Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren In the roughly 24 hours following the attempted assassination of former President DONALD TRUMP, President JOE BIDEN addressed the country on the matter three times, repeatedly calling for unity and condemning political violence of any sort. During an address Sunday evening from the Oval Office, Biden drew a clear line between the “peaceful debate” that’s essential to American democracy and a descent from hostile rhetoric into a violence that could threaten it. The president, two senior aides said, is likely to reiterate that message this week in three major interviews over as many days — a media blitz timed to the Republican convention that is going ahead as planned even in the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally. Although Biden’s planned trip to Texas on Monday was rescheduled for later in the month following the attack, there was no real consideration of canceling the interview he’d planned to do there with NBC News’ LESTER HOLT, who instead sat down with the president Monday afternoon at the White House. And the pause in campaign activities is likely to last just one day. In the first clip released by NBC, Holt asked Biden if he regrets calling Trump “an existential threat” or telling donors last week that it was time to put Trump “in the bullseye.” “It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden allowed. “I meant focus on him, focus on what he was doing, focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate.” The president, not shy about highlighting Trump’s own history of incendiary comments, continued: “I’m not the guy that said, ‘I want to be a dictator on day one.’ I’m not the guy who refused to accept the outcome of the election.” “How do you talk about the threat to democracy, which is real, when [Trump] says things like he says?” Biden asked. “Do you just not say something because it may incite somebody? Look, I have not engaged in that rhetoric. My opponent has engaged in that rhetoric.” Anything the president says in the days following the nation’s most brazen political assassination attempt since 1981 will be closely watched. That said, Biden’s interviews this week, even with the still unresolved drama of the last weeks and lingering Democratic unease about his candidacy, may be relegated to the B story considering the dramatic stagecraft in Milwaukee: Trump’s first public appearance since Secret Service agents pulled him offstage on Saturday and suspense around the announcement of his running mate, Sen. J.D. VANCE of Ohio. “It's always hard to counter-program anybody’s convention. That’s where the entire press corps is, where everybody’s focus is. And that would have been the case even without the assassination attempt,” said Democratic consultant JOE TRIPPI. “But even in a week where it’s tough to break through, we have to continue to make the case that [Trump] is a threat to democracy, to women’s rights — and that Project 2025 is Donald Trump, no matter how much he says he doesn’t know about it.” The president is now on his way to Las Vegas for events Tuesday and Wednesday aimed at rallying support from Black and Latino voters, as well as two more interviews there with BET and Univision radio. Those interviews, the aides added, were likely to carry a greater emphasis on top issues for those constituencies: curbing inflation and lowering costs, defending reproductive rights, wage gains for Black people and Latinos, expanded access to health care and caps on the costs of insulin and prescription drugs. Biden’s sit down with BET on Tuesday, which will be featured as part of an hour-long special, will be his 50th interview of the year, according to the White House’s tally. The ramped up media push comes after months where the president was surprisingly cloistered for an incumbent seeking reelection, even turning down a Super Bowl pregame interview with CBS News. Aides say the ramp-up is following the normal course for an election year and began before the June 27 debate, where Biden’s addled performance set off alarm bells about his viability as the Democratic nominee. They pointed to sit-downs with CNN and ABC News in late May and early June, respectively, and said that more interviews are being arranged for the weeks ahead leading up to next month’s Democratic convention in Chicago. They also noted that Biden has started doing more informal and unscripted events, speaking off the cuff to patrons at a Detroit-area restaurant last Friday and to union members during a stop in Pennsylvania days earlier. Just as Biden was ratcheting up his rhetoric against Trump in an effort to shift the focus from his own age to the GOP nominee, the assassination attempt has complicated his ability to deliver full-throated attacks. But as Biden’s top aides discuss how to thread the needle, they know they still need to focus voters on Trump’s positions on abortion and other issues, his felony conviction, the civil judgments against him and his own litany of prior comments stoking division and violence. “There's an opportunity to drive those contrasts and do it with the language and the tone being more mindful of making our arguments without it sounding like combat,” said KAREN FINNEY, a Democratic consultant who advised HILLARY CLINTON’s 2016 campaign. “One thing that many Americans appreciate about President Biden and respect is that he is someone who in these kinds of moments brings it back to the better angels of our nature. He has an opportunity to do that this week, but he still has to talk about contrasts on issues that people really care about.” MESSAGE US — Are you JOE SCARBOROUGH? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. 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