Biden addresses nation on Trump’s shooting, tries to balance politics with calls for unity

WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden will address the nation on Sunday afternoon following a briefing in the Situation Room about the suspected assassination attempt on his predecessor, Donald Trump.

Biden immediately condemned the shooting and spoke with Trump afterward. His campaign team, meanwhile, is grappling with the question of how to deal with the political fallout from an attack on the man Biden is seeking to defeat in the November election.

Biden’s planned remarks come after Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement officials briefed the president and the White House continued to call for national unity and condemn the incredible act of violence.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Biden received an update alongside senior investigators, including Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray. Also in attendance were White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Kim Cheatle, the director of U.S. National Intelligence.

Trump himself called for unity and national resilience, and his aides said he was in “good spirits and doing well” after being injured at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He is pushing ahead with plans to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week, where Biden and the Democrats are sure to face harsh criticism.

Shortly after the shooting, Biden’s campaign announced that it had “suspended all outbound communications channels and is working to pull our television advertising as quickly as possible.” How long the suspension would last was unclear.

According to a campaign official, in light of Saturday’s shooting, Harris postponed her campaign trip to Florida, which was planned for Tuesday, where she planned to meet with Republican voters.

Investigators are still in the early stages of their efforts to determine what happened and why, but some Biden critics accuse the president of telling donors in a private phone call on July 8: “It’s time to target Trump.”

A person familiar with the comments said Sunday that the president was pointing out that Trump had gotten away with a light public schedule after last month’s U.S. debate, while he himself was under close scrutiny from many, even within his own party, for his dismal performance at the debate.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely about private conversations.

In the conference call with donors, Biden said: “I have one job, and that is to defeat Donald Trump… I am absolutely certain that I am the best person to do it.”

He continued: “So, we’re talking about the debate now. It’s time to take aim at Trump. He’s gotten away with doing nothing for the last ten days except driving around in his golf cart and bragging about results he didn’t get… Anyway, I’m not going to comment on his golf game.”

In his initial reaction to the shooting on Saturday night, Biden condemned the attempt on Trump’s life. The White House also said at the time that the two men had spoken to each other, but did not provide details.

“Look, there is no place for this kind of violence in America,” Biden said Saturday night before returning to the White House from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he had spent the weekend. “This is sick. This is sick. This is one of the reasons we have to unite this country. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.”