President Joe Biden condemned political violence after Donald Trump survived a second assassination attempt as the former president cast blame on him and Vice President Kamala Harris for the foiled plot.
“In America, there is no place for political violence,” Biden told the National HBCU Week Conference Monday afternoon in Philadelphia. “In America, we resolve our differences peacefully at the ballot box, not at the end of a gun. America’s suffered too many times the tragedy of an assassin’s bullet. It solves nothing. It just tears the country apart. We must do everything we can to prevent it and never give it any oxygen.”
Biden also commended the Secret Service for its “expert handling” of the situation, with Trump remaining unharmed.
“As the subject is in custody, an acting head of the Secret Service is in Florida today assessing what happened and determining whether any further adjustments need to be made to ensure the safety of our former president,” he said.
Biden told reporters Monday morning that the Secret Service “needs more help” and that Congress “should respond to their needs.”
“That’s what we’re going to be talking about,” he said. “They’re deciding whether they need more personnel or not.”
In his brief remarks to reporters Monday and in a statement released on Sunday after the incident, Biden also relayed his relief that Trump was not hurt this time around. Trump’s ear was injured during the attempt on his life in July in Pennsylvania.
“Thank God the president is OK,” Biden said Monday on the South Lawn before departing the White House for Philadelphia.
At roughly the same time, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, appeared in federal court in Florida and was charged with federal gun crimes, including possessing a firearm despite a prior felony conviction and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Prosecutors allege the Secret Service opened fire at him after seeing a person with a weapon near Trump’s West Palm Beach, Florida, golf club while he was golfing.
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Trump has criticized Biden, Harris, and other Democrats for their rhetoric, complaining they have encouraged the assassination attempts.
“He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump said to Fox News about Routh. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out.”