Biden later spoke by phone with Trump, 78, the White House said, but it did not elaborate on the call.
DELAWARE:
US President Joe Biden called for an end to political violence after Republican challenger Donald Trump was shot in the right ear at a rally on Saturday. Biden’s campaign suspended all political communications, including ads attacking Trump.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence. It is sick,” Biden said, adding that he was intimately familiar with the issue and planned to speak to Trump. “Everybody should condemn it,” Biden said.
The shooter’s name, political affiliation and motivation are not known.
The president, 81, was at a church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, when the shooting occurred and later went to his home. After delivering a written statement, Biden left the Delaware beach house in his motorcade and went to a local police station to speak on camera about the incident.
Asked whether he believes the shooting was an attempted assassination, Biden replied, “I have an opinion, but I don’t know all the facts.”
The White House said Biden later spoke by phone with Trump, 78, but no further details of the call were provided.
A Biden campaign official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the team was “working to remove our TV ads as quickly as possible” in response to the gravity of the moment. The aide did not provide further details.
Biden’s political future has been in doubt since his shaky debate against Trump on June 27, prompting his own party to step aside and allow a younger candidate to run in November.
I was standing there and suddenly it sounded like fireworks being set off.
In recent weeks, the Biden campaign has made an aggressive effort to brand Trump as a criminal, rolling out a new television ad focused on Trump’s conviction.
The ad was part of a $50 million investment in key states and marked a change in strategy after initially being reluctant to speak out on the issue in order to avoid Trump’s legal troubles.
Trump was convicted by a New York jury on May 30 of 34 felony counts, including falsifying business records in connection with the cover-up of a payment to silence a porn star in the run-up to the 2016 election.
After the shooting, Sen. J.D. Vance, a leading Trump presidential candidate, criticized Biden’s campaign for portraying Trump as an authoritarian who “must be stopped at all costs.” He suggested that this rhetoric led to the attack.
The former Republican president’s campaign rhetoric has repeatedly raised concerns that, if elected, he could violate democratic norms by using state power to target perceived enemies.
Political violence is on the rise in the United States, experts say, with the deadliest attacks coming mainly from the right.
In April, Trump shared a video on social media showing Biden tied up and strapped into the bed of a pickup truck.
