Biden Lectures On Lowering The Temperature In Oval Office Address After Attempted Donald Trump Assassination
President Joe Biden called for “lowering the temperature” after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
“We can’t allow this violence to be normalized,” Biden said in an Oval Office address Sunday night. “The political rage in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down.”
Biden cited the 2017 Congressional baseball shooting, the 2022 assault of Nancy Pelosi’s husband, and kidnapping plot against Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. Biden also cited the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Biden did not mention the indictment of a man who told police he planned on murdering Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022.
“Politics must never be a literal battlefield. God forbid a killing field,” Biden said. “I believe politics ought to be an arena for peaceful debate, to pursue justice, to make decisions guided by the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution.”
Biden has come under fire over resurfaced remarks during a call with donors last month following his disastrous debate performance where he said it was “time to put Trump in a bullseye.” In recent social media posts, Biden has called Trump both “a threat to our democracy” and a “genuine threat to this nation.”
Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation.
He’s a threat to our freedom. He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 28, 2024
On Sunday, Biden said that in the time leading up to the election Americans face “a time of testing.”
“The higher the stakes, the more fervent the passions become,” he said. “This place is an added burden on each of us to ensure that no matter how strong, our convictions almost never descend into violence.”
Biden added that he expects to be under scrutiny at the Republican National Convention this week and that he will be traveling the country to make the case for his vision.
“The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not the hands of a would-be assassin,” Biden said.
Biden also mentioned his belief that “foreign actors fanned the flames of our division.”
The motive and affiliations of the shooter are unknown, according to Biden.
“We do not know the motive of the shooter yet. We don’t know his opinions or affiliations. We don’t know whether he had help or support or if he communicated with anyone else. Law enforcement professionals, as I speak, are investigating those questions.”
Biden said he spoke to Trump on the phone Saturday night, adding he is “glad he is doing well.”
The president gave his condolences to the family of 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, who was killed while trying to protect his wife and daughters when the shooting began.
“Corey was a husband, a father, a volunteer firefighter, a hero sheltering his family from those bullets,” Biden said. “We should all hold his family and all those injured in our prayers.”
“Let’s never lose sight of who we are. Let’s remember we are the United States of America,” Biden added. “There is nothing, nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.”
Biden called for a “thorough and swift” review of the security situation at the rally following a meeting with his homeland security team in the White House Situation Room.
“I’ve instructed that this investigation be thorough and swift, and the investigators will have every resource they need to get this done,” Biden said. “I’ve directed an independent review of national security at yesterday’s rally to assess exactly what happened and we’ll share the results of that independent review with the American people.”
Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro berated the mainstream media for its divisive political rhetoric that he said may have influenced someone to act on the claim that Trump is evil.
“The actual story here is an entire political party — an entire political side of the aisle — geared around the idea that Donald Trump is a grave existential threat to democracy and then someone took that seriously, presumably, and tried to shoot the former president of the United States,” Shapiro said during a special episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show” on Sunday.
