For the third time in 24 hours, US President Joe Biden appeared on Sunday to address citizens over Saturday’s attack on Donald Trump, in which the former president was slightly injured. Biden spoke to Americans from the Oval Office of the White House, in a televised speech in prime time, something reserved for exceptional occasions. The president launched a plea against violence: “We resolve our differences at the ballot box. That’s how we do it: at the ballot box, not with bullets. The power to change America must always be in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a potential assassin,” he said.
The president has called for “lowering the temperature” of American politics and has insisted that the attack on Trump proves the need to cool tempers. “Even if we don’t agree, we are not enemies,” he said. “Yesterday’s shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania calls on us all to take a step back, to take stock of where we are, and how to move forward from here,” he continued.
Biden explained that there is much that is still unknown about the attack, but some things are clear: “A former president was shot. An American citizen was killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choice.”
“No matter how strong our convictions are, we must never descend into violence,” Biden said. “We cannot, we must not, continue down this path in America. There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any kind of violence. Period. No exceptions. We cannot allow this violence to be normalized.”
When the president listed the episodes of political violence that he considers unacceptable, he cited the attack on Trump in a list that includes many other episodes justified or minimized by Trump supporters: the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the attack on the husband of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, the intimidation of electoral officials, or the kidnapping plot against the governor of Michigan. “Politics should never be a literal battlefield and, God forbid, a field of death,” he stressed.
“We are all now facing a testing moment as the elections approach,” he added.
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“We debate and we disagree. We compare and contrast the candidates’ character, their track records, their issues, their platform, their vision for America, but in America we resolve our differences at the ballot box,” he said emphatically.
“Here in the United States, we need to get out of our silos, where we only listen to those we agree with, where misinformation is rampant, where foreign actors fan the flames of our division to shape outcomes consistent with their interests, not ours,” the president added.
A message of unity
Biden had already launched a message of unity to Americans in his two previous appearances, in which he unequivocally condemned the attack on his political rival. This Sunday morning he insisted that “there is no place in the United States for this type of violence or for any violence.” “An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation. Everything. It is not who we are as a nation. It is not America, and we cannot allow this to happen,” he emphasized.
“Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is more important than that right now: unity. We will debate and we will disagree. That is not going to change. But we are not going to lose sight of who we are as Americans,” he said. “We must come together as a nation. We must come together as a nation to show who we are,” he concluded his morning remarks.
Despite the unanimous condemnation, some Republicans have placed direct blame for the attack on Biden. Particularly notable is the position of JD Vance, one of the favorites to be Trump’s running mate as vice presidential candidate. Vance said the shooting was “not an isolated incident.” “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric directly led to the attempted assassination of President Trump,” he tweeted. “Let’s be clear: this was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical left and corporate media who incessantly call Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse,” wrote Senator Tim Scott.
Biden has persistently called Trump a threat to democracy, right up until Saturday’s attack, for his refusal to accept his electoral defeat, his rejection of the peaceful and orderly transfer of power, his support for those who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and for his xenophobic and authoritarian rhetoric, in which he has said that he will be a dictator on day one and has used language typical of Nazi Germany.
That has been one of Biden’s key lines of attack against Trump during the campaign and there is no doubt that the attack against the former president conditions the use of this type of message.
Trump, meanwhile, has emerged as a hero of the attack. His political instinct led him to raise his fist in triumph and defiance to convey to his followers that he was fine, that he was not afraid or cowed, despite the trail of blood coming from his ear. The iconic image of him standing powerfully with the American flag in the background above his head is the best electoral poster he could have imagined.
The former president traveled this Sunday from his club in New Jersey to Milwaukee (Wisconsin), where the Republican convention begins on Monday that will crown him not only as a presidential candidate but also as the undisputed leader of the party. Trump considered delaying his arrival in the wake of the attack, but ultimately decided to stick to his original plan to prevent a gunman from affecting his political agenda.
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