"Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is important than that right now — unity."
[Cheonji Daily Washington = Reporter Eloise Lee], July 14
President Biden spoke today from the Roosevelt Room to make the White House's position clear after the assassination attempt Donald Trump, during a campaign rally Saturday afternoon.
Biden shared that he had spoken with Trump on Saturday night, and that the two had a "short but good" conversation.
"I’m sincerely grateful that he’s doing well and recovering," Biden said. "Jill and I are keeping him and his family in our prayers." Biden also expressed condolences to the family of the victim, a father who was shielding his family, who was killed at the scene of the shooting.
Biden then called on Americans to unite in the wake of the violence committed yesterday.
"An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation. Everything. It’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not America, and we cannot allow this to happen," he said.
"Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is important than that right now — unity. We’ll debate, and we’ll disagree. That’s not going to change. But we’re going to not lose sight of the fact of who we are as Americans."
The call for unity comes at a time when presidential campaigning for the Republicans was reaching new heights against Democrat President Biden whose image as an "elderly man" was worsened by the first presidential debate last month, and accidentally calling the president of Ukraine "Putin" at the NATO Summit this week in Washington.
President Biden today made known that he has directed the head of the Secret Service to review all security measures Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to start tomorrow.
Biden also said he has directed an independent review of the national security at yesterday’s rally to assess what happened. "We''ll share the results of that independent review with the American people as well," he announced. He then shared that he will give an address to the nation from the Oval Office later this evening.
"I’ll be speaking more about this tonight at greater length from the Oval Office: We must unite as one nation. We must unite as one nation to demonstrate who we are," he concluded.