WASHINGTON — President Biden called the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump “sick” and said he tried to call his general-election rival at the hospital following the shooting at a Pennsylvania rally.
“I have tried to get a hold of Donald. He’s with his doctors. Apparently he’s doing well. I plan on talking to him shortly, I hope, when I get back to the telephone,” the 81-year-old president said near his Rehoboth Beach, Del., vacation home.
“Look, there’s no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick. It’s sick. It’s one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.”
Biden said “I want to thank the Secret Service and all the agency, including the state agencies, that have been engaged.”
The commander in chief did not acknowledge reports that one rally attendee had died, in addition to the suspected shooter.
“We have more detail to come relative to other injured — other people may be injured in the audience. I don’t have all that detail. We’ll make that available to you. I may be able to come back a little later tonight, but we’ll put out a statement if we don’t — if I’m not able to, if it’s not convenient for you all,” Biden went on.
“But the bottom line is that the Trump rally was a rally that he should have been able to be conducted peacefully without any problem. But the idea, the idea that there’s political violence, or violence in America like this is just unheard of, is just not appropriate.”
The president said “everybody must condemn it.”
“I’ll keep you informed. And if I am able to speak to Donald, I’ll let you know that as well,” he said. “So far, it appears he’s doing well.”
Biden concluded, “I’m going back to my phone to speak with the federal agencies that are being put together, again, to give me an updated briefing as anything happened, if they learned more in the last couple hours. So thank you very much, and I hope I get to speak to him tonight, and I’ll get back to you if I do.”
In response to a reporter’s question, the president said “I don’t know enough” to say if it was indeed an assassination attempt.
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