By Emily Goodin, US senior political reporter in Washington DC
01:14 15 Jul 2024, updated 04:14 15 Jul 2024
President Joe Biden called for a peaceful return to politics, but his Oval Office speech contained some missteps as he sought to cool the political temperature following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
“Politics must never be a small battlefield or, God forbid, a killing field,” Biden said in his Sunday night speech. “No matter how strong our convictions, we must never descend into violence.”
He reminded Americans that the place to voice their differences is at the ballot box and, as he prepares to restart his re-election campaign, he asked voters to “calm down.”
But the president made some glaring mistakes in his six-minute speech, including calling the ballot box “the battle box” and referring to former President Donald Trump as “ex-Trump.”
However, his overall message was understood.
“Tonight, I call on all Americans to recommit,” Biden said. “Hate must have no refuge.”
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, with an American flag and the presidential seal behind him. Speeches from the Oval Office are typically rare and are used to lend greater weight and a sense of state to the occasion.
Biden noted that the Republican National Convention begins tomorrow and that he will return to the campaign trail.
He said he expected Republicans to criticize his record while he planned to criticize his own vision for the country.
“The way forward through the opposing visions of the campaign must always be resolved peacefully, not through acts of violence,” he said.
“A former president was shot and an American citizen was killed for simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choice,” he said of Saturday’s events, in which one spectator was killed and two others seriously injured.
The president, who is running for a second term, reminded Americans of what is at stake in November.
“These elections will shape the future of the United States for decades to come. I believe that with all my heart,” he said.
He has only used an Oval Office speech on two other occasions: last June, to commemorate the passage of a law averting a federal default, and in October, to discuss the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Biden will leave for Las Vegas on Monday. He will speak at the 115th NAACP National Convention on Tuesday and hold a campaign rally on Wednesday.
Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday night for the convention where he will be formally named the Republican presidential nominee.
The former president survived a horrific assassination attempt and emerged with only a wound to his right ear.
Law enforcement officials said they were treating Saturday’s shooting as a possible domestic terrorism attack and attempted murder.
As the campaign prepares to resume, Biden pointed to the violence seen across the political sphere in recent years, including an assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, a kidnapping plot for Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“We can allow this violence to become normalized,” Biden warned in his Oval Office speech.
“The political rhetoric in this country has become very heated. It’s time to calm it down,” he said. “We all have a responsibility to do that.”
It was the second time in a day that Biden addressed the country.
Earlier on Sunday, Biden warned Americans against making assumptions about the motive behind the assassination trip and said he ordered “every resource” available to protect his Republican rival.
“We still don’t have any information on the shooter’s motive,” Biden said Sunday from the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
“Don’t make assumptions about his motives,” the president urged. Some Republicans have already begun to blame Biden and his campaign rhetoric for the attempted assassination of his Republican rival.
Biden devoted much of his remarks to defending the Secret Service against criticism and rejecting accusations that not enough had been done to protect the former president.
The Secret Service denied that Trump was not given greater protection despite being the likely Republican presidential nominee.
“Mr. Trump, as a former president and the nominee of the Republican Party, already receives a heightened level of security. And I have followed my instructions in the Secret Service to provide him with all the resources, capabilities and protective measures necessary to ensure his continued safety,” Biden said.
Biden added that he has 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 following the assassination attempt.
He also said he was praying for the family of Corey Comperatore, the spectator who died at the Trump rally.
“We also send our deepest condolences to the family of the victim who was killed. He was a father who was protecting his family from the bullets being fired at him and he lost his life. May God bless him,” Biden said.
Questions have been raised about how Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old would-be assassin, was able to get to the roof of a building so close to the site of Trump’s rally.
Law enforcement officials said they do not believe Crooks was part of a larger plot and that their top priority was determining his motive.
The robbers grazed Trump’s ear, killed one bystander and injured two more before a counterattacking Secret Service agent killed him.
The protester who died was identified as Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief in the area, according to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who added that Comperatore “died a hero.”
“His wife told me he threw himself at his family to protect them,” Shapiro said.
Biden said the results of the investigation into the security measures at Trump’s rally would be made public and denounced the assassination attempt.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence or any kind of violence,” Biden said. “Attempted murder is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation. 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 Alejandro Mayorkas.
“We must come together as one nation,” Biden said. “We must come together as one nation to show who we are.”
The president said he has ordered a review of security measures at the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to begin Monday in Milwaukee.
Trump announced Sunday that he will travel to Wisconsin on Sunday afternoon.
“Due to the terrible events of yesterday, I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin and the Republican National Convention by two days, but I just decided that I cannot allow a ‘shooter’ or potential assassin to force me to change my schedule or anything else. Therefore, I will be leaving for Milwaukee, as planned, at 3:30 pm TODAY. Thank you!” she wrote on Truth Social.
He arrived there on Sunday night, getting off the plane unassisted.
Trump was taken to his home in Bedminster, New Jersey, after being released from the hospital on Saturday night.
His campaign said the convention will go on as planned.
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign 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 at 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, home of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, where she was to campaign against Republicans’ record on reproductive rights.
Biden’s campaign has pulled all television ads and suspended its digital operations. He is expected to resume campaign activities on Monday evening.
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