In a rare address from Oval Office, a day after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, President Joe Biden called on Americans to “lower the temperature”, resolve debates at the ballot box and not with bullets, reject violence and hate, and get out of their silos and listen to each other.
Biden, speaking on Sunday evening Eastern time (Monday morning IST), said that investigation agencies, so far, did not know the motivations, opinions, and linkages of the shooter who had attempted to kill Trump. “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,” he said.
One rally participant was killed at the rally and two remain critically injured. Secret Service agents killed the shooter, later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old Pennsylvania local, on the spot.
Biden placed the attack on Trump within the context of increased political violence in the US, specifically referring to the mob attack on the US Congress on January 6, 2021. He made it clear that his vision of America and Trump’s vision of America were at odds and the campaign will continue to witness this battle of ideas. At the same time, Biden’s speech had a strong presidential subtext that sought to project him above the fray and send a message of unity to a nation scarred after Saturday’s attack on Trump.
This was the third time Biden spoke within 24 hours since the attack. Sunday’s address came when Biden has been steadily losing his political space due to an internal backlash from his party after a disastrous debate performance. The attack on Trump has offered Biden a temporary reprieve internally, with public attention shifting to the former president. But the attack has also weakened the Democratic messaging on Trump as an enabler of violence and threat to democracy, enhanced Trump’s standing, and raised questions about the security lapses that allowed the attack in the first place.
Biden began his speech by pointing to the idea of common citizenship. “I want to speak to you tonight about the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics and to remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies. We are neighbours. We are friends, coworkers, citizens. And, most importantly, we are fellow Americans. And we must stand together.”
While American politics has always been contested, the rise of Trump since 2016 has deepened polarisation, with both parties portraying each other as an existential threat to the Republic and having fundamental disagreements about its future. Biden said Saturday’s shooting was the moment to take stock and how to move forward.
Biden said he had spoken to Trump on Saturday and was grateful he was fine. The President said that while there was a lot they didn’t know, he wanted to speak about what they did know.
“A former president was shot. An American citizen was killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing. We cannot, we must not go down this road in America. We have traveled it before throughout our history. Violence has never been the answer,” Biden said. He then referred to Congressional representatives from both parties being shot, the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, the attack on former House speaker and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul Pelosi, an attempted kidnapping plot against Michigan’s governor, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer, “intimidation on election officials”, and placed Trump’s assassination in that list of incidents.
Democrats have accused Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement of enabling many of the specific acts of violence that Biden mentioned.
Biden said there was no space in America for this kind of violence and they could not allow violence to be normalised. “You know, the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. And we all have a responsibility to do that.” He said that they had disagreements and this was both inevitable in American democracy and part of human nature. He reiterated that the stakes in the election were very high as it would determine the future of the world for decades. But politics, Biden said, must be an arena of peaceful debate. He warned that as elections approached, passions would become more fervent. “This places an added burden on each of us to ensure that no matter how strong our convictions, we must never descend into violence.”
Biden said that the Republican convention that commences on Monday would criticise him and his record, while he would travel over the week and push out his own message and vision and that’s how democracy ought to work. “We debate and disagree. We compare and contrast the character of the candidates, the records, the issues, the agenda, the vision for America. But in America, we resolve our differences at the..ballot box…not with bullets.”
Biden said that Americans needed to get out of their silos, “where we only listen to those with whom we agree, where misinformation is rampant, where foreign actors fan the flames of our division to shape the outcomes consistent with their interests, not ours”, and strive for unity.
He claimed that the founders recognised the power of passion, and therefore had created a system of government that gave reason and balance a chance over force. “That’s the America we must be, an American democracy where arguments are made in good faith, an American democracy where the rule of law is respected, an American democracy where decency, dignity, fair play aren’t just quaint notions, but living, breathing realities.”
