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Election 2024
MPR News Staff and The Associated Press
Updated:

In primetime address, Biden says country must not go down road of political violence

a man speaks at a podium
President Joe Biden speaks from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Sunday, July 14, 2024, about the apparent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Susan Walsh | AP

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President Joe Biden says “we can’t, we must not go down” the road of political violence in American after Saturday’s attempted Trump assassination.

In a prime-time national address, Biden said political passions can run high but “we must never descend into violence.”

Biden on Sunday appealed for the country to “unite as one nation” after the attempted assassination of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and said he was ordering an independent security review of how such an attack could have happened.

Biden delivered short afternoon remarks from the White House after receiving a briefing on the investigation in the Situation Room. He called for a “thorough and swift" review and asked the public not to “make assumptions” about the shooter's motives or affiliations.

The president said he has also directed the U.S. Secret Service to review all security measures for the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday in Milwaukee.

“An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation. Everything. It’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not American. And we cannot allow this to happen," Biden said. “Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is more important than that right now."

Biden planned to deliver extended remarks to the nation Sunday evening in an address from the Oval Office.

trump rally shooting
Law enforcement officers work at the campaign rally site for Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is empty and littered with debris Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa.
Evan Vucci | AP

In the meantime, the president said he and first lady Jill Biden were praying for the family of Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who was shot and killed during the Trump rally Saturday night in Butler, Pa.

“He was protecting his family from the bullets," Biden said. "God love him.”

The president also said he'd had a “short but good conversation” with Trump in the hours after the attack and that he was “sincerely grateful” that the former president is “doing well and recovering.”

Trump, who has called for national resilience since the shooting, posted on his social media account after Biden's remarks, “UNITE AMERICA!”