President Joe Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office on Sunday night during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, about Saturday’s assassination attempt on President Donald Trump. Biden also spoke publicly about the shooting on Sunday afternoon and Saturday evening.
After the attack (which reportedly left President Trump grazed by a bullet in his ear, a former fire chief shot dead and two others seriously injured), Biden returned to the White House and held a briefing in the White House Situation Room with his security team.
Biden announced in a speech Sunday afternoon that he had ordered a review of security arrangements for the Republican National Convention, which begins on Monday, and vowed to order an “independent review” of security for Saturday’s rally and make its findings public to the nation.
Biden also called on Americans to “Coming together as one nation and showing who we are.”
On Sunday night, Biden began by saying, “We need to ease political tensions and remember that while we may have differences, we are neighbors, not enemies. We are friends, we are colleagues, we are citizens. And most importantly, we are fellow Americans. And we must come together.”
Biden said he had spoken with President Trump and offered his condolences to the families of the murdered victims.
“A former president was shot and Americans were murdered simply for exercising their freedom to support the candidate of their choice. America cannot and must not go down this path,” Biden continued.
“We’ve seen this before throughout history. Violence has never been the answer. Not when lawmakers of both parties have been targeted and shot, not when rioters stormed the Capitol on January 6th, not when former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s spouse was brutally attacked. Not when election officials have been threatened, not when an attempted kidnapping of a sitting governor, not when an assassination attempt was made on Donald Trump. There is no room for this kind of violence, any kind of violence, in America. Period. No exceptions. This kind of violence cannot be allowed to become the norm.”
Biden stressed the importance of the upcoming election and acknowledged that people don’t agree on the direction the country should go.
“Disagreements are inevitable in an American democracy,” he continued. “It’s human nature. But politics should never become a little battlefield or, pray to God, a killing field. I believe politics should be a place of peaceful debate; to pursue justice; to make decisions in accordance with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We stand for an America of civility and grace, not an America of extremism and rage.”
At the end of his speech, Biden called on Americans to “never lose sight of who we are.”
“If we work together, nothing is beyond our capabilities,” he said.
You can watch Biden’s remarks below.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include quotes from Biden.
