Biden calls for unity in rare Oval Office address after Trump assassination attempt

President Joe Biden called for a peaceful return to politics in his address to the nation from the Oval Office on Sunday night, following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

“Politics should never be a small battlefield or, God forbid, a battlefield,” he said.

He called for unity and reminded Americans to express their differences through the ballot box.

But he made some major mistakes, including calling the ballot box “the battle bus” and using the term “old Trump” for former President Donald Trump.

However, his overall message did get across.

“The way forward through competing visions of the campaign must always be through peaceful means, not through violent actions,” he said.

Biden indicated that the Republican Party Convention begins tomorrow and that he would resume campaigning.

“This election will shape the coming decades. I believe that with all my soul,” he said.

Biden leaves for Las Vegas on Monday. He will address the 115th NAACP National Convention on Tuesday and hold a campaign event on Wednesday.

Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday evening for the party convention, where he will be officially named the Republican presidential candidate.

As the campaign prepares to resume, Biden pointed to the violence that has swept the political sphere in recent years, including the attempted assassination of 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.

Earlier on Sunday, Biden warned Americans against making assumptions about the motive behind the killings and said he was using “all available resources” to protect his Republican rival.

“We have no information yet on the shooter’s motive,” Biden said from the White House on Sunday.

“Don’t make assumptions about his motives,” the president implored. Some Republicans have already begun to blame Biden and his campaign rhetoric for the attempted assassination of his Republican rival.

Biden spent much of his speeches defending the Secret Service against criticism and rejecting accusations that it had not done enough to protect the former president.

The Secret Service denies that Trump is not receiving extra protection despite being the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

“Mr. Trump, as a former president and Republican nominee, already receives an enhanced level of security. And I have consistently directed 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 investigation into what happened at Saturday night’s meeting.

Biden said he spoke to Trump on Saturday night and was glad the former president was doing well after 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 murdered. He was a father, he protected his family from the bullets that were fired, lost his life. God bless him,” Biden said.

Questions have been raised about how Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old killer, was able to climb onto the roof of a building so close to the site of Trump’s rally.

Fraudsters grazed Trump’s ear, killed one spectator and wounded two more before a Secret Service agent shot him dead.

Biden said the results of the investigation into the protective measures at Trump’s rally would be made public. And he condemned the attempted assassination.

“There is no place in America for this kind of violence or any violence,” Biden said. “The attempted assassination goes against everything we stand for as a nation. It is not who we are as a nation. It is 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.

The president said he had ordered a review of security measures at the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday in Milwaukee.

Trump announced earlier on Sunday that he will travel to Wisconsin on Sunday afternoon.

“Given the terrible events of yesterday, I was going to postpone my trip to Wisconsin and the Republican National Convention by two days, but I have just decided that I cannot allow a “shooter” or potential murderer to force a change in schedule or anything else. Therefore, I will be leaving for Milwaukee today at 3:30 PM as planned. Thank you!” he wrote on Truth Social.

After Trump was released from the hospital, he was taken to his home in Bedminster, New Jersey.

His campaign team said the convention would go ahead as planned.

Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign is grappling with how to compete with Trump after the assassination attempt.

Biden postponed a planned trip to Texas on Monday, where he was to speak at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

And Vice President Kamala Harris postponed a trip to Palm Beach County, home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion, where she was supposed to campaign against Republicans’ stance on reproductive rights.

The Biden campaign has pulled all TV ads and suspended digital activities. It is unclear how long the pause will last.