Biden believes Trump is a fascist, says Karine Jean-Pierre, moments after insisting he didn’t mean ‘lock him up’

President Joe Biden believes former President Donald Trump is a fascist, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday, shortly after emphasizing that the 81-year-old did not literally mean “lock him up.”

During a trip to New Hampshire on Tuesday, Biden said of Trump, “We have to lock him up,” before clarifying and saying he meant “politically.”

Jean-Pierre reiterated that point during Wednesday’s briefing, saying Biden spoke “very clearly” when he made the “lock him up” jab — something Trump supporters originally said about 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Moments later, the press secretary was asked about Biden’s thoughts on comments from Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly – said The New York Times that the GOP nominee met the definition of being a fascist and had said some positive things about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

“I mean – yes,” Jean-Pierre responded when a reporter asked whether Biden believed Trump was a fascist.

“He said it himself,” the press secretary continued. “The former president said he was going to be a dictator from day one. We can’t ignore that.’

Jean-Pierre also brought up January 6.

“Their lives were destroyed because of that day,” she said, bringing up law enforcement officers and those who witnessed the violence on Capitol Hill. “Because 2,000 people were told by the former president to go there, to find the former vice president, to stop a free and fair election.”

During Wednesday’s briefing, Jean-Pierre was asked for the first time whether Biden had said Trump should be locked up — a surprising comment from the sitting president as the Democrat has pushed for the country to move away from that kind of divisive rhetoric.

But with just two weeks to go before Election Day, Biden made off-the-cuff remarks to a group of Democratic campaign workers in Concord, New Hampshire, sounding the alarm about Trump.

‘This is a man who also wants to replace every civil servant, every civil servant; believes that under the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity he has the right, if necessary… to actually eliminate – physically eliminate, shoot, kill – anyone he believes would pose a threat to him ,” Biden said.

“I mean, so I know this sounds bizarre. It sounds like I said this five years ago: “You’d lock me up.” We need to lock him up,” Biden said. “Lock him up politically,” Biden clarified a few seconds later.

President Joe Biden made the controversial comments while speaking to Democratic volunteers in Concord, New Hampshire, on Tuesday

The president’s comments played right into Trump’s claims that the Biden White House — and not an independent Justice Department — was behind his string of legal troubles.

When asked about it on Wednesday, Jean-Pierre changed Biden’s wording slightly.

“So look, the president talked about this very clearly in his statement as well and he said he meant he was politically excluding him, politically excluding him,” she responded.

“Look, let’s not forget that this is a president who has never shied away from being very clear in identifying what’s at stake in this election,” she continued. “I’m going to be very careful not to talk about the 2024 election which is less than two weeks ago, but this is just about what the president said last night, he made it clear, he made it very clear yesterday that he was referring to defeat, to defeating Donald Trump.”

“That’s what he was talking about, he said politically, shut him out politically,” she added.

A reporter pointed out that Biden said “lock him up” twice and asked if that meant he had to beat Trump.

“Well, it’s not what I said, it’s what he said…” he clarified to himself. He wanted to make sure things were put into context,” Jean-Pierre replied. “This is the president himself going back to explain, to explain, to say he was talking about politics, to lock him down politically.”

She was then asked about Biden’s thoughts on Kelly’s claims.

‘Do we agree on that determination? Yes, yes, we do,” Jean-Pierre said.