By WILL WEISSERT and ZEKE MILLER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement officials briefed President Joe Biden on Sunday on the suspected assassination attempt on his predecessor, Donald Trump, because the White House continued to call for national unity and condemn the incredible act of violence.
Vice President Kamala Harris met with Biden to receive an update from key investigators.
Biden immediately condemned the shooting and spoke with Trump on Saturday evening. His campaign team, meanwhile, is grappling with find out how to handle the political fallout from an attack on the person Biden is searching for to defeat within the November election.
Trump himself called for unity and national resilience, and his aides said he was in “high spirits and doing well” after being injured at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. He is pushing ahead with plans to attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week, where Biden and the Democrats are sure to face harsh criticism.
Shortly after the shooting, Biden's campaign announced that it was “suspending all outbound communications channels and working to pull our television advertising as quickly as possible.” It was unclear how long the suspension would last.
Harris postponed a planned campaign trip to Florida on Tuesday, where she was to satisfy
amongst Republican voters in light of Saturday's shooting, in keeping with a campaign official.
Investigators are still within the early stages of their efforts to find out what happened and why, but some Biden critics accuse the president of telling donors in a personal phone call on July 8: “It's time to target Trump.”
An individual aware of the comments said Sunday that the president was mentioning that Trump had gotten away with a light-weight public schedule after last month's U.S. debate, while he himself was under close scrutiny from many, even inside his own party, for his dismal performance at the talk.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity with the intention to speak more freely about private conversations.
He continued: “So, we're talking about the debate now. It's time to take aim at Trump. He's gotten away with doing nothing for the last ten days except driving around in his golf cart and bragging about results he didn't get… Anyway, I'm not going to comment on his golf game.”
In his first response to the shooting on Saturday night, Biden condemned the attack on Trump. The White House said the 2 men spoke on Saturday night but didn’t provide details.
“Look, there is no place for this kind of violence in America,” Biden said Saturday night before returning to the White House from Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he had spent the weekend. “This is sick. This is sick. This is one of the reasons we have to unite this country. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.”
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