Donald Trump, for the second time in two months, has been the target of an assassination attempt. And the world shrugs.
So does law enforcement. After the Secret Service discovered a scoped AK-assault rifle jutting through a chain link fence at Trump’s Palm Beach golf course — the former president on the fifth hole, the would-be assassination perched and ready to fire just 500 yards away, at the sixth — Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw shirked responsibility.
‘He’s not the sitting president,’ Bradshaw said at a Sunday presser. ‘If he was, we would’ve had the entire golf course surrounded.’
Let’s get this straight: It’s Trump’s fault? Even President Biden, in the wake of this latest attempt, says that the Secret Service ‘needs more help.’
Through sheer luck, the former president survived that bullet in July. He’s been the target of two ricin poisoning attempts, one in 2018 and the other in 2020. Iran has had an $80 million bounty on Trump since the 2020 killing of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike.
Donald Trump, for the second time in two months, has been the target of an assassination attempt. And the world shrugs. (Above: Attempted assassinatin suspect Ryan Routh)
Through sheer luck, the former president survived that bullet in July. (Above: Trump survives assassination attempt in Butler, PA on July 13, 2024)
What else needs to happen for Trump to get proper protection?
Imagine if Kamala Harris had survived not one, but two such attempts in the same time frame. It would be the lead story everywhere — not for days, but for the entire election cycle.
Networks would wheel out left-leaning historians to perseverate over America’s intractable racism and sexism. Pundits would speculate as to the Secret Service’s systemic failures and whether a conspiracy was at play.
MSNBC, the New York Times, and NPR would be ablaze with one message: To atone for our sins, to reject such political violence, would be to vote for Kamala Harris.
As it is, the first attempt against Trump, replayed on a loop in the run-up to the Republican National Convention, has been largely forgotten. Such is the wildest presidential election cycle in modern history.
The iconic footage of Trump, blood running down his face, fist in the air, yelling, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ was swiftly dustbinned as Biden was dramatically pushed out, as longtime liability Harris swiftly ascended, and as a colluding media refused to demand Harris answer tough questions or sit for more than two sparkly, surface-question interviews.
How could Trump and his campaign not turn that first attempt into a substantial bounce?
Why hasn’t Trump leaned into the sober, serious, slightly vulnerable character we saw in the days after? At the RNC?
Here’s why: A friend of Trump’s, who speaks to him every week, told me that his campaign assumed they’d have a long-term halo effect and that they’d still be running against Sleepy Joe.
‘His team got comfortable, maybe even lazy, because of how well he was doing against Biden,’ this person told me a few weeks ago. ‘They weren’t hitting the swing states hard enough.’
On top of that, Trump’s top advisors are mostly concerned with their own standing — worried that a colleague will knife them when they’re not in the room.
‘He’s not the sitting president,’ Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said at a Sunday presser. ‘If he was, we would’ve had the entire golf course surrounded.’
‘They all fly on his jet with him, because they’re all terrified of being left out, worrying that decisions will be made without them,’ this same source told me when we spoke again late last week. ‘The truth is no one’s in charge. He’s not taking good advice because there isn’t any. In 2016 he had Ivanka and Kellyanne Conway on his jet. Now he has Laura Loomer.’
Ah, yes. This was where we left off on Friday — the cliffhanger involving a Kardashian-lite 31-year-old, one photo of Trump with his arm around her waist, another of Loomer pushing her breasts into his chest, looking up at him adoringly, just the latest distraction in an already chaotic campaign.
Trump bringing Loomer, an avowed 9/11 truther, to not one of last week’s memorial services but two, keeping close with someone who has said that a President Harris would mean that the ‘White House will smell like curry’ and that ‘speeches will be facilitated via a call center’ isn’t just bad politics — it’s vile.
Especially considering that his running mate, JD Vance, is married to a woman of Indian descent. It all lends credence to the left’s constant criticism — that Trump is, if not outright racist, certainly tolerant of such views.
Why is this woman still hanging around? Presidential candidates have thrown closer advisors to the wolves for far less. Loomer is a deep, self-inflicted wound to the campaign, but Trump seems the last to acknowledge it.
In fact, on Friday he doubled down, refusing to disavow her statements.
‘I don’t control Laura,’ he said. Really? Does anyone believe Trump couldn’t contain this if he wanted to?
‘Laura has to say what she wants,’ Trump continued. ‘She’s a free spirit.’
By Saturday, Trump could only muster the slightest of condemnations.
‘I disagree with the statements she made’, Trump said.
One would hope!
This was where we left off on Friday — the cliffhanger involving a Kardashian-lite 31-year-old, with one photo of Trump with his arm around Loomer’s waist.
Loomer is a deep, self-inflicted wound to the campaign, but Trump seems the last to acknowledge it.
This all begs an existential question, one I put forth after last Tuesday’s debate: Does Donald Trump even want to win anymore?
The moment he ranted that Haitian immigrants are ‘eating the pets’ of Ohio residents and Harris cast a mischievous side-eye, Trump lost that debate.
He sounded, frankly, unhinged. Even Ohio’s Republican governor Mike DeWine and Springfield’s Republican mayor Rob Rue have decried Trump’s claims, placing the blame for multiple bomb threats on his rhetoric.
Uniter vs. divider? Right now, the former is looking like Harris, an otherwise eminently beatable candidate.
‘Any political leader that takes the national stage and has the national spotlight needs to understand the gravity of the words they have for cities like ours,’ Rue told Politico. ‘Springfield, Ohio is caught up in a political vortex, and it is a bit out of control.’
Rue said he was very ‘frustrated with the former president’s remarks’ and refused to answer when asked if Trump had his vote.
Springfield is in a county Trump won by over 60 percent in 2020.
Against Harris, he has allowed himself to decompensate into Biden 2.0: old, out-of-touch, aggrieved, a passive player in his own presidential run.
Why is he tweeting juvenilia such as: ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT?’ Why has he rejected a second presidential debate rather than accept and reverse this trend downward? Does he no longer have it in him to hit Harris on data, the economy, the border, crime and foreign policy?
Why is he golfing as his campaign is losing traction? This, I’ve heard, is a question among those close to him.
A shock poll out of Iowa on Monday shows Harris closing in on Trump, trailing him by 4 percentage points — a state he led by 18 points in the spring.
Worse: Women in Iowa are now firmly in Kamala’s camp, by 53 to 36 percent. Abortion is doubtless a factor, but so is Trump’s treatment of women.
Aside from the specter of the E. Jean Carrol case and ‘grab ’em by the p***y’, Melania is nowhere to be found while Loomer, as of last week, was by Trump’s side and bragging that she flew with him to the presidential debate.
Don Jr., meanwhile, is flaunting his rumored affair with a Palm Beach socialite while engaged to Kimberly Guilfoyle, further reinforcing the idea that Trump men do not treat their wives and girlfriends with respect.
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Meanwhile, Harris is sitting for a third interview this Thursday with none other than Oprah Winfrey, who played a large part in getting Obama elected.
It’s all so sloppy. Trump’s campaign is in utter chaos. No one’s in charge — least of all this erratic candidate, who seems hellbent on giving undecideds every reason to vote against him.
Perhaps it’s true that, having narrowly survived two assassination attempts, Trump would prefer not to win. It’s certainly understandable – especially as the first attempt has not left him any less vulnerable.
Had Harris been the target of a near-successful assassination, she’d be protected by a Roman Praetorian Guard, now and forever. How could Trump not wonder if any of this is worth it?