In a speech from the White House on Sunday afternoon, President Joe Biden addressed yesterday’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and warned Americans not to make “assumptions about [the shooter’s] motives or its affiliations.”
He spoke about the importance of national unity and promised to share more about it during a speech in the Oval Office on Sunday evening at 8 p.m. ET.
The president also spoke about the “short but good conversation” he had with Trump earlier today, adding that “Jill and I are keeping him and his family in our prayers.”
Biden cited the briefing he held earlier Sunday in the White House Situation Room, which included Vice President Kamala Harris and top White House advisers.
Biden also said he has asked the director of the Secret Service to review all security measures for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which begins tomorrow. The president also said he has requested an independent review of security at yesterday’s event and pledged to make the results of that review public.
The president spoke out strongly against political violence, echoing his comments on Saturday night.
“An attempted assassination goes against everything we stand for as a nation,” he said Sunday.
Biden’s comments came a day after Trump was shot at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
In his first remarks in response to the Saturday night shooting, Biden condemned the violence, saying, “It’s sick. It’s sick. It’s one of the reasons we have to unite this country. … We cannot condone this.”