Father who said ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ on call with Biden says election was ‘stolen’ and sports MAGA hat on Steve Bannon podcast

Jared Schmeck now claims Donald Trump ‘should still be president right now’

The Oregon ex-police officer who responded to President Joe Biden wishing his children a Merry Christmas by telling the president to “f**k” himself in code appears to have lied when he said he was not a “Trumper” in a subsequent interview.

Jared Schmeck, a father of four from Central Point, Oregon, sparked outrage on Christmas Eve when he concluded a call between his children and Mr Biden — who was taking calls as part of the North American Aerospace Defence Command’s annual Santa Tracker hotline — by telling the president: “Merry Christmas and let’s go Brandon”.

Conservatives and supporters of former president Donald Trump have used the “let’s go Brandon” slogan as code for “f**k Joe Biden” since an NBC sports reporter suggested spectators who were chanting the vulgarity at a September Nascar race were congratulating the winning driver, Brandon Brown, on his first career victory.

The phrase has become somewhat of a shibboleth among consumers of right-wing media in recent months, but Mr Biden, who replied “let’s go Brandon, I agree,” did not appear to be in on the vulgar joke.

Mr Schmeck on Sunday toldThe Oregonian that he did not intend the coded insult to be vulgar and had “nothing against Mr Biden,” to whom he said he meant no disrespect.

The former police officer, who reportedly declined to say why he’d abandoned a law enforcement career, said he was not a “Trumper,” though he described himself to the Oregon-based news outlet as a “free-thinking American and follower of Jesus Christ”.

But Mr Schmeck appeared to walk back those comments in an interview with indicted ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon during a Monday appearance on Mr Bannon’s War Room podcast.

He told Bannon that the assertion he’d made about not being a “Trumper” was “absolutely false”.

"Donald Trump is my president and he should still be president right now. The election was 100% stolen. So, I just want to make that clear,” he said.

He added that the “let’s go Brandon” slur he used after Mr Biden wished his children a Merry Christmas “encompasses the entirety of our frustration with Joe Biden, the administration, the leftist mob, the cancel culture, the mainstream media, that they're the ones who made this a thing”.