Biden addresses Trump rally shooting in Oval Office address: “Politics must never be a literal battlefield”

Washington — President Biden addressed the nation Sunday night from the Oval Office, saying the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump requires Americans “to take a step back” to determine “how we go forward from here.” 

“We can’t allow this violence to be normalized,” Mr. Biden said. “The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. We all have a responsibility to do that.” 

He added that “politics must never be a literal battlefield, God forbid, a killing field.” 

The president cited a number of violent political acts in recent years, including the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, a foiled plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the intimidation of election officials. 

Mr. Biden said, “In America, we resolve our differences” at the ballot box, “not with bullets.”

“The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin,” he said.

It’s the third time the president has made remarks about the incident, urging Americans not to jump to conclusions as the investigation continues. 

The president on Saturday night briefly denounced the shooting that took place at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden again addressed the incident, which left Trump with a bloody ear, on Sunday afternoon. Mr. Biden said he had “a short but good conversation” with his political rival on Saturday night, but he did not elaborate.

“I’m sincerely grateful that he’s doing well and recovering,” Mr. Biden said, adding that he had ordered an independent review of the security and events at the Pennsylvania rally to determine what went wrong. 

A Secret Service sniper killed the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, after he fired a series of shots within minutes of Trump taking the stage. Trump said a bullet pierced part of his right ear. Bullets that missed Trump killed one bystander and critically injured two others. The gunman’s motive has not been determined and investigators are piecing together details about his life. 

“An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation — everything,” Mr. Biden said in his remarks earlier Sunday. “It’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not America, and we cannot allow this to happen.” 

The president urged Americans to come together amid deep divisions, saying “unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is [more] important than that right now.” 

FBI officials said Sunday that violent rhetoric online has increased in the aftermath of the shooting. 

Throughout the week, the president is expected to remind Americans that stopping political violence was one of the reasons he decided to run for president in 2020 and why he’s running again for reelection, even as many in his own party are questioning whether he should remain on the ticket. Since his unsteady debate against Trump last month, a number of House Democrats have been calling for him to give up the Democratic nomination. 

Last week, Mr. Biden said in a news conference that he didn’t feel his job was finished and that he didn’t transition to a new generation of Democrats because “we have never been here before … I have to finish this job because there’s so much at stake.”