Joe Biden urges America to ‘lower temperature’ after Trump shooting

US President Joe Biden has condemned the assassination attempt on his predecessor Donald Trump in a primetime address from the White House, telling Americans that US politics must never be a “killing field”.

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, was wounded in the ear when a gunman opened fire at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The attack resulted in one death and left two others critically injured.

During the Oval Office address, marking just the third of his presidency, Biden urged Americans to “take a step back” and highlighted the dangers of increasingly heated political rhetoric in the country.

“No matter how strong our convictions, we must never descend into violence,” Mr Biden said in remarks that lasted just under seven minutes.

His short, but forceful, address largely went off without a hitch, amid ongoing scrutiny following a number of high-profile verbal slips.

In his primetime address, the president called on Americans to come together and warned that increasing political polarisation meant November’s election would be “a time of testing”.

Mr Biden and Trump remain locked neck-and-neck in opinion polls ahead of the election.

Speaking from behind the Resolute Desk, Mr Biden listed off a growing number of violent political acts that have taken place in recent years.

“We cannot, must not, go down this road again. We’ve travelled it before in our history,” he said, citing shootings targeting congressional members in both parties, the assault on ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband and the 6 January riots.

“In America we resolve our differences at the ballot box,” he said. “At the ballot box. Not with bullets.”

Saturday’s attack left America stunned as Trump was struck in the ear shortly after he began speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In images broadcast around the world, the 78-year-old was seen with blood dripping from his ear and down his face, raising a defiant fist as Secret Service agents escorted him off stage and into a waiting car.

The gunman, identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead at the scene by Secret Service agents. Law enforcement officials told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that explosive materials were discovered in his nearby vehicle and at his home.

Officials are still investigating the motive behind the attack. Media reports indicate that Crooks was a registered Republican who had previously donated $15 to a liberal campaign group in 2021.

Classmates described Crooks as a quiet young man who was bullied throughout school. A local gun club near his home in Pennsylvania confirmed he was a member.

In his speech, President Biden said he was praying for the family of Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old former firefighter who was shot and killed, along with two others who were critically injured, during the rally. Comperatore, a father of two, was killed while shielding his family from bullets that flew past Trump and struck members of the audience.

Biden called Comperatore a “hero” who was killed “while simply exercising his freedom to support a candidate of his choosing.”

Allies of Trump have been quick to blame President Biden and his campaign for the attack, alleging that the top Democrat had sought to stoke fears about his rival’s return to office.

“The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs,” JD Vance – a Republican senator who is under consideration for the vice-presidential nomination – wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

President Biden avoided addressing those criticisms in his Sunday night address, though his campaign has temporarily pulled attack ads against Trump.

The former president has sought to strike a conciliatory tone since the shooting, thanking his Secret Service detail for their quick actions and calling on citizens to “stand united” and “show our True Character as Americans.”

He arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday night for the Republican National Convention, where he will accept his party’s nomination for president.

Trump is also expected to announce his running mate. US media reports indicate that three men are still under consideration for the vice-presidential slot: Florida Senator Marco Rubio, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance.

In a news conference earlier on Sunday, the Secret Service stated they had no plans to impose additional security measures around the convention, expressing satisfaction with existing arrangements.

The agency has come under scrutiny regarding how Crooks was able to get so close to Trump, despite members of the audience reportedly pointing him out to police.