Secret Service agents surround Donald Trump after shots are fired at his campaign rally, Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024
UPDATE, JULY 15:
I joined Times Radio’s Carole Walker to further explore Donald Trump’s “politics of violence”.
I was saddened and shocked by the political violence that not only injured Donald Trump but critically wounded two people and killed one.
I am saddened and concerned that this cycle of political violence is likely to continue and be exacerbated by the Trumpist response that you just heard.
Watch from 7:38, following the comments of a Trumpist activist:
UPDATE 1808 GMT:
A conversation with Al Jazeera English on Sunday afternoon about the historical context for Saturday’s event and “why we are on new ground for three reasons”:
First, because this shooting happened during a Presidential campaign. Second, it’s in the 21st-century era of social media. And thirdly and most importantly, because the target of political violence is a candidate who made his career through the “politics of violence”.
UPDATE 1745 GMT:
I joined a panel on RTE Radio 1 for a 40-minute discussion of the significance of the shooting at the Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania, including the effect on the US election, the approaches of Trump and Joe Biden, and the threat to an already fragile American political culture.
How shaken is America by this? America was already shaken, with the most important issues in peacetime since 1865.
We should be concerned with all these issues and with dialogue rather than division, but we are in a space, especially with the US media, where we are being led by the spectacle.
Listen to Discussion from 3:00
UPDATE 1700 GMT:
I joined BBC World Service’s Julian Worricker to analyze the rhetoric and politics around the shooting at the Trump rally on Saturday.
The other panelists are Dan Mulhall, former Irish Ambassador to the US; columnist Brenda Power of the Sunday Times; Oisin Coghlan of Friends of the Earth; and criminologist Trina O’Connor. The host is Brendan O’Connor.
Along the way, I knock back the propaganda of the preceding speaker, a Trumpist supporter, assailing political figures, the legal system, activists, and the “Left”.
Trump’s call on his supporters to “fight, fight, fight” — fighting against those that Trump does not like — are the same words he used before the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
And I fear that the magnification of those words on social media by Donald Trump Jr. and Steve Scalise is taking America further down a dark place.
UPDATE 1445 GMT:
I joined London’s LBC on Sunday morning to evaluate the significance of the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania, considering how the political violence might now be exploited by Trump and his supporters to reclaim the White House — and to attack their “enemies”.
Watch from 4:52:
The prospective victim of the assassination attempt yesterday is the man who campaigns on a platform of political violence.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: I joined Times Radio for 75 minutes of live coverage of the shootings at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday evening.
Speaking about an hour after the attack, I begin with what was known about victims, the shooter, and the injury to Trump, grazed on the right ear by a bullet. I note how Trump’s immediate response was to strike a pose for cameras and to invoke his supporter to “Fight! Fight! Fight!”.
I then analyze the ongoing episode in the context of recent political violence in the US — shootings of politicians, a kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and the Capitol Attack on January 6, 2021 — and specifically the context of Trump’s “politics of violence”, with his calls for action against hecklers, demonstrators such as Black Lives Matter, immigrants, the media, and the “Left”. That includes his pledge to “act like a dictator” on Day 1 of a new term in the White House, promising retribution against his “enemies”.
Listen to Extract of Discussion from 24:27
My immediate concern is that — as we see in that photograph of Trump, the Secret Service agents, and the American flag — this shooting has already become spectacle….
Trump’s people will use that picture as a victory photograph. And they will hope to overcome the issues and the serious discussions that should be held to turn this into a spectacle to benefit their guy.
Donald Trump has a clear lead over Joe Biden: https://www.economist.com/interactive/us-2024-election/prediction-model/president
Biden concedes it was a mistake to make bullseye comment about Trump: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/15/us/politics/biden-2024-election-trump.html
Trump classified documents case dismissed by Florida judge: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz5rpdrxevro
“Judge Aileen Cannon has granted Trump’s motion to dismiss the federal case on the basis that the Justice Department’s appointment of Special Prosecutor Jack Smith violates the Appointments Clause of the US Constitution.”
[Editor’s Note: An example of some Trumpists trying to whip up the politics of division, ripping comments by Biden out of context, as they seek to take advantage of Saturday’s shooting.]
Republicans blame Biden for Trump assassination attempt: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/07/14/republicans-blame-biden-trump-assassination-attempt/
“Several Republicans pointed to comments by Mr Biden on a call with donors earlier this week, in which he said Trump should be put in a “bullseye”.Wesley Hunt, a Texas congressman, pointed to remarks by Mr Biden in 2022, when he said Trump was a “threat to the very soul of this country”. “This is the rhetoric that leads to political violence,” Mr Hunt said. Keith Self, who represents the same state, said: “Every American should be outraged at Joe Biden for inciting violence against Donald J Trump.” Rick Scott, a Florida senator, accused Mr Biden of saying he “wanted to put Trump in the crosshairs”.
[Editor’s Note: The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal trying to push aside the legal process over Trump’s multiple civil and criminal convictions and pending felony cases….]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-democratic-lawfare-alvin-bragg-jack-smith-supreme-court-2024-election-1d436fd5
“When Donald Trump was hit with four indictments last year, the prevailing Democratic belief was that Mr. Trump would be a convicted felon by Election Day. How could President Biden then possibly lose? Yet trying to defeat Mr. Trump through the courts instead of at the polls has turned out to be one of the great political miscalculations in presidential history.”
The attacker was not arrested, but killed on site by a shot in his head.