David Aaronovitch, who is a well-known host of BBC Radio 4’s Briefing Room recently tweeted and then deleted a satirical call for President Joe Biden to “hurry up and have Trump murdered” after the Supreme Court on Monday granting presidents sweeping immunity for “official acts” via Mediaite
It has been noted that the Supreme Court stunned many pundits and observers in the U.S. – and the U.K. – by ruling in largely favor of Trump’s argument that presidents should not face criminal prosecution for acts committed while in office.
The ruling by Chief Justice John Roberts did not entirely clarify what constitutes an “official act” and left that distinction mostly to lower courts, though he did offer some guidelines.
Aaronovitch recently took a jab at the court’s decision writing on X, “If I was Biden I’d hurry up and have Trump murdered on the basis that he is a threat to America’s security #SCOTUS.”
It has been noted that the specter of assassinating domestic rivals was raised during the oral arguments for the case when Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Trump’s lawyer John Sauer if he was arguing that a president should be able to order assassinations with impunity. Sauer argued in favor of such a hypothetical, citing impeachment as the only legal remedy.
Aaronovitch received a quick backlash to his tweet and announced he deleted it, writing, “There’s now a far right pile on suggesting that my tweet about the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity is an incitement to violence when it’s plainly a satire. So I’m deleting it. If nothing else though it’s given me a map of some the daftest people on this site.”
He also took a swipe at a community note attached to his tweet, noting that incitement is illegal in both England and the U.S., “Interestingly this attempt at a community note carefully omits the ‘#SCOTUS’ which ended my now deleted tweet. Presumably a community note now needs to be added to the community note.”
