Biden Laughs At CNN Reporter Who Says Trump’s ‘Political Movement is Still Very Strong’ At Post-Midterms Presser

President Joe Biden laughed and scoffed at a reporter who said that former President Donald Trump’s “political movement is still very strong” after shocking midterm results.

On Wednesday afternoon, President Biden took to the lectern in the East Room of the White House for a press conference amid the cooling embers of a midterm Election Night widely seen as a Trump-fueled disappointment for Republicans.

In that context, the president told a favorite anecdote about international revulsion at the Trump-fueled insurrection and lauded the results as a reassuring return to stability.

When CNN White House correspondent Phil Mattingly said Trump’s movement is “still very strong” as an aside to a follow-up question, the president greeted him with a laugh and a wisecrack:

I ask a rhetorical question: What would you all think? You’d think England was really in trouble. You’d think democracy was on the edge if that happened in Great Britain.

And so, that’s the way people were looking at us, like, “When is this going to stop?” Nothing like this has happened since the Civil War. I don’t want to exaggerate. But literally, nothing like this has happened since the Civil War.

And so, what I find is that they want to know: Is the United States stable? Do we know what we’re about? Are we the same democracy we’ve always been?

Because, look, the rest of the world looks to us — I don’t mean that we’re always — like we’re always right. But if the United States tomorrow were to, quote, “withdraw from the world,” a lot of things would change around the world. A whole lot would change.

And so, they’re very concerned that we are still the open democracy we’ve been and that we have rules and the institutions matter. And that’s the context in which I think that they’re looking at: Are we back to a place where we are going to accept decisions made by the Court, by the Congress, by the government, et cetera?

MR. MATTINGLY: So the entire genesis of that G7 conversation was tied to your predecessor, who is about to launch another campaign. So how do you reassure them, if that is the reason for their questioning, that the former President will not return or that his political movement, which is still very strong, will not —

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yeah? (Laughs.)

MR. MATTINGLY: once again take power in the United States?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we just have to demonstrate that he will not take power by — if we — if he does run. I’m making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next President again.

Watch above via C-SPAN and WPIX.