Shooting Plunges an Already Tumultuous Campaign Into Shock and Uncertainty

The assassination attempt of Donald J. Trump on Saturday at his rally in Pennsylvania plunged the 2024 presidential race into a state of shock and uncertainty.

President Biden’s campaign raced to pull his television ads off the airwaves nationwide and paused all official outbound communications — no fund-raising appeals, no news releases. An internal Biden campaign edict asked all staff members to “refrain from issuing any comments on social media or in public,” as did similar internal guidance from the Trump campaign.

Mr. Biden, who was in church at the time of the shooting, condemned the violence as “sick” in a brief address to the nation from a local police department in Delaware, changing plans and returning to the White House after midnight. He and Mr. Trump spoke late Saturday, a call that a White House official described as “good, respectful and brief.”

Mr. Trump issued his own graphic recounting of the searing moment in a social media post — “I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin” — as he returned to New Jersey ahead of the Republican National Convention that officials said would continue as planned on Monday in Milwaukee.

“I will Never Surrender!” Mr. Trump wrote in a text message to supporters.

His top two advisers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, wrote in a public statement on Saturday night that Mr. Trump would still be joining his supporters at the convention. And in an internal message to Trump campaign staff, they wrote that they were “enhancing the armed security presence with 24/7 officers on-site” at both the Washington and West Palm Beach campaign offices.

Mr. LaCivita, in a text message early on Sunday, said the assassination attempt would not alter