President Joe Biden called for a peaceful return to politics but his Oval Office address contained a few errors as he attempted to bring down the political temperature in the wake of an assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
‘Politics must never be a little battlefield or, god forbid, a killing field,’ Biden said in the Sunday evening speech. ‘No matter how strong our convictions, we must never descend to violence.’
He reminded Americans the place to take out their differences was at the ballot box and, as he prepares to restart his re-election campaign, he called on voters to ‘cool it down.’
But the president made a few glaring errors in his six-minute address, including calling the ballot box ‘the battle box’ and referring to former President Donald Trump as ‘former Trump.’
His overall message came through, however.
‘Tonight I’m asking every American to recommit,’ Biden noted. ‘Hate must have no safe harbor.’
For his remarks, the president used the Oval Office to add a sense of weight and formality to his words. He spoke from the Resolute Desk, an American flag and the presidential seal behind him. Oval Office addresses are usually rare and used to give greater heft and sense of state to the occasion.
President Joe Biden speaking from the Oval Office
Biden noted the Republican National Convention starts tomorrow and that he was going to return to the campaign trail.
He said he expected Republicans to criticize his record while he planned to over his own vision for the country.
‘The path forward through competing visions of the campaign should always be resolved peacefully not through acts of violence,’ he said.
‘A former president was shot and American citizen killed or simply for exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing,’ he noted of Saturday’s events, where one spectator died and another two were severely wounded.
The president, who is running for a second term, reminded Americans of the stakes in November.
‘This election is going to shape the for decades to come. I believe that with all my soul,’ he noted.
He has only used an Oval Office address on two other occasions: last June, to mark the passage of legislation averting a federal default, and in October, to discuss the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Biden leaves for Las Vegas on Monday. He’ll address the 115th NAACP National Convention on Tuesday and hold a campaign event on Wednesday.
Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday night for the convention where he’ll formally be named the Republican presidential nominee.
The former president survived a horrific attempt on his life, coming away with only a wound on his right ear.
Law enforcement officials said they were looking at Saturday’s shooting as a possible domestic terrorism attack and assassination attempt.
As the campaign prepares to continue, Biden pointed to the violence that has been seen across the political sphere in the past few years, including an attempt on the life of Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul, a kidnapping plan for Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the January 6th insurrection.
‘We can allow this violence to be normalized,’ Biden warned in his Oval Office address.
‘The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It´s time to cool it down,’ he said. ‘We all have a responsibility to do this.’
It was the second time in one day that Biden addressed the country.
Earlier Sunday Biden cautioned Americans about making assumptions into the motive behind the assassination trip and said he’s ordered ‘every resource’ available to protect his Republican rival.
‘We don’t yet have any information about the motive of the shooter,’ Biden said Sunday from the Roosevelt Room in the White House.
‘Don’t make assumptions about his motives,’ the president pleaded. Some Republicans have already started blaming Biden and his campaign rhetoric for the attempted assassination of his Republican rival.
Biden spent much of his remarks defending the Secret Service against criticism and pushing back on allegations not enough had been done to protect the former president.
The Secret Service denied that Trump hasn’t been given increased protection despite being the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
‘Mr. Trump as a former president and nominee Republican party already receives a heightened level of security. And I’ve consistent in my direction in the Secret Service to provide been him with every resource, capability, and protective measure necessary to ensure his continued safety,’ Biden said.
Biden added he’s ordered an independent review of what happened at Saturday night’s rally.
Biden said he spoke to Trump on Saturday night and was glad the former president was doing well in the wake of the assassination attempt.
He also said he was praying for the family of Corey Comperatore, the spectator who was killed at Trump’s rally.
‘We also extend our deepest condolences to the family of the victim who was killed. He was a father he was protecting his family from the bullets are being fired lost his life. God love him,’ Biden said.
Questions have been raised as to how Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old would-be assassin, was able to get on a building rooftop so close to Trump’s rally site.
Law enforcement officials said they do not believe Crooks was part of any larger plot and that their top priority was determining his motive.
Crooks grazed Trump’s ear, killed one spectator and injured two more before a Secret Service counter assault agent killed him.
The rallygoer who was killed was identified as Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief from the area, according to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who added that Comperatore ‘died a hero.’
‘His wife shared with me that he dove on his family to protect them,’ Shapiro said.
Biden said the results of the investigation into the protective measures at Trump’s rally would be made public. And he denounced the assassination attempt.
‘There is no place in America for this kind of violence or any violence for that matter,’ Biden said. ‘The assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation. Everything it’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not American.’
Biden was joined in the Roosevelt Room of the White House by Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
‘We must unite as one nation,’ Biden said. ‘We must unite as one nation to demonstrate who we are.’
The president noted he ordered a review of security measures at the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to begin Monday in Milwaukee.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures as he is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is taken from the stage
Trump announced earlier Sunday he will head to Wisconsin on Sunday afternoon.
‘Based on yesterday’s terrible events, I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin, and The Republican National Convention, by two days, but have just decided that I cannot allow a ‘shooter,’ or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else. Therefore, I will be leaving for Milwaukee, as scheduled, at 3:30 P.M. TODAY. Thank you!,’ he wrote on Truth Social.
Thomas Matthew Crooks
He arrived there on Sunday evening, walking off his plane unaided.
Trump was taken to his Bedminster, N.J., home after he was released from the hospital on Saturday night.
His campaign said the convention will continue as planned.
Biden’s campaign, meanwhile, is grappling with how to compete against Trump in the wake of the assassination attempt.
Biden postponed a planned trip to Texas on Monday, where he was to speak on the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library.
And Vice President Kamala Harris postponed a trip to Palm Beach County – where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home is located – where she was going to campaign against Republicans’ record on reproductive rights.
The Biden campaign did pull down all its television ads and suspend digital operations. It is expected to resume its campaign operations on Monday evening.