President Joe Biden said yesterday he ordered a review of federal security surrounding Republican Donald Trump, his rival in the 2024 election, after Trump was wounded and a spectator was killed at a political rally in Pennsylvania.
The suspected shooter evaded Secret Service agents tasked with protecting Trump and climbed onto the roof of a building near where Trump was speaking and fired multiple shots before being killed by law enforcement agents.
Speaking at the White House, Biden said he had directed the Secret Service to review all security measures in place for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week where Trump will be formally nominated as the party’s presidential candidate to face Biden in the November 5 election.
In addition, he said he had ordered “an independent review of the national security at yesterday’s rally to assess exactly what happened.” He said the results would be shared with the American people.
Biden said the FBI’s investigation into the incident was in its early stages and he has ordered it to be thorough and swift.
“I urge everyone, everyone please, don’t make assumptions about his motives or affiliations. Let the FBI do their job and their partner agencies do their job,” he said.
Republican lawmakers said they would investigate the Secret Service role as well, with some blaming the perceived agency lapses on Biden. Political violence has risen in the US in recent years, with most of the deadly attacks coming from right-wing groups and individuals.
Biden, a Democrat, has been locked in a bitter campaign battle with former president Trump ahead of the November 5 election, and said he would address the American people on the need for unity.
“Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is more important than that right now — unity. We’ll debate and we’ll disagree. That’s not going to change. But we’re not going to lose sight of who we are as Americans,” he said.
Biden said he had a short but good conversation with Trump on Saturday night and that he is “sincerely grateful that he is doing well and recovering.”
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence or any violence for that matter. An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for ... as a nation — everything,” he said.
Meanwhile Biden’s reelection campaign quickly upended its strategy after the assassination attempt on Trump, calling off verbal attacks on the former president to focus instead on a message of unity.
Within hours of Saturday’s shooting, Biden’s campaign was pulling down television ads and suspending other political communications, including those that had highlighted Trump’s May felony conviction in New York state court relating to hush money paid to an adult star to avert a sex scandal before the 2016 US election.
Rather than verbally attacking Trump in the coming days, the White House and the Biden campaign will draw on the president’s history of condemning all sorts of political violence including his sharp criticism of the “disorder” created by campus protests over the Israel-Gaza conflict, campaign officials said on condition of anonymity.
“This changes everything,” one campaign official said of the assassination attempt. “We’re still assessing. Making the case against Trump, drawing that split screen, will get much harder.”
“The president is trying to lower the temperature,” the official added.