WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden has said that he does not consider supporters of his predecessor Donald Trump to be a "threat".
He made the clarification on Friday a day after a nationally televised address in which he referred to "MAGA Republicans" to those who support Trump, - as a "threat to democracy", as per reports.
"The extremism embodied by Trump and the MAGA Republicans poses a challenge to the fundamental underpinnings of our nation. That poses a threat to this nation "Thursday night, the President had made a statement.
However, he said in a press conference on Friday: "No Trump supporters, in my opinion, pose a security risk to the nation. I do believe that anyone who urges using violence, refuses to recognise an election, or counts votes in a manner that threatens democracy." On social media shortly after Biden's remark on Thursday night, Trump slammed the President, writing that he "must be mad, or suffering from late-stage dementia" for calling him and his supporters a "danger" to the US.
The former President stated, "Someone should carefully but passionately explain to Joe Biden that MAGA means, as forcefully as mere words can get, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN."
Make America Great Again, or MAGA, was Trump's principal campaign and later presidential campaign slogan. "He certainly should not be representing the United States of America," Trump wrote in a post on Friday. "If he doesn't want to Make America Great Again, which through words, action, and thought, he doesn't." A few days after the president claimed that Trump's fans supported "semi-fascism," Biden made the comment in the US city of Philadelphia.
Biden calls Jackson mayor to hear firsthand about water crisis
United Nations continue support for flood-hit Pakistan
European EMA approves Omicron-adapted Covid vaccines