US President Joe Biden has used a prime-time television address from the Oval Office to urge Americans to shun political violence and come together to protect the nation’s democracy.
Speaking a day after an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, Biden said that political passions can run high but “competing visions of the campaign should always be resolved peacefully, not through acts of violence.”
“The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin,” Biden said.
He said passions were running high on both sides and the stakes of the election were enormous but that violence was not the answer.
“We can do this,” Biden implored, saying the nation was founded on a democracy that gave reason and balance a chance to prevail over brute force.
“American democracy: where arguments are made in good faith. American democracy: where the rule of law is respected. Where decency, dignity, fair play aren’t just quaint notions, they’re living, breathing realities.”
Earlier on Sunday, Biden condemned the attempted assassination of his predecessor as “contrary to everything we stand for as a nation” and said he was ordering an independent security review of how such an attack could have happened.
Donald Trump was shot at and hit in the ear during a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday.
One member of the audience was killed and two others were wounded in the shooting, said to have been carried out with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
The shooter, named by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.
A motive for the shooting is still being investigated.
One of Crooks’ former classmates described him as a loner who was bullied at school.
“I mean, he would sit alone at lunch and you was just an outcast. And you know how kids you are nowadays. So if we don’t see someone like that and they’re going target him because they think it’s funny or whatever. It’s the best way I can describe it. It’s honestly kinda sad,” said Jason Kohler.
Former First Lady Melania Trump published an online statement condemning the shooting and urging Americans “to ascend above the hate.” She thanked Secret Service agents and law enforcement officers and referred to the shooter as, “a monster.”
“When I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life and Barron’s life were on the brink of devastating change,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, security is being beefed up for the Republican National Convention, which is going ahead despite the shooting and due to start in Milwaukee on Monday.
Around 2,400 delegates from around the country will attend and are widely expected to name Trump as their candidate to run in November’s presidential election.
On his Truth Social account, Trump said he had originally planned to delay his trip to the convention but will attend on schedule, saying he “cannot allow a ‘shooter’ or potential assassin to force change to scheduling.”
Euronews
