After an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Saturday, President Joe Biden delivered a rare Oval Office address Sunday night intended to “lower the temperature” in an already overheated political race.
“While we may disagree, we are not enemies,” Biden said Sunday night. “We’re neighbors, we’re friends, co-workers, citizens, and most importantly, we are fellow Americans.”
“We must stand together,” Biden continued. “Yesterday’s shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania calls on all of us to take a step back.”
The theme echoes reactions from the majority of Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who have called for a pause on the animated rhetoric in the wake of an assassination attempt that left one man dead, two people critically injured and Trump with a bloody ear in an extraordinarily close call.
Despite the conciliatory tone, Biden notably didn’t shy away from hitting some of the themes he’s made a fixture in his campaign for reelection, like Jan. 6 and the stakes of the election for democracy itself. He mentioned in his roughly six-minute speech the threats to campaign workers, which followed Trump’s false claims of election fraud during the 2020 election, and the attack on former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, which Donald Trump Jr. and other Republicans have openly ridiculed.
“Violence has never been the answer,” Biden said, “whether it’s with members of Congress of both parties being targeted and shot, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, or brutal attack on the spouse of former speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.”
While the Republican message has been that Biden needs to turn down his campaign pitch — while also ignoring Trump’s own fiery rhetoric — the president signaled that he has little intention of adjusting his tenor. Instead, he pointed out how Democrats and Republicans have both been victims of political violence.
The president continued by name-checking the “intimidation” of election officials, a kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the “attempted assassination on Donald Trump.”
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence, ever. Period. No exceptions,” Biden said.
Although the president’s speech seemed to be largely well-received, there were already signs that Republicans may not find the address as presidential as some Democrats.
Biden’s insistence on continuing to mention “the stakes” of this election has already become a controversial topic in the day after the shooting Saturday night.
Earlier on Sunday, Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that Biden needed to tone down how he speaks about the consequences of electing Trump.
“When the message goes out constantly that the election of Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy and that the republic would end, it heats up the environment,” Johnson said on NBC. “We can not do that. It’s simply not true.”
But Biden didn’t seem to agree Sunday night.
“The stakes in this election are enormously high,” he said. “I’ve said it many times that the choice in this election, we make in this election, is going to shape the future of America and the world for decades to come.”
Republicans will almost certainly take note of Biden continuing to speak in such stark terms — particularly in a speech about cooling down the rhetoric and calling out political violence — but Democrats might also note some of Biden’s speaking stumbles in the address.
As Biden fights to maintain his status as the Democratic nominee, his words and delivery are receiving incredible scrutiny from every direction. While the speech was overall one of his stronger performances recently, it was difficult not to notice Biden tripping over some words and misspeaking as he read off a teleprompter that reflected off the back window in the Oval Office.
He was thankful that “former Trump,” not former President Trump, wasn’t seriously injured. He said “battle box” instead of the “ballot box” at one point. He also said that he believed America was the greatest country with “every soul” instead of “all of my soul.”
For the time being, however, Democrats appear more willing to put Biden’s flubs on the back burner, according to Axios. And with the Republican National Convention starting on Monday, the attention in the political world will be more on the GOP than Biden.
Trump has already announced that he’ll move forward with his convention plans as expected, though security is expected to be beefed up. The FBI is taking the lead on an investigation into what happened in Pennsylvania, and members of Congress are figuring out what their role will be, with some calling for hearings.
For now, Democrats have paused fundraising efforts and taken down some of their political advertising.
As for the American people, Biden used his platform to urge everyone to cool off.
“Politics must never be a literal battlefield, and God forbid, a killing field,” Biden said.
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.