President Joe Biden made an earnest plea for Americans to tone down the political rhetoric and pull together as a nation in the aftermath of Saturday’s shocking assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump , Biden’s Republican presidential rival in November. “Political rhetoric has gotten very heated,” Biden said in a rare Oval Office address that aired live across multiple networks at 8 p.m.
ET. “It’s time to cool it down.” Biden expressed his concern for Trump, who was hit on the ear by a bullet while holding a rally in Butler, Penn.
, as well as the Pennsylvania man who was caught in the crossfire with the Secret Service and another man wounded at the Saturday rally. The deadly political violence is yet another shocking development in a presidential race between Biden and Trump that has been without precedent. “We must stand together,” Biden said during his six-minute address.
The president urged his audience to remember that despite political differences, “we are not enemies, we’re neighbors, we’re friends, co-workers, citizens, most importantly, we’re fellow Americans. We must stand together. Yesterday’s shooting calls on all of us to take a step back, take stock of where we are and how we go forward from here.
” More to come.
