In a primetime national address from the Oval Office, Biden said political emotions can flare but “we must never resort to violence.”
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence. Ever. Period. No exceptions. We cannot allow this violence to become normalized,” Biden said.
Biden spoke for about five minutes from the Oval Office, noting that the Republican National Convention was kicking off Monday in Milwaukee, while he himself would be traveling around the country campaigning for re-election.
He said emotions would run high on both sides and that the stakes of the election were enormous.
“We can do this,” Biden implored, saying the nation was founded on a democracy that allowed reason and balance to triumph 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 Where decency and dignity and fair play are not just outdated concepts but living, breathing realities.”
Earlier on Sunday, Biden condemned the attempted assassination of his predecessor Trump as “contrary to everything we stand for as a nation” and said he would order an independent national security investigation into how such an attack could have happened.
He called on the country to unite as one nation, promised a “thorough and swift” investigation and asked the public not to make “assumptions” about the shooter’s motives or affiliations.
The president said he has also ordered the U.S. Secret Service to review all security measures for the RNC. Hours later, Audrey Gibson-Cicchino, the Secret Service coordinator for the convention, said the weekend’s attack on Trump had not prompted any changes to the agency’s security plan for the event and that officials “are fully prepared.”
In his remarks, Biden called the attack on Trump “not who we are as a nation.”
“It’s not American. And we can’t let this happen,” he said. “Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is more important than that right now.”
The president said he and first lady Jill Biden were praying for the family of Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who was shot and killed Saturday night at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“He protected his family from the bullets,” Biden said. “May God love him.”
The president also said he had a “brief but good conversation” with Trump in the hours after the shooting and said he was “truly grateful” that the “former president is doing well and is 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 a far greater challenge, especially in the midst of a bitter presidential campaign. Biden’s team is grappling with how to calibrate the path forward after this weekend’s attack on the very person he is trying to defeat in November’s election.
Biden, who has portrayed Trump as a grave threat to democracy and the nation’s founding principles, has temporarily paused such political messaging. Shortly after Saturday night’s attack, Biden’s reelection campaign froze “all outgoing communications” and worked to halt TV advertising.
The president also postponed a planned trip to Texas on Monday, where he was to speak at the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library about the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. An NBC News interview between Biden and anchor Lester Holt will now take place at the White House, rather than in Texas as originally planned.
Biden’s campaign said that after the NBC interview airs Monday night, they and the Democratic National Committee will “continue to draw contrast” with Trump during the GOP convention — though it’s unclear when the ads will resume.
Biden is also still planning a planned trip to Las Vegas, where a campaign event will also be held on Wednesday. Vice President Kamala Harris postponed her planned campaign trip to Florida on Tuesday, where she was to meet with Republican women.
Trump, meanwhile, announced that he would bring forward his plans to travel to Milwaukee to attend the Republican Party convention, which will undoubtedly draw fierce criticism of Biden and the Democrats.
Last weekend’s developments were just the latest upheaval in a campaign that has been extraordinarily chaotic in recent weeks.
Biden’s shaky June 27 debate performance so spooked his own party that some top surrogates and donors turned on him, and nearly two dozen Democratic members of Congress called on the president to leave the race altogether. Faced with mounting questions about his fitness for a second term, Biden and his top advisers scrambled to salvage his campaign, adding events around the country and criticizing Trump more aggressively.
Saturday’s attack put an end — at least for now — to that counteroffensive on the eve of the Republican convention.
The campaign also hopes that Biden’s Oval Office speech on Sunday will further emphasize his stance on unity while demonstrating leadership that will assuage nervous critics within his own party.
“We will debate and disagree, that will not change,” Biden said in his afternoon address. “But we will not lose sight of who we are as Americans.”
While investigators are still in the early stages of determining what happened and why, some of Biden’s critics are criticizing the president for telling donors in a private conversation on Monday that “it’s time to put Trump in our sights.”
A person familiar with those comments said the president was trying to make clear that Trump had gotten away with a light public schedule after last month’s debate, while the president himself was under intense scrutiny. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to speak more freely about private conversations.
In the donor call, Biden said, “I have one job and that is to defeat Donald Trump. … I am absolutely confident that I am the best person to do that.”
He continued: “So, we’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to get our eyes on Trump. He’s gotten away with doing nothing for the last 10 days except driving around in his golf cart, bragging about scores he didn’t make. … Anyway, I’m not going to comment on his golf game.”