Trump assassination attempt hovers over Republican National Convention | The Excerpt

On Monday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: The Republican National Convention begins Monday in Milwaukee, two days after an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. President Joe Biden decried political violence during an address Sunday evening. USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page puts the shooting in historical context, and looks at its impact on the presidential election. How did Secret Service allow a shooter to get so close to Donald Trump? USA TODAY Campaign Reporter Zac Anderson discusses whether we should expect anything different during this week's convention.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Monday, July 15th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, the latest in the aftermath of an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, plus Biden calls for peace, and what's this now mean for the Republican National Convention and the rest of the election?

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If you avoided the news over the weekend, you need to know the world you're waking up to today is a different one from the one you left Friday evening. An assassination attempt was made on former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally leaving him with a bullet wound to the ear. Trump was rushed off stage with blood dripping on his face after gunshots rang out at the Saturday Butler, Pennsylvania, event. The gunman, identified by the FBI yesterday as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, opened fire and was killed by Secret Service agents, officials said. One spectator was killed and two others were critically injured, according to the Secret Service.

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President Joe Biden called on Americans to cool the partisan fervor in the wake of the assassination attempt, encouraging peaceful debate, but decrying any form of political violence in his Sunday evening address to the nation.

Joe Biden:

I want to speak to you tonight about the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics and to remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies, we're neighbors, we're friends, co-workers, citizens, and most importantly, we're fellow Americans. We must stand together. Yesterday's shooting at Donald Trump's rally in Pennsylvania calls on all of us to take a step back, take stock of where we are, how we go forward from here.

Taylor Wilson:

Biden referenced the victims of Saturday's shooting and mentioned other prominent instances of political violence in the US in recent years, like the January 6th, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, and the attack on the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Donald Trump, speaking to New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin, called Saturday's assassination attempt a very surreal experience, and he said, quote, "I'm supposed to be dead," unquote. We're learning more about the victims of this weekend's shooting. Authorities yesterday identified the person killed as Corey Comperatore, a firefighter from Sarver, Pennsylvania, who had two daughters and was an avid Trump supporter. The two men injured in the shooting, 57-year-old David Dutch and 70-year-old James Copenhaver, were in stable condition yesterday, according to an update from Pennsylvania State Police.

As for the shooter, he appears to have acted as a lone wolf, using an AR-style rifle that was purchased by his father, according to FBI officials. In a call with reporters yesterday afternoon, FBI officials indicated they are still searching for a motive in the attack. The agency is acting as the lead federal law enforcement agency in the investigation of the shooting. Officials said they also found a suspicious device when they searched the shooter's vehicle, though bomb technicians inspected the device and rendered it safe. The FBI is investigating the attack not just as an assassination attempt, but also as a potential act of domestic terrorism.

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The weekend's shooting was historic. So what's it now mean for the rest of this year's presidential election? To help answer that question and put the assassination attempt in context, I spoke with USA TODAY Washington bureau chief, Susan Page. Hello, Susan.

Susan Page:

Hi.

Taylor Wilson:

Let's just start here. How is Trump recovering? We all saw these pictures of his face covered in blood.

Susan Page:

Yeah, quite remarkable. It turns out that his right ear was nicked by a bullet. There is in fact an extraordinary photograph by Doug Mills of the New York Times that shows the bullet whistling past him. There was some blood on his face, but he was not seriously wounded. He got back up, pumped his fist, said, "Fight, fight, fight," and then was hurried off the dais to a more protected area by the Secret Service. Later that night, he was able to walk off his plane under his own volition, and he says that he's doing fine.

Taylor Wilson:

Susan, you write that this election was already shattering norms. Can you put this moment that we saw this weekend in context for us historically?

Susan Page:

It's been a half a century, since 1972, that we've had a major presidential contender be hit by an assassin's bullet or would-be assassin's bullet. So while we have some violence in American life, this is not something we deal with all the time. It comes at a time when our politics are so unsettled, for instance, the first election since the January 6th, 2021, assault on the Capitol, which was the most serious threat to the peaceful transfer of power that we've seen in our country's history. So it comes at a moment where people are unsettled, and our politics has gotten so fierce.

Taylor Wilson:

These last few weeks were really all about President Joe Biden and his flubs in the debate and then the NATO Summit. I'm curious, Susan, first, how he's responding here, and what does this now do to some of the dynamics of this presidential race?

Susan Page:

Well, President Biden expressed outrage at the violence against former President Trump. He called him. The two men talked briefly. I believe it's the first time they've spoken directly one-on-one since they ran against each other the last time in 2020. I think the effect politically on President Biden is something we're going to have to wait and see unfold. There is concern in the Democratic Party among office holders and donors and some voters about Biden's age and his mental acuity. I think the contrast with Trump pumping his fist in the air after being grazed by a bullet is a contrast that may concern some Democrats even more.

Taylor Wilson:

We're three and a half months out from election night in November. We still have both conventions to go through with the Republicans first up this week. How does this impact those conventions, and where do we go from here?

Susan Page:

Well, I think it may inflame them. I think it will electrify the Republican convention. We've already seen former President Trump saying, "God alone saved him," and we've seen postings on social media that portray God's hand as knocking away the bullet and saving Trump's life. I think that is a sentiment we may see a lot of the next few days in Milwaukee during the convention. It's got to reshape our election. What I think it's unlikely to do is to unite the nation. Sometimes we have a big shocking event, like an assassination attempt or the 9/11 attacks or catastrophic weather, and it brings us all together. But at this moment, four months before Election Day, I think it's unlikely to do that.

Taylor Wilson:

Susan Page is USA TODAY's Washington bureau chief. Thank you, Susan.

Susan Page:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Investigations into the shooting must focus on whether several key Secret Service protocols were violated, current and former law enforcement officials said yesterday. Chief among them, why wasn't a building well within a thousand yards of the former president locked down enough to prevent the shooter from nearly assassinating him? In an exclusive interview, former Secret Service director, Julia Pierson told USA TODAY that maintaining such a sniper security perimeter is part of the agency's responsibility for safeguarding protectees like Trump from harm. Yet, the sniper fired off numerous rounds from a building top about 150 yards from Trump's lectern at Saturday's rally. President Joe Biden also weighed in, directing Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to review all security measures for the Republican National Convention, which begins today. He said he had ordered an independent review of the security measures taken at the Trump rally to assess exactly what happened. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.

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We now turn this week to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. For more on the shooting's impact on the convention, I spoke with USA TODAY campaign reporter, Zac Anderson. Zac, thanks for hopping on.

Zac Anderson:

Yeah, happy to be here.

Taylor Wilson:

Zac, it's Republican Convention week, a convention that will now be overshadowed really entirely by this assassination attempt on Donald Trump over the weekend. How does this change what we might expect from this week?

Zac Anderson:

I think that this turns what's a routine political ritual into really a landmark moment for the country. This was really a shocking act of political violence. It's a historic situation, and everybody's really watching to see how people react. We've already seen some of the reactions start to pour out here. There's been a lot of bipartisanship, rare moments of bipartisanship in this country where we come together to condemn this violence, to try and urge people to calm down, to tone down the rhetoric. But there's also a lot of anger and there's starting to be some blame going around.

Taylor Wilson:

Just in terms of the logistics Zac, are there new security concerns that didn't exist, say, last week as folks were preparing for this convention?

Zac Anderson:

Yeah, I think everybody's going to be on heightened alert. Obviously, there's concerns that something else could happen. I haven't heard exactly what the convention might be doing in terms of increased security. It is going ahead as planned. Trump will be there. There's definitely going to be some tension, but things are proceeding ahead.

Taylor Wilson:

Does this change any aspect of the actual delegate process this week, or will that be mostly business as usual?

Zac Anderson:

Not that I know of. I don't think the convention itself, the mechanics of it are really going to change. I think what might change, and is almost certain to change, is just what we're hearing from people: the tone of the convention, the substance of the speeches. Obviously, there's going to be a lot of rallying around the former president, that was going to happen anyway, but now there's really a lot of relief that this wasn't worse, that he survived and is able to carry forward like this. I think you're going to just see an outpouring of support for him.

Taylor Wilson:

On that note, just in terms of the atmosphere, you and I talked previously about this really being an all-out MAGA convention and celebration of Donald Trump. What does the shooting now do to his supporters and his base?

Zac Anderson:

It only turbocharges the feelings around him. He already had very strong support within the Republican Party. He's really consolidated his grip on the party. In 2016, when he had his first convention, that wasn't the case. There was still a lot of Republicans who were resisting Trump. Ted Cruz even, he was his main primary opponent, went on the stage and gave a speech where he didn't even endorse Trump. There were some delegates who tried to rebel against him at that convention. At the 2020 convention, it was virtual, and it really wasn't a real full-blown convention.

This convention was expected to be his first full iteration of the GOP and how it has changed under Trump and his MAGA movement, and I think there will still be a lot of that. The speakers are really much more like MAGA celebrities and Trump loyalists and not so much folks in the party who have been lukewarm to Trump. But I think what is most likely is you're just going to have a discussion and maybe a cathartic moment about how bad of a place our political system has gotten into and the really dark rhetoric that has been used about the stakes of the election and how the country could just be lost if one side or the other doesn't win. I think you will see appeals to people to tone down some of that rhetoric, but also I think you could see people blaming one side or the other. I mean, it is the Republican Convention. There's already been a number of Republicans who are blaming Biden and some of his rhetoric around Trump allegedly being authoritarian for stoking some of this. So I think what we'll see is a change in the approach to how people message at this convention.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, great insight as always. Zac Anderson covers Donald Trump and Republicans for USA TODAY. Thank you, Zac.

Zac Anderson:

Hey, thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio. If you're on a smart speaker, just ask for the Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.