Following the assassination attempt on his Republican rival Donald Trump, U.S. President Joe Biden emphasized the importance of cooling political tensions, urging the public to “Remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies.”
“In America, we resolve our differences at the ballot box, not with bullets,” Biden said in a formal Oval Office address on Sunday evening, a format typically reserved for moments of crisis and major turning points in the country.
“The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin,” the president said. “The path forward through competing visions of the campaign should always be resolved peacefully, not through acts of violence.”
Biden once again strongly condemned the shooting of former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Trump, who was shot in the ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence, or for any violence ever,” the president said. “I will continue to speak out strongly for our democracy, stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law, and call for action at the ballot box. No violence on our streets.”
At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, a shooter was able to climb to an elevated position with an assault rifle and fire several shots at Trump, causing panic to break out in the audience.
Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet and later seen bleeding, while a firefighter watching the rally was killed and two others were seriously injured.
FBI officials later said the perpetrator, killed by Secret Service agents, was 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
In earlier remarks, Biden said that although officials know the identity of the shooter, the motive was still unclear. “I urge everyone, please don’t make assumptions about his motives or affiliations.”
Biden also announced an independent review of the security arrangements at the Pennsylvania rally where the assassination attempt was carried out. The results of the investigation would be made public, Biden said.
Despite a bitter rivalry between the two opponents recently played out on the debate stage, Biden said he has had a “short but good” call with Trump after the attack.
Coming two days before the start of the Republican National Convention on Monday, the shooting is likely to cause political shockwaves in the United States just months ahead of Trump’s rematch with Biden in November’s elections.
Biden has instructed the Secret Service to review security measures for the party convention in Milwaukee, where Trump is expected to be formally declared the Republican presidential nominee.
Trump arrived in Wisconsin on Sunday, with TV footage showing his plane on the airfield near Milwaukee. The former president said he had initially considered postponing the trip by two days following the attempt on his life. However, he later decided that he couldn’t “allow a ‘shooter,’ or potential assassin, to force change to schedule, or anything else,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
Biden, meanwhile, is set to return to the campaign trail next week and attend a conference hosted by the civil rights movement NAACP in Las Vegas as planned, according to the White House.
Following the assassination attempt on Trump, Biden canceled a trip to Texas scheduled for Monday and cut short a weekend stay in Delaware to return to the White House. His campaign team also interrupted all outgoing communications and announced that it would halt campaign advertisements “as soon as possible.”
