President Biden to address nation from White House on Thursday
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden will step into the White House Rose Garden on Thursday to speak to the nation for the first time since his party’s bruising defeat at the polls on Tuesday.
The White House announced that he would give an address at 11 a.m. ET.
His address is scheduled to begin a little more than 24 hours after his twice-former opponent, Donald Trump, was projected to have won the presidency. Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Biden endorsed in July, as he stepped aside as the party’s presumptive nominee.
Biden in a statement on Wednesday said that adding Harris to his 2020 Democratic ticket was the first and “best decision” he made in that campaign. He praised Harris, saying she had “stepped up and led a historic campaign” under extraordinary circumstances.
That statement made no mention of Trump, the former Republican president and now president-elect, who will bookend Biden’s sole term in office.
Biden and Harris have both spoken to Trump to offer congratulations to him for winning a second term. And Biden on Wednesday also spoke with Harris on the phone, the White House said.
Harris in a speech on Wednesday conceded the race to Trump.
“Sometimes the fight takes a while … The important thing is don’t ever give up,” she said, speaking at her alma mater, Howard University, in Washington, D.C.
Biden in his Wednesday statement praised Harris, saying, “Her story represents the best of America’s story.”
“And as she made clear today, I have no doubt she’ll continue writing that story,” he said, according to the White House.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart and Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.
(MINT HILL, N.C.) — Former President Donald Trump didn’t mince words Wednesday at a rally in North Carolina following more reports from security officials that Iran has been plotting to assassinate him.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence met with Trump and his campaign Tuesday, according to a spokesman for DNI. While the agency declined to discuss specifics about the meeting, the former president’s campaign said the meeting involved “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States.”
During his rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina, Trump echoed that statement and sent a stark warning to the country.
“If I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case, Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens. We’re going to blow it to smithereens,” the former president said to cheers. “There would be no more threats.”
Trump blamed the Biden administration for the escalating threats.
“We don’t have that leadership or the necessary people,” he said Wednesday.
The FBI is still investigating the assassination attempt in July during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where one person was killed, and the apparent assassination attempt that took place earlier this month at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida.
Investigators do not have a motive in either of the cases.
Before the Butler shooting, the Secret Service increased Trump’s security due to intelligence indicating there was an Iranian threat to assassinate the former president, sources told ABC News.
Counter snipers were assigned to the Butler rally because of the increased threats from a foreign threat prior to the event, according to a report released by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Trump tried to connect the two assassination attempts to foreign connections without any evidence during his rally Wednesday.
“There have been two assassination attempts on my life that we know of, and they may or may not involve…Iran. But I don’t really know,” he said.
However, there is no indication that Iran was connected to the suspected shooter in the Butler incident, officials said.
Intelligence officials are briefing senators about foreign threats in general later Wednesday.
Iran and Trump have had a long, contentious history, especially after the January 2020 strike ordered by the former president that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force.
In the aftermath of Soleimani’s killing, Iranian officials vowed they would eventually exact revenge.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian reiterated his country’s hatred toward Trump and the U.S. government during an interview in January with ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz.
“That was a big, big mistake made by Trump. That is not something that we will be able to forget,” Amir-Abdollahian said, adding that Tehran still wanted to see “all the people involved” in the strike “brought to justice.”
“What does that mean?” Raddatz asked. “Does that mean killed?”
(BUTLER, Pa.) — Former President Donald Trump is making his return to the site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, for a rally on Saturday — a moment the campaign hopes will spur inspiration among his fervent supporters as they come together to honor the victims who died during the July shooting.
“I’m going back to Butler because I feel I have an obligation to go back to Butler. We never finished what we were supposed to do,” Trump said earlier this week in an interview with NewsNation. “I said that day, when I was shot, I said, ‘We’re coming back. We’re going to come back.’ And I’m fulfilling a promise. I’m fulfilling, really, an obligation.”
Trump’s rally is taking place at Butler Farm Show, the exact same location as the outdoor rally where he was shot in the right ear nearly three months ago. One main difference this time around: security will be tighter.
Security will be of utmost concern during Trump’s remarks after lapses in security plans led to the gunman being able to scale an unmanned building. Security personnel have already started increased measures. For example, a secure perimeter was enacted around the fairground earlier than usual as the campaign started to set up the rally site.
The campaign quickly worked in the weeks after the July attempt to secure an October rally date at the site, knowing the significance of having Trump return to a place where he survived an assassination attempt for the first time.
The campaign told ABC News the family of Corey Comperatore, the man who was killed at Trump’s rally while shielding his family, along with one of the two supporters who were injured, David Dutch, will be in attendance on Saturday.
Several of Trump’s allies are expected to attend in a show of force, including tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who posted his plans on X, and Pennsylvania senatorial candidate Dave McCormick, who was just about to walk onstage before shots rang out.
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance, will also appear with Trump.
With exactly a month until Election Day, Saturday’s Butler rally will be an opportunity for Trump, if he can stay on message, to rally his base behind him in the sprint to November, just as he was able to do in the days after he was shot.
After being struck in the ear, Trump was briefly taken to the ground by Secret Service agents covering him until he rose back up moments after, pumping his first in the air with a bloody ear, shouting “Fight, fight, fight!”
The moment has since become a central messaging of his campaign, Trump and his supporters often chanting, “Fight, fight, fight!” at campaign rallies and his campaign frequently using Trump’s image of pumping his fist after surviving an assassination attempt as a symbol of his defiant campaign just days ahead of the critical week of the Republican National Convention.
Counter snipers in Trump’s Secret Service immediately killed the shooter, identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, but the incident stirred a flurry of questions regarding the security of the former president, prompting U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to step down and Trump to only hold indoor rallies for a few weeks after the attack.
Just nine weeks after the shooting in Butler, Trump had a second apparent assassination attempt on his life while he was out golfing at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida. More recently, it was revealed that there were assassination threats from Iran against Trump as well.
In the wake of both incidents, the former president was granted presidential-level security as his campaign has been forced to grapple with new security protocols in the planning of his campaign events.
Trump has gradually started holding a limited number of big and small outdoor campaign events again, including in Asheboro, North Carolina, on Aug. 21, where he was seen surrounded by bulletproof protective glass for the first time as he spoke in front of thousands of supporters gathered at an outdoor aviation museum.
As the campaign prepares for its high-profile rally on Saturday, they’ve said that the rally will be about honoring the victims and their family and expressing thanks to law enforcement and the Pennsylvania community; however, it comes as in recent weeks Trump has escalated his attacks, veering into dark rhetoric on the road.
After once calling for unity, Trump now blames rhetoric from Democrats as the reason behind threats on his life.
In the immediate aftermath of his attack at Butler, Trump called for both sides to tone down their rhetoric against each other — a posture that ended relatively quickly for Trump, who returned to his usual attacks.
While addressing the country after officially being nominated Republican presidential candidate at the RNC in Milwaukee, Trump said, “just like our ancestors, we must now come together, rise above past differences.”
“Any disagreements have to be put aside, go forward, united as one people, one nation pledging allegiance to one great beautiful — I think it’s so beautiful — American flag,” he said as he concluded his nomination speech at the RNC.
But just days after that, Trump, at his first rally after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, called his political opponents “dangerous people” and escalated personal attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris — who was shaping up to be Biden’s successor at the time.
“I was supposed to be nice,” Trump said in Charlotte, North Carolina, in late July. “They say something happened to me when I got shot — I became nice.”
“When you’re dealing with these people — they’re very dangerous people — when you’re dealing with them, you can’t be so nice. You really can’t be so — if you don’t mind — I’m not going to be nice. Is that okay?” Trump continued, followed by the crowd chanting, “Fight, fight, fight.”
Just as Trump is returning to Butler, many of the former president’s more ardent supporters have shied away from continuing to attend his rallies.
“It’s kind of like — it almost brings back memories, because it’s almost kind of the same set up,” said one Butler rally attendee, speaking at the Asheboro, North Carolina, rally last month where Trump delivered remarks in front of thousands of supporters outside for the first time since his first assassination attempt.
“At least we got snipers on it. Really, every roof of snipers on it makes me feel more safe. It brings back memories, especially when we go back in October,” he said.
Susan Gibala, of Irwin, Pennsylvania, said she went to a Trump rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, just after she survived the Butler rally, and has continued to feel safe at Trump rallies.
“To be honest with you, this is one of the safest places. And I know that I was in Butler when that happened. And I know that sounds very strange to say, but I feel like these are the safest places I could be,” Gibala said, attending another Trump rally in Indiana, Pennsylvania, last month.
“So it hasn’t really changed me in that sense. I know a lot of my friends, they had to take time out. They had to really work through some things, but I just believe this is one of the safest places to be.”
(TEMPE, Ariz.) — An office in Arizona used by Kamala Harris’ campaign was shot at early Monday morning in the second apparent gun attack in a week, according to investigators.
Police in Tempe, Arizona, responded to the office, which the local Democratic Party also uses, after they received calls from staffers about the damage. At least five bullet holes were found in the windows and the door.
“No one was inside the office during the overnight hours, but this raises concerns about the safety of those who work in that building, as well as those nearby,” Tempe Police spokesperson Sgt. Ryan Cook told ABC News.
Tempe police said they were analyzing evidence and were taking “additional measures” after the shooting “to ensure the safety of staff and others in the area.” A motive for the shooting has not yet been determined and the investigation continues, according to the police.
The same office was shot at just a week prior, on Sept. 16, in an incident the police said appeared to involve a BB or pellet gun. That shooting also happened just after midnight and caused “criminal damage,” according to the police.
Arizona Democratic Party Chair Yolanda Bejarano condemned the vandalism in a statement to ABC News Phoenix affiliate KNXV.
“It’s extremely sad that the Arizona Democratic Party has become the target of violence — it’s not who we are as Arizonans or Americans. We are working with law enforcement to ensure this threat is taken seriously and that our staff members are safe while they’re at work,” she said in a statement.
Law enforcement around the country is under heightened alert over an increase in political violence threats.
