President Biden urged the nation to unite in a rare Oval Office address on Sunday night – a day after a gunman tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally.
“My fellow Americans, I want to speak to you tonight about the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics and to remember that while we may disagree, we are not enemies,” the 81-year-old president said.
“We are neighbors, we are friends, coworkers, citizens, and most importantly we are fellow Americans. We must stand together.”
Biden said that he was “grateful” that Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, survived with only a graze wound and hailed rally attendee Corey Comperatore, 50, who was fatally shot, as a “hero.”
The president used his nearly 7-minute address to call on viewers to “step back and take stock of where we are and how we go forward from here.”
“Thankfully, former Trump [sic] is not seriously injured. I spoke to him last night. I’m grateful he’s doing well and Jill and I keep him and his family in our prayers,” Biden said.
“We also extend our deepest condolences to the family of the victim who was killed. Corey was a husband, a father, a volunteer firefighter, a hero, sheltering his family from those bullets. We should all hold his family and all those injured in our prayers.”
Comperatore, 50, served as the fire chief for nearby Buffalo Township.
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Biden, who has taken heat from Republicans for calling on Democrats to put a metaphorical “bullseye” on Trump, 78, last Monday, called on the public to not rush to judgment about what motivated gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was killed by the Secret Service.
“We do not know the motive of the shooter yet. We don’t know his opinions or affiliations. We don’t know if he had help or support or whether he communicated with anyone else. Law enforcement professionals as I speak are investigating those questions,” Biden said.
“Tonight, I want to speak to what we do know. A former president was shot, an American citizen killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing. We cannot, we must not go down this road in America. We’ve traveled it before through our history.”
Biden associated the shooting with other jarring incidents of what he described as political violence, including the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol and a failed 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“Violence has never been the answer, whether it’s been with members of both parties being targeted and shot, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, or a brutal attack on the spouse of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or intimidation of election officials, or a kidnapping plot against a sitting governor or an attempted assassination on Donald Trump,” Biden said.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence ever, period, no exceptions. We cannot allow this violence to be normalized.”
Biden called on Americans to sort out their differences with “the ballot box, not with bullets.”
Everything we know about Trump assassination attempt
- Former President Donald Trump was targeted by a shooter during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania
- Trump’s face was grazed by a bullet during the shooting
- The gunman and one bystander have been killed
- President Biden addressed the nation and referred to the shooting as sick, saying he “tried to get ahold of Donald”
- Exclusive: First photos of Thomas Matthew Crooks emerge after assassination attempt
- Donald Trump urges the nation to not let ‘evil win’ and ‘fear not’ after shooting
- World leaders condemn ‘political violence’ at Trump rally: ‘Can’t take anything for granted’
Keep up to date on updates with The Post’s live blog on the assassination attempt on Trump
“All of us now face the time of testing as the election approaches. And the higher the stakes, the more fervent the passions become,” Biden said.
“This places an added burden on each of us to ensure no matter how strong our convictions, it must never descend into violence.”
Biden also called on listeners to reach out to people of different viewpoints — while also warning against “misinformation,” a term the Biden White House has applied in the past to factual information.
“Here in America we need to get out of our silos, where we only listen to those with whom we agree, where misinformation is rampant, where foreign actors fan the flames of our division to shape the outcomes consistent with their interests, not ours,” he said.
Ahead of the assassination attempt, Biden faced mounting calls to step aside following a disastrous June 27 debate performance against Trump, including from at least 20 House Democrats and one Democratic senator.
Biden has insisted he will continue his campaign for a second term, despite broad concerns about his cognitive fitness and the fact that he is trailing Trump in most national and swing-state polls.