The Oval Office address is designed to be a comforting American ritual. Going back decades, the President, sitting behind the familiar Resolute Desk, faces a single camera and speaks directly to the nation. “My fellow Americans,” Joe Biden began Sunday night, his third time addressing the country from the Oval.
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But this moment is different from the others, as Biden tries to navigate perhaps the most challenging stretches of his presidency, where doubts about his acuity threaten to overshadow his record. It’s been less than three weeks since Biden’s cringy debate performance sparked a revolt in his party to oust him from the ticket, forcing him to scramble to hold onto his party’s support while simultaneously hosting dozens of world leaders for the NATO Summit. Then came the shocking events of Saturday evening, where a political rally in Butler, Penn., ended with two people dead, and Donald Trump being carried off by Secret Service agents with blood on his face.
Now the country faces a historic test to recover from an assassination attempt on a former President and Biden’s current rival. It’s a test for Biden as well. Can he meet the moment and follow through on one of the central themes of his campaign—to heal the country’s jagged political divisions?
As Biden sat in the Oval Office to try to do just that, several advisors were seated along the interior wall of the Oval Office, watching closely. Senior advisor Anita Dunn was following along with the transcript, nestled into a large green notebook, occasionally mouthing key lines.
“The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down. We all have responsibility to do that,” Biden said. “And remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies. We are neighbors, we’re friends, coworkers, citizens, and most importantly we are fellow Americans.”
During his six-minute address, Biden ticked off some of the most alarming episodes of political violence over the past seven years: the 2017 shooting at a practice session for a Congressional baseball game; the riot on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; the attack on the spouse of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi; the intimidation of election officials; the kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer; and, lastly, Saturday’s shooting at Trump’s rally.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence in America, ever. Period. No exceptions,” Biden said.
Biden previously addressed the nation from the Oval Office last June after averting the economic fallout of surpassing the debt ceiling, and then in October after Hamas’s attack on Israel. As he spoke Sunday night, the White House allowed some news photographers to stand in the Rose Garden to capture photos of Biden during the speech through the Oval Office’s windows. After he finished speaking and the camera turned off, Biden looked over to his right, mildly alarmed, and said, “Who’s that guy outside the window?”
Sometimes Oval Office addresses signal the conclusion of a tumultuous period, but Biden’s current one shows no end in sight. Republicans are set to gather this week in Milwaukee for their national convention, where Biden’s mental state is sure to be a major topic of discussion. The Biden campaign will spend the week drawing a contrast between their vision for the future and what they see as Trump and Republicans’ “backwards-looking agenda,” a campaign aide said. Although Biden canceled a campaign trip to Texas on Monday, he is sticking with a scheduled interview that evening with NBC’s Lester Holt, said the aide. Biden will then travel to Las Vegas, Nevada where he’ll speak at the NAACP National Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada on Tuesday and UnidosUS Annual Conference on Wednesday.
The Oval Office speech marked a return to an animating motivation for Biden’s political career. He entered politics after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. He decided to challenge Donald Trump in the 2020 election after Trump, as President, said there were good people on “both sides” in the deadly Charlottesville clashes with neo-Nazis objecting to the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Political violence, he told the country Sunday, must not be allowed to be normalized.
“Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy, it’s part of human nature,” Biden said. “But politics must never be a literal battlefield, or God forbid, a killing field. I believe politics ought to be an arena for peaceful debate.”
Biden, and the country, face a test.