President Joe Biden apparently has a very specific and off-colour term for the things former President Donald Trump says in his speeches — and a CNN reporter revealed it in all its foul-mouthed glory without getting bleeped.
CNN White House correspondent MJ Lee appeared on Tuesday to discuss how Biden has directed his campaign staff to deal with the Trump campaign.
The key is to apparently let Trump be Trump.
Lee said that Biden has asked senior campaign aides to highlight the “crazy shit” that Trump says in public, according to sources Lee spoke to for a CNN story published Tuesday.
Some examples Lee cited in her piece include Trump’s recent suggestion that he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to other NATO members and his attacks on Nikki Haley’s husband, who is currently on military duty.
In response to the article, Ammar Moussa, the Biden campaign’s director of rapid response, sent CNN the following statement:
“The president knows the stakes this November could not be higher for the American people. Donald Trump is the polar opposite of everything President Biden stands for and has accomplished since he took office, and the campaign’s top priority over the next nine months will be laying out that stark choice for voters.”
Although Lee’s story didn’t spell “shit,” she freely used the word when being interviewed by CNN anchor Briana Keilar.
“What we’ve learned is that President Biden himself personally instructed some of his top campaign aides to be even more aggressive in highlighting some of [former] President Trump’s more inflammatory and wild comments,” Lee said. “We’re told that the thrust of the president’s direction was to significantly ramp up the campaign’s efforts to highlight the ‘crazy shit that Trump says in public.’”
And yes, there’s a video of the moment.
Many people on X, formerly Twitter, responded favourably to CNN’s decision to refer to Trump’s comments as “crazy shit” without bleeping it.