A already seen in the US election campaign. On another hot Sunday afternoon, the news arrived that Donald Trump was safe and sound after being once again the target of a possible assassination attempt. On this occasion, the quick action of a secret service agent, who opened fire when he saw the barrel of a rifle pass through the fence of the golf course where the former president was playing, prevented another incident like the one last July from happening. , when a bullet injured the Republican candidate in the ear.
Despite this, the secret services are once again in the spotlight as the presidential campaign takes another twist in the storyline, with polls predicting a tight race through November 5.
Like last time, Republicans once again attacked Democrats, accusing them of inciting hatred against their candidate, and once again questioned the actions of the Secret Service. “President Trump has faced more attacks than any other leader in the history of the United States,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, said on Fox News on Monday morning. “Getting answers about how President Trump was able to face multiple assassination attempts is a top priority,” he said on the social network X.
Less than 500 meters from the target
The biggest question about the Secret Service’s actions is how Ryan Routh — the suspect arrested Sunday and currently in custody — got so close to Trump. As the candidate’s entourage explained to CNN, the decision to go golfing in Palm Beach on Sunday was impromptu, and almost no one knew for sure where the mogul was. That raises even more questions about how Routh could have been there, less than 500 yards from the Republican candidate, just as he was golfing. The situation was further complicated for the agency by reports that Routh had been in the area for 12 hours before being discovered.
“One thing I want to make clear is: the Service [Secreto] needs more help,” President Joe Biden told reporters Monday before heading to Philadelphia, where he is scheduled to hold a campaign event. “And I think Congress should respond to that need,” he added. After the July 14 attack in Butler, Pennsylvania, the Secret Service has already approved additional measures to bolster Trump’s security, including the use of bulletproof glass screens at outdoor rallies.
Following that incident, in late July, the agency’s then-director, Kimberly Cheatle, also resigned. Current acting director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, defended his men’s actions at a press conference Monday in Palm Beach. Rowe confirmed that Routh did not actually fire the gun and that he did not have Trump in his line of fire. Similarly, he confirmed that the golf course visit was impromptu and that security officers had to create a security plan for the occasion. “And the plan worked,” he insisted.
The fact that the Secret Service agent successfully thwarted the alleged assassination attempt is proof to Rowe that the new security measures are “working.” Before the press conference, Rowe met with Trump and assured Trump that the former president “is aware that he has the highest levels of protection” from the agency.
Meanwhile, Routh has already had his first court hearing, and a Florida court has charged him with two federal counts of possessing a firearm with a criminal record and deleting the serial number of a rifle. These are initial charges that could be added as the investigation progresses.
The AK-47 found at the scene had its serial number removed, the Justice Department reported, making it even more difficult to trace its origin.
Trump accuses his rival Harris
Trump, who had already fueled conspiracy theories in recent weeks about the first attack on him, has once again pointed the finger of blame at his political rivals. In statements to Fox on Monday, the tycoon assured that the “rhetoric” of the Democratic candidate and current vice president, Kamala Harris, and President Biden provoked this second alleged assassination attempt. According to the Republican, Routh would have acted following the “highly inflammatory language” of the Democrats.
Less than a week ago, Trump spoke lies about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, in a confrontation with Harris, which unleashed a wave of hatred in the city. Schools were evacuated twice because of bomb threats linked to the former president’s remarks.
In his X profile, the former president went further and pointed the finger at the debate against the Democrat as the cause of the incident. “The rhetoric, the lies, as evidenced by the false claims made by Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC News debate, and all the ridiculous court cases designed specifically to inflict damage on Joe and then Kamala’s political rival, I have taken the politics of this country to a new level of hate, abuse and distrust,” he said. And he added: “Because of this left-wing communist rhetoric, the bullets are flying and it’s only going to get worse!”
Unlike Trump’s first assassination attempt, the Republican candidate did not wait 24 hours to point the finger at his political rivals using inflammatory and aggressive language. In the first hours after Butler’s attack, Trump maintained a more sober profile, not explicitly targeting Democrats, while letting other members of the party make the choice.
Since then, Trump’s tone of reference to the incident has only grown more aggressive, until last Tuesday, during the election debate, he attacked Harris with what happened in Pennsylvania: “I probably got shot in the head because of the things they did. talking about me.”
This discursive evolution, which was accentuated last week with the debate and the defeat suffered – according to analysts and observers – by Trump, has once again reawakened the fear of an increase in political violence during the campaign.
What impact will this have on the polls?
The social network owner “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” he wrote, citing another post in which a user asked: “Why do they want to kill Donald Trump?”
Musk has already deleted the post and assured that it was a joke. In recent days, the tycoon has also shared images created with AI that reinforce Trump’s lie about Haitian migrants who “eat dogs and cats.”
Butler’s July 13 attack came amid the Democratic Party’s internal crisis over Biden’s candidacy and left behind a photograph of a bloodied Trump raising his fist in the air after one of the bullets fired by Thomas Crooks grazed his right ear. The Republican and his people capitalized on that image to gain even more weight in the polls. However, that campaign momentum was diluted after Biden resigned and Kamala Harris emerged as the new Democratic candidate.
The second alleged attack occurred less epically, but less than 50 days before the presidential election. The incident comes just after Trump’s defeat in the presidential debate began to show up in the polls, with the Democrat gaining momentum in the days that followed. Nationally, the Reuters/Ipsos poll (the first conducted after the head-to-head) gives Harris a five-percentage-point lead (47 percent to 42 percent), beginning to break the technical tie that had been established before the debate.
Now we have to see what impact the second attack attempt will have on the polls and whether it will truncate the positive effect that Harris managed to enjoy after beating Trump in the debate.
