A senior BBC UK presenter has sparked a firestorm by suggesting President Biden it should Donald Trump murdered.
David Aaronovitchwho presents Radio 4’s Briefing Room programme, caused an uproar with a now-deleted post from X which said: “If I were Biden I would rush and have Trump assassinated, claiming he is a threat to US security.”
He used the hashtag #SCOTUS… linking his comment to the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision.
The 6-3 decision granted Trump immunity for any “official acts” during his presidency. However, the decision did not clearly define what qualifies as an “official act”… but broadly considers everything a president does in the course of business.
Aaronovitch’s comment was met with a lot of backlash… with critics accusing him of violating his workplace’s rules on employee impartiality.
Now there’s a pile of far-right people suggesting that my tweet about the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity is an incitement to violence when it’s clearly satire. So I’m deleting it. If nothing else, though, it’s given me a map of some of the dumbest people on this site.
— David Aaronovitch (@DAaronovitch) July 1, 2024
@DAaronovitch
He wrote a follow-up post X, clearly frustrated by the backlash his initial comment received… explaining that he deleted it because people interpreted it as inciting violence rather than seeing it as just satire.
GB News Contributor Alex Armstrong accused him of “backtracking” on the advice of his “handlers.” But Aaronovitch remained steadfast and unapologetic about his comment, retorting, “Ooh Alex, tell me about my ‘handlers.'”
The BBC has yet to comment on Aaronovitch’s post.