President Joe Biden addressed the nation on Sunday night after the failed assassination attempt on his opponent, Donald Trump, and called for Americans to turn down the political temperature.
Biden emphasized the need to unite the country after gunman Thomas Crooks opened fire at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, grazing the former president’s ear and killing one of his supporters.
The president listed a catalog of political violence in a close to six-minute address delivered from behind the Resolute Desk, saying, “It’s time to cool it down.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“All of us now face a testing,” the president said, while telling voters “hate has no safe harbor” in America.
Biden said it’s time for the nation to “take a step back” and dial back heated political rhetoric.
“We cannot go down this road in this country,” Biden said. “It’s time to cool it down. We all have a responsibility to do that.”
“Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy … but politics should never be a little battlefield and, God forbid, a killing field.”
Biden set the table for his Oval Office address earlier on Sunday afternoon by saying he’d told the Secret Service to do everything necessary to keep Trump safe.
The Sunday evening speech also marked the beginning of a new pivotal phase of the presidential race.
It was a rare Oval Office address from Biden, his first since the aftermath of the Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel last October. Biden’s re-election campaign also temporarily suspended its attack ads on Trump following the Saturday shooting.
Biden did, however, situate Trump’s graze with death in the context of other recent politically motivated attacks.
”Violence has never been the answer, whether it’s a violent mob attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, or a brutal attack on the spouse of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or intimidation of election officials, or the kidnapping plot against a sitting governor, or the attempted assassination of Donald Trump,” Biden said.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence, ever,” the president continued. “No exceptions.”
