Biden asks Americans to ‘cool it down’ after Trump shooting

US President Joe Biden used the formal setting of the White House Oval Office on Sunday (14 July) to ask Americans to lower the political temperature and remember they are neighbors after a would-be assassin wounded Republican rival Donald Trump.

Trump’s shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday “calls on all of us to take a step back,” Biden said. Thankfully Trump was not seriously injured, he said.

“We can’t allow this violence to be normalized. The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down,” he said. “We all have a responsibility to do this.”

“In America we resolve our differences at the ballot box. Now that’s how we do it. At the ballot box. Not with bullets,” Biden said in a speech that was about seven minutes long, and carried live by major news networks and the conservative channel Fox News.

It was Biden’s third use of the formal setting of the Oval Office to comment on issues of major importance to Americans since he took power in 2021. This time, it is less than four months to go before the 5 November election, and Biden’s political future is in doubt.

Biden’s appearance allowed him to demonstrate the power of incumbency, an important symbolic image as he battles some in his own Democratic Party who want the 81-year-old leader to step aside from seeking re-election out of concerns he lacks the mental acuity for another four-year term.

Biden ran through some of the US’s multiple instances of political violence in recent years, including the 6 January 2021, assault on the US Capitol by Trump loyalists and the hammer-beating injury of Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in 2022.

“Violence has never been the answer,” Biden said.

Four US presidents have been assassinated and several escaped assassination attempts. Multiple presidential candidates have been shot, some fatally.

White House officials hope the Trump shooting attempt might ease the pressure on Biden to step aside by prompting Democrats to rally around him.

Biden garbled a few words and phrases in his address, a regular occurrence for the president, but one in the spotlight after his faltering 27 June debate performance. After he finished the address, Fox News Channel and other conservative news outlets highlighted his stumbles.

Biden’s Oval address was a rare one. Last October he made a prime-time speech to comment on the Gaza and Ukraine conflicts and in June of 2023 he spoke when a deal was reached with Republicans to avoid a breach of the US debt ceiling.

His campaign has called off verbal attacks on Trump to focus instead on the future. Within hours of Saturday’s shooting, Biden’s campaign was pulling down television ads and suspending other political communications.

“Tonight I’m asking every American to recommit,” Biden said. “Hate must have no safe harbor.”

But he said it is fair to contrast his vision with that of the former president, and that he planned to do so soon. Biden called off a trip to Texas on Monday for a civil rights address but will go to Las Vegas Tuesday for a speech.

Republicans seek to pin political violence trend on Democrats

Within hours of the assassination attempt on Trump, many of his supporters began laying blame on Democrats, seeking to flip the script on who has stoked America’s heated political rhetoric as cases of political violence reach historic heights.

From establishment Republicans to far-right conspiracy theorists, a consistent message emerged that President Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders laid the groundwork for Saturday’s shooting by casting Trump as an autocrat who poses a grave threat to democracy.

A Reuters analysis of more than 200 incidents of politically motivated violence between 2021 and 2023, however, presented a different picture: In those years, fatal political violence more often emanated from the American right than from the left.

The US is embroiled in the most sustained spate of political violence since a decade of upheaval that began in the late 1960s, Reuters found in that report published last year. That violence has come from across the ideological spectrum, and includes extensive attacks on property during left-wing political demonstrations. But attacks on people — from beatings to killings — were perpetrated mostly by suspects acting in service of right-wing political beliefs and ideology.

Almost immediately after Saturday’s attack, right-wing websites were brimming with assertions that left-wing rhetoric motivated Trump’s assailant. Many commentators blamed the shooting on the Biden White House or pushed unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, including a claim that a shadowy “deep state” cabal within the government orchestrated it.

“Do not think this is going to be the last attempt to kill Trump. The Deep State really has no other choice now,” said a user on the pro-Trump website Patriots.Win. “It’s going to take borderline martial law to set the country right,” wrote another. One user called for a federal government purge. “It’s us or them.”

Before the shooting, Trump had not ruled out the possibility of political violence if he loses November’s election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he said when asked by TIME magazine in April if he expected violence after the 2024 election. He’s also refused to unconditionally accept the results of the upcoming election and warned of a “bloodbath” if he loses.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)

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