In a prime-time national address from the Oval Office, Biden said political passions could run high but “we must never descend into violence.”
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence at all. Period. No exceptions. We cannot allow this violence to be normalized,” Biden said.
Biden spoke for about five minutes from the Oval Office, noting that Republican National Convention He was scheduled to open his office in Milwaukee on Monday, while he was scheduled to travel across the country himself to campaign for his re-election.
He said emotions would be high on both sides and the stakes of the election were enormous.
“And we can do it,” Biden pleaded, saying the nation was founded on a democracy that allowed reason and balance to prevail over brute force. “American democracy — where arguments are made in good faith. American democracy — where the rule of law is respected. Where decency and dignity and fair play are not just alien concepts, but living realities.”
Earlier on Sunday, Biden condemned the assassination attempt on his predecessor. trump cardTrump called the attack “contrary to everything we stand for as a nation” and said he had ordered an independent security review into how such an attack could have happened.
He called on the country to “come together as one nation,” promised a “comprehensive and swift” review and asked the public not to “make assumptions” about the shooter’s motives or affiliations.
The president said he had also directed the U.S. Secret Service to review all security arrangements for the Republican National Convention. Hours later, Audrey Gibson-Cicchino, the Secret Service’s convention coordinator, said the weekend attack on Trump had not prompted any changes to the agency’s security plan for the event and that officials were “fully prepared.”
In his remarks, Biden described the attack on Trump as “not who we are as a nation.”
“This is not America, and we cannot allow this to happen,” he said. “Unity is the hardest goal of all, but there is nothing more important than that right now.”
The president said he and first lady Jill Biden are praying for the family. Korean Comperatora former fire chief who was shot and killed during a Trump rally Saturday night in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“He was protecting his family from bullets,” Biden said. “May God have mercy on him.”
The president also said he had a “short but good conversation” with Trump in the hours after the shooting, and said he was “sincerely grateful” that the former president was “well and recovering.”
Trump, who has called for national resilience since the shooting, posted on his social media account after Biden’s comments, “Unite America!”
Achieving unity will be more challenging, especially in the midst of a bitter presidential campaign. Biden’s team is trying to figure out how to chart a path forward after his weekend attack on the very person he is trying to defeat in the presidential election. November elections.
Biden, who proceeded to describe Trump as A serious threat to democracy But under these circumstances, this political message, which runs counter to the country’s founding principles, has taken a temporary hit. Shortly after Saturday night’s attack, Biden’s reelection campaign froze “all outbound communications” and was pulling its television ads.
The president also postponed a planned trip to Texas on Monday, where he was scheduled to speak at the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. An NBC News interview between Biden and anchor Lester Holt is now scheduled to take place at the White House, rather than in Texas, as originally planned.
The Biden campaign said that after the NBC interview airs Monday night, the Democratic National Committee will “continue to draw a contrast” with Trump throughout the Republican convention — though it remains unclear when the ads will resume.
Biden also has a planned trip to Las Vegas, which will include a campaign event on Wednesday. Kamala Harris Clinton postponed her campaign trip to Florida on Tuesday, where she was scheduled to meet with Republican women.
Meanwhile, Trump has announced that he is making plans to go to Milwaukee and the Republican convention, where criticism of Biden and Democrats is sure to be scathing.
The weekend developments were just the latest in a series of turmoil in A campaign that has been in a state of extreme turmoil in recent weeks..
Biden shaky performance in discussion On June 27, he so angered his party that some of his top aides and donors turned on him, Nearly 20 Democratic members of Congress Biden called on the president to drop out of the race outright. Facing mounting questions about whether he was fit for a second term, Biden and his top advisers were scrambling to salvage his campaign by Add events Across the country, criticizing Trump more aggressively.
Saturday’s attack has — at least for now — reversed the counterattack on the threshold of the Republican convention.
The campaign also hopes that Sunday’s Oval Office speech will allow Biden to emphasize his point about unity while showing leadership that could calm nervous critics within his party.
“We will debate and we will disagree, and that will not change, but we will not lose sight of who we are as Americans,” Biden said in his afternoon remarks.
Although investigators are still in the early stages of determining what happened and why, some Biden critics are criticizing the president for telling donors on a private call Monday that “it’s time to put Trump in the bull’s eye.”
The president was trying to emphasize that Trump had managed to escape a light public agenda after last month’s debate while the president himself faced intense scrutiny, said a person familiar with the remarks, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations more freely.
In a donor call, Biden said, “I have one mission and that is to defeat Donald Trump… I am absolutely certain that I am the best person capable of doing that.”
“We’re done talking about the debate,” he continued. “It’s time to put Trump in the crosshairs. He’s gotten away with doing nothing for the past 10 days except driving around in his golf cart, bragging about scores he didn’t score… Anyway, I’m not going to talk about his golf game.”