Biden: Biggest regret failing to counter misinformation, including from Trump
President Biden in an interview published Wednesday reflected on the highs and lows of his administration, stating his biggest regret was failing to challenge misinformation — including claims touted by President-elect Trump about the New Year's Day attacks.
"I mean, again, it's the nature of the change in the way information is transmitted," Biden said in an exclusive interview with USA Today. "And the guy [Trump] has not known for telling the truth..."
The president called out the incoming leader’s threats against migrants as well as Trump's recent statement about the New Year’s Day attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas, blaming the deadly incidents on "open borders" despite two Americans carrying out the attacks.
“And yet the president comes along, soon to be president again, come along and says, ‘It's clear. It's an invasion from the South. All these immigrants are causing all this problem. They did the [inaudible],’" Biden stated.
“I'll bet you there's 70 percent of people out there that read that and believe it,” he continued. "How do you deal with that?"
As investigations were underway, Trump took to Truth Social shortly after the attacks to blame the deadly incidents on Biden's immigration policy
“With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe,” Trump wrote earlier this month.
In Wednesday's interview, Biden said he wanted information from investigations to be made public as quickly as possible about the deadly attacks.
“We've established beyond a reasonable doubt that they’re both lone actors…” Biden said of the law enforcement's briefings on the incidents. "I wanted them to make it known as quickly as they did."
"But to say something in light of this significant investigation by the entire intelligence community and defense establishment, that this would happen and proven," Biden said about Trump. "He says, 'No, it's not true.'"
Biden also told USAToday he regrets not acting more swiftly on some of his own policy priorities.
“There's a couple specifics that bother me that I couldn't get done. And one was that we are in a situation where I think that we would've been a hell of a lot better off had we been able to go much harder at getting some of these projects in the ground quicker,” Biden said, not mentioning which specific policies he was referencing.
But he added, “...I shouldn't admit this, but I will. I don't think that Donald Trump knows as much substantively as I do about these things.”