President Biden said his phone call with former President Donald Trump was “very friendly” after Saturday’s assassination attempt.
“I told him how concerned I was and that I just wanted to make sure he was OK,” Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt in an interview Monday night. “He sounded fine. He said he was OK and thanked me for calling.”
“I told him that Jill and I are literally praying for him. His whole family is getting through this,” Biden added.
Holt’s wide-ranging interview touched on a range of topics, including Biden’s struggles in the presidential election in November and how the assassination attempt at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania affected the election outcome.
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Commentators and Democrats have called for Biden to not seek reelection due to concerns about his mental fitness and cognitive ability to serve as president. (Jacqueline Martin/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But Holt first focused on Biden’s own actions after the attacks were reported. Biden was on a planned vacation in Delaware when the attacks happened, but he quickly canceled his plans and returned to the White House to address the nation. Within hours, Biden announced he had spoken by phone with Trump, who praised his rival for reaching out to him.
“[My] “My initial reaction was, ‘Oh my God, this is, oh, there’s too much violence right now,'” Biden told Holt. “So the idea is that there’s no room for violence in politics in America. Absolutely. Zero.”
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Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump raises his fist during day one of the Republican National Convention (RNC) at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA on July 15, 2024. (Reuters/Andrew Kelly)
“It’s not an assassination, but it’s gotten to the point where things like the attack on the Capitol on January 6th have become all too commonplace,” Biden continued. “I got involved in this campaign early on in 2020, for the 2020 campaign. I wasn’t going to run again because I lost my son. I didn’t think I would. And then I saw what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.”
“People came out of the woods with torches, holding swastikas, singing the same Nazi epithets, accompanied by Klan members,” he added. “A young woman was killed, and I was standing by and the president (who was president at the time) asked me, ‘What do you think?’, and I said, ‘There are fine people on both sides.'”
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“No excuses,” Biden repeated. “Zero.”
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Holt reminded Biden that he had said on a conference call with Democrats that Trump needed to be “at the center of the target.” Biden quickly clarified that he meant the party needed to focus on Trump’s problems and shortcomings, and said he regretted using the phrase, saying it was a “mistake to use those words.”
