inauguration day in January 2017.
ABC News reported at the time, “Violence flared on some streets of Washington, D.C., today amid Donald Trump’s inauguration — with people smashing car and store windows, clashing with police and even torching a limo, leading to more than 200 arrests.”
The protester were armed with “hammers” and “bricks.”
FLASHBACK: The liberals worrying about riots and mobs during Biden’s inauguration are forgetting what they did during Trump’s in 2017. pic.twitter.com/lprFN76ATz
— MRC NewsBusters (@newsbusters) January 15, 2021
“The #DisruptJ20 coalition, named after the date of the inauguration, which promised that its participants would attempt to shut down the inauguration events, tangled with Bikers for Trump, a group clad in leather biker gear that backs the president,” ABC added.
If this had happened during Barack Obama’s or Biden’s inauguration, no doubt Democrats in D.C. would deem it a threat to democracy and direct the FBI to go get them all.
Two vehicles lit on fire during protests in Washington, D.C. as inaugural parade continues. https://t.co/rTG3wfLgw9 pic.twitter.com/8w896BDMCw
— ABC News (@ABC) January 20, 2017
But since the riots were directed at Trump, it was no big deal. Just a few protesters who got out of hand.
NBC News reported in July 2018 that the Justice Department dropped all remaining charges against those who engaged in violence during the 2017 inauguration. They didn’t even have to do community service.
Quite the contrast to the approximately 1,200 the DOJ has rounded up as of early this year and charged in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021 protest, most of whom did not engage in violence or damage property.
In January, U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves said of these 149 people were convicted of “assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.”
Democrats might argue that Jan. 6, was different because the demonstrators gained access to the Capitol and potentially put lawmakers’ lives at risk.
Well, let’s look back at the night of May 29, 2020, following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, when rioters broke through the outer security barriers at the White House. Who knows why they attacked the White House. What did Trump have to do with the actions of Minneapolis police officers?
The Associated Press reported that Secret Service agents rushed then-President Trump to a bunker beneath 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
The location was better defended than the Capitol grounds so no breach ultimately occurred; however, many Secret Service agents were injured and property was vandalized.
The Secret Service said in a May 31 statement, “Some demonstrators repeatedly attempted to knock over security barriers, and vandalized six Secret Service vehicles. Between Friday night and Sunday morning, more than 60 Secret Service Uniformed Division Officers and Special Agents sustained multiple injuries from projectiles such as bricks, rocks, bottles, fireworks and other items.
“Secret Service personnel were also directly physically assaulted as they were kicked, punched, and exposed to bodily fluids. A total of 11 injured employees were transported to a local hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries.”
Flashback May 2020: The far-left rioters tore apart the barrier outside the White House piece by piece in an attempt to storm the building and burn it down. Many in the mob called for the president to be lynched. #CapitolRiot pic.twitter.com/krfqIRglNY
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) January 7, 2022
Where was the DOJ roundup of these criminal protesters?
USA Today reported that the Washington police arrested 17 people, most of whom were charged with rioting.
Overall, D.C. police said 106 people were arrested in protests around the district that weekend, according to The Washington Post.
But that’s not the end of the story.
The news outlet said that although “many of those arrested were charged by police with felony rioting, that charge was dropped by prosecutors in most cases.”
Those prosecutors happened to be U.S. attorneys with the DOJ, because it is the federally controlled District of Columbia.
And that is to say nothing of the violent protests that took place outside the federal court house in Portland or the streets of Minneapolis throughout the summer of 2020 or the campus demonstrations throughout this past spring.
The left has shown far more proclivity to engage in violent, destructive protests than the right ever has.
So Biden got it right the first time when he said there likely will not be a peaceful transfer of power if Trump is elected, because the radical left will not allow it.
