Biden and his campaign grapple with a delicate national moment

By Priscilla Alvarez, Jeff Zeleny and Kayla Tausche, CNN

Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden and his campaign are facing an abrupt pivot point: After spending the last two weeks trying to salvage the president’s reelection bid, they are now grappling with a delicate national moment following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

The Biden campaign and Democrats across the party scrambled Sunday to determine how to adjust their plans to counter messaging at the Republican National Convention, which had been in the works for some time.

“The big issue is how to campaign against him or attack him,” a senior Democratic adviser told CNN. “Can we even do that this week?”

The adviser said discussions were underway to calibrate jabs and criticism aimed at Trump to focus on policy differences, rather than personal attacks. Plans that had been underway for weeks to respond to the GOP convention are being reviewed and potentially adjusted.

In the hours following the attempted assassination, which killed one spectator and injured two others, both Biden and Trump called for unity. In a rare Oval Office address Sunday night, Biden called on the country to “lower the temperature in our politics.”

“While we disagree,” Biden said, “we are not enemies. We’re neighbors.”

Hours before the shooting at the Trump rally, Biden had been trying to assuage concerns among members of his own party by participating in calls with key groups of lawmakers – some of whom were still unconvinced about his viability as a candidate. But the campaign’s focus took a sudden turn as news of the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, took hold.

Stunned Biden campaign officials huddled and decided to pause all outbound communications and pull down TV ads. The campaign urged staff in a memo to “refrain from issuing any comments on social media or in public.” Sources described the mood within the White House and the Biden campaign as “shock” as they put their response into motion.

The president was attending mass in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware – where he has a residence – at the time the shots rang out. He briefly addressed the nation hours after – a choice he made shortly after being briefed on the incident, according to a source familiar with the matter.

“We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this,” he said. Biden then returned to the White House late Saturday, ditching plans to remain in Rehoboth for the weekend.

The Biden campaign has yet to decide when to resume its advertising campaign against Trump after pulling the ads on Saturday. But that, a separate Democratic strategist said, was the easy decision. A harder question is how and when to resume, with 114 days until the election.

Chief among the difficulties for the Biden camp will be recalibrating a message that’s appropriate for the moment after a month when the team directed more forceful rhetoric against Biden’s predecessor, especially on his criminal conviction.

Sen. Chris Coons, a close Biden ally and co-chair of the Biden reelection campaign, called for a lowering of the political temperature.

“We have to reduce the rhetoric and the tone. I’d urge folks to turn off their phones and get off of social media today. And take some time with your family and reflect on who we are as a nation and who we want to be,” the Delaware senator said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The president briefly addressed reporters Sunday afternoon, his second time appearing in front of cameras since the shooting, and announced he would be speaking a third time later in the evening from the Oval Office.

The president urged people not to make assumptions and to “let the FBI do their job,” stressing that the shooter’s motivations were still being investigated. He emphasized that Trump “already received a heightened level of security” in his capacity as both a former president and the presumptive Republican Party nominee, and noted that he has “been consistent in my direction to the Secret Service to provide him with every resource, capability, protective measure necessary to ensure his continued safety.”

Biden added that he has ordered the Secret Service to review its plans for the Republican National Convention that begins on Monday. He’s also ordered an independent review of the security at Saturday’s rally to discover how the attempted assassination was able to take place.

“There is no place in America for this kind of violence or any violence for that matter. An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation,” Biden said, sending his condolences to the family of the man who was killed at the rally and his well wishes to Trump. “Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is important as that right now. We’ll debate and we’ll disagree. That’s not going to change. But it’s going – we’re not going to lose sight of the fact who we are as Americans.”

In the Oval Office later Sunday, Biden reiterated his belief that the stakes in the upcoming election “are incredibly high.”

But the president added: “Politics must never be a literal battlefield, and God forbid, a killing field.”

The attempted assassination of Biden’s opponent also challenges two central goals of his presidency and candidacy: To heal a politically fraught nation and to restore faith in America’s democracy. Around the world, condemnation of the shooting came from Canada to China to the Kremlin, as allies and adversaries alike watched the US’ deep divisions on display.

Biden has pitched the race as the decision between the continuation and possible destruction of democracy in the United States. That rhetoric will now be closely examined in the aftermath of the attack, including comments that the president made in a call with donors on July 8, during which he said, “It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye,” according to a summary of the call provided by his campaign.

While public calls for Biden to step aside following his poor debate performance two weeks ago have cooled in the immediate aftermath of the attack, the concerns voiced directly to the president in calls on Saturday have hardly gone away.

A White House official said Sunday the president would continue his outreach to lawmakers and supporters but would turn his immediate focus to his presidential duties of directing the government’s response to the first assassination attempt of a former president or presidential candidate in more than four decades.

Over the course of Sunday morning, the president and Vice President Kamala Harris were briefed by senior homeland security and local law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

As Biden’s top advisers briefed him in the Situation Room on the shooting, the president’s political team was grappling with whether planned travel to Nevada should proceed, according to an official. The White House announced Biden was postponing a planned trip to Texas on Monday. Biden is also set to be interviewed by NBC’s Lester Holt for a primetime special airing Monday evening.

Harris has already postponed a planned trip to Florida in response to the assassination attempt, according to a Biden-Harris campaign official. She originally planned on traveling to Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday for a moderated conversation alongside Republican women to discuss Trump’s stance on women’s reproductive rights.

After being briefed on the incident on Saturday, the vice president denounced the “senseless” shooting and said she is relieved Trump was not seriously injured.

This story has been updated with addition developments on Sunday.

CNN’s Michael Williams contributed to this report.

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