Donald Trump suggested that President Joe Biden may persuade the Justice Department to end two legal cases against the former president in a sign of trying to unify the country following the failed assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
Trump was shot in the ear, one spectator was killed, and two others injured after a 20-year-old gunman opened fire Saturday at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Secret Service shot and killed the suspect.
On his private plane headed to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for this week's Republican National Convention, Trump on Sunday spoke to the New York Post's Michael Goodwin and the Washington Examiner's Michael York for more than 30 minutes.
The interview focused on the shooting, and on the 2024 presidential campaign.
Goodwin wrote that Trump indicated the campaign between the two presidential candidates could be more civil going forward. The current and previous president spoke Saturday night in a conversation Trump termed "fine" and added that Biden was "very nice."
"He [Trump] also said that 'we hear' that Biden will order the Department of Justice to drop its two prosecutions of Trump," Goodwin wrote in his column in the Post. "So far, there's no public sign of that."
Biden's DOJ is prosecuting Trump in two cases, one involving Jan. 6, 2021, and the 2020 election results, and the other in which the former president is accused of mishandling classified documents.
Trump also told the two reporters he had tossed his original speech for the Republican National Convention and rewritten it to focus on unity following the attempt on his life Saturday.
"The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger," he said. "Had this not happened, this would've been one of the most incredible speeches" targeting the policies of President Joe Biden. "Honestly, it's going to be a whole different speech now."
Trump, who has been the presumptive GOP presidential nominee since winning the first several primaries, will become the official nominee on Thursday night.
The failed assassination attempt on Saturday deflected media attention that had been focused on the 81-year-old Biden's status as the Democratic Party's nominee.
Democrats have been in turmoil since the debate between Biden and Trump on June 27, when the president at times appeared lost and unintelligible.