Analyzing the assassination attempt

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 15th day of July, 2024. So glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

AUDIO: Okay, we are watching live. We do not know what is happening. We see Secret Service agents there with former President Donald Trump. This is live video from Butler, Pennsylvania.

That was CNN Live coverage trying to make sense of the first few seconds of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

REICHARD: Trump grimaced and grabbed at his right ear, hit by an attempted assassin’s bullet. He knelt down and within seconds was covered with Secret Service agents.

AUDIO: Hold, hold! Are you ready? Move! Move!

EICHER: He rose briefly before his security detail could rush him off the stage. Blood was visible on his ear and the right side of his face. Trump turned the terrified crowd back to cheers when raised his fist to indicate he was okay.

REICHARD: Unknown to Trump at the time was that a man was dead and two others critically injured. The gunman had taken a position on a roof outside the security perimeter, but still close enough for an AR-style rifle.

EICHER: It was just a few minutes into the speech. Trump referring to a large display of statistics on immigration.

AUDIO: You know that’s a little bit old, that chart’s a couple of months old … and if you really want to see something that’s sad, take a look at what happened, ohh …

Three shots audible, then pandemonium. An attempted assassination of a presidential candidate for the first time in more than half a century.

REICHARD: WORLD Radio Reporter Emma Perley traveled to Butler, Pennsylvania where she spoke with young Trump supporters about a day they’ll likely never forget.

EMMA PERLEY: Sunday afternoon in Butler you find many downtown businesses closed for the day.

DAVID PHILLIPS: Saxophone anthem to run under narration.

But the red doors of St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church are open. David Phillips has pastored this church for the last 4 years. Before then, he had no idea where Butler was.

PHILLIPS: I know where Butler is now. So does everyone in our country, people around the world, know where Butler Pennsylvania is now, and for all the wrong reasons.

A campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show Fairgrounds that went from joyous to panicked in just a matter of seconds. Elli Fry attended the Trump rally with nine friends.

ELLI FRY: I grew up in a rural area, and I've been around a lot of guns, and it didn't sound like a gun to me.

At first, she thought it was firecrackers. Then security guards yelled, get down. Fry and her friends did, some of them on top of each other. They were about 50 feet behind the former president.

FRY: The shooter was shooting, like over my head, like he was behind me. So while we were down, we waited till they told us to get back up, and we had to move because there was so much blood from the person that was hit.

A bullet had struck a rally-goer nearby. As Fry got up, she turned to look.

FRY: I saw the blood, like, on the bleachers, and then on someone's shirt. And that was really all I saw. And then when we got up to leave the venue, we were, like, walking to our car, I, like, turned around and I saw someone being carried by police officers.

Another rally-goer was a 28 year-old former Miss Pennsylvania named Tiffany Seitz. She arrived at the fairgrounds about 10:30 a.m. with her father and brother.

TIFFANY SEITZ: I was, you know, really excited and looking forward to the day, just enjoying myself and having fun with my family.

Sitting near the middle of the stage, Seitz noticed Trump’s reaction as a bullet struck him. She saw that a bullet had hit a loudspeaker, too. Her father and others almost immediately pushed her down.

Seitz hopes the violent attack prompts some soul searching and perhaps something even rarer these days: a united country.

For WORLD, I’m Emma Perley in Butler, Pennsylvania.

EICHER: Next on The World and Everything in It: some political analysis.

Joining us now is Erick Erickson. He’s a conservative radio host, lawyer, and former political operative. He’s also a WORLD Opinions contributor and astute observer of the political scene. Erick, thanks for jumping in on short notice.

This is the question everyone will have an answer to: where were you when you heard the news about the assassination attempt on former President Trump? What did you think initially, Erick, and what did you do next?

ERICK ERICKSON: So, I was driving home from a pizza restaurant, and a one of my program directors for one of my affiliates texted me, and it was just a screenshot of a bulletin from CBS News, and I passed it over to my wife and said, could you read this? And she started reading it, and just pauses and says, I think someone tried to assassinate Donald Trump. So I get the kids home and trying to figure out what I need to do, call my radio studio. And next thing I know, I'm doing radio from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturday night into Sunday and then on Sunday again, noon to five.

REICHARD: Erick, you’ve kept tabs on irresponsible, overheated political rhetoric that’s been going on for some time. Ultimately the person who pulled the trigger is responsible, obviously, but the cover image in a venerable liberal magazine The New Republic didn’t happen in a vacuum. It depicts Trump as Hitler and uses an old Germanic typeface for the headline “American Fascism.” I don’t want to overheat the rhetoric here in the aftermath of a tragedy that could’ve been even worse. Shouldn’t we at least pause and reflect on our public rhetoric?

ERICKSON: We should, and I have a real problem with this one, because I've experienced, my family has experienced, firsthand Donald Trump's rhetoric. He came after me on Twitter in 2016 when I didn't support him. We had people show up at our home to threaten us. My children were bullied at school. My son beaten up. My daughter given a guide to commit suicide. They were chased through a store. We felt like the school itself wasn't helping. We wound up moving schools.

And yet, when I hear the overnight rhetoric about this and how well, Donald Trump played a role in this, respectfully to everyone in the media, the bullets have only been flying in one direction, from left to right. Floyd Lee Corkins attempted the mass assassination of the Family Research Council. James Hodgkinson attempted the mass assassination of Republicans in Congress. Nicholas … I forget his last name, attempted the assassination of Brett Kavanaugh. And now this guy, we don't know his motives, but I think we can largely surmise now based on the information we have about him. But I keep hearing both sides need to tone down the rhetoric, and Donald Trump needs to watch what he says. But the political violence in this country is disproportionately coming from the left, and there doesn't seem to be a recognition from the media. And I say that as someone who knows firsthand what Donald Trump can provoke, and yet they're shooting and it just happens to be going left to right.

EICHER: So on that same score basically, Erick, I mean there’s a certain insincerity to the rhetoric. President Biden and the Democrats constantly stress Trump’s an existential threat to democracy, he’s a threat to our country, and then when this horrible attack comes—you’ve got this, “Hey, I’ve reached out to Donald. I want to talk to Donald and make sure he’s okay.” You don’t express concern for American Hitler, right? It exposes this rhetoric as completely phony.

ERICKSON: Yeah, that's the problem too. So, Ezra Klein, who is the noted progressive columnist, did an interview with the Bulwark, an anti-Trump site that sprung up at the fall of The Weekly Standard, and admitted in the interview that Democratic politicians don't actually believe Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. They just say that to fire up the crowd. The problem here is the rhetoric is irresponsible. For example, Donald Trump, after he said the media is the enemy of the people, there was a man in Florida who had a hit list of reporters in Washington he felt were attacking Donald Trump. So yes, we can both sides this. But again, in this instance, it's not just Donald Trump. You have the actual reporters and anchors of CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, PBS, the New York Times, The Washington Post, they call him a threat to democracy, the rise of American fascism. He's been compared to Hitler in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, the New Republic, the President just eight, seven days ago, said that Donald Trump needed to be in the bull's eye. He's a threat to democracy. He needs to be stopped. What did they think was going to happen? It's the Democrats who tend to say words matter. Their words do matter. In addition to the blatant mischaracterization of the Supreme Court immunity decision, claiming that if Donald Trump got elected, he'd have the power to assassinate his political rivals. It's not true. It was never true, and yet they've been running this in national news outlets.

EICHER: Okay. So, already we’re hearing serious concern over security failures and assurances that the FBI is going to get to the bottom of everything. And there’s deep distrust there.

I’m sure you saw the story that the Secret Service tried knocking down yesterday that it refused additional protection for Trump ahead of the fateful rally. A spokesman for the Secret Service called the story “absolutely false.” We do know it’s not absolutely false that RFK Junior has been refused protection, which seems crazy in an environment like this. But Erick, there are numerous stories in the media saying there’s a reckoning coming for the Secret Service. What do you think would be the best outcome here?

ERICKSON: There's got to be reform of the agencies. So I've done two events with Republican presidential candidates and with then-sitting Vice President Pence. I'm very familiar with the Secret Service’s protocols, and they tend to be very thorough. However, one of their chief operating principles is that all lines of sight must be covered. And in this instance, there was a line of sight that they did not cover. And eyewitnesses have now come forward who said they told the police there was a man with a gun. I presume, my presumption is the police thought, oh, they're probably they saw the Secret Service and thought it was an assassin. Turns out, they were right. If they saw them, why didn't someone from the Secret Service see this person in a clear line of sight that should have been protected. There should have been someone on the roof, just based on what I, an outsider who's dealt regularly with the Secret Service, knows about their protocols. Why wasn't that covered? We do need that answer.

REICHARD: We are already seeing some in the mainstream media blaming Trump for this, calling up January 6 as particularly incendiary. And there was a lengthy piece in the New York Times about a month ago about “Resistance: Act 2,” resistance inside and outside government for what seems to them inevitable as another Trump presidency. Erick, are you seeing this and what’s to be done?

ERICKSON: Yes. Look, I don't think we're going to have a change in tone when the media's first reaction is to lecture the right about their rhetoric. I'm struck by Jamie Gagnell, who is the CNN national security reporter, who sees the video of Donald Trump 30 seconds after he’s shot, stands up, raises fist in the air, says, fight, fight, fight. And her gut reaction is, it's "unfortunate he didn't try to tell the crowd to tone down the rhetoric." He'd been shot 30 seconds before. Or Margaret Brennan from CBS News, who reads Donald Trump’s statement he put on social media thanking the doctors, mourning the loss of the dead, and says it was unfortunate he didn't try to tone down the right or call people for calm. I just, I don't know if that's the media's first reaction, that the media can be responsible in dealing with this.

EICHER: Erick, I didn’t go to TV on this, I went online, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, looked for some reporters that I believe on X and the first image I saw was the one that’ll be in the history books looking up at Trump surrounded by Secret Service, the blood-streaked face and ear against the clear blue sky and the enormous American flag. And forgive me, as a political matter, pure politics, it seemed almost unbelievable. I was very skeptical it was real, at first.

ERICKSON: People on the left, their immediate reaction was, “Oh, this is just Donald Trump trying to boost his poll numbers. This is the politics of this helps Donald Trump too much, it can't be real.” And we are in an age where everyone thinks about the politics of these sorts of situations. You know, I interviewed last night the CBS reporter who was at the scene—and he's Scott McFarland is his name—and he said, everyone reacted at first like it was fireworks, which is understandable just after the fourth of July. Says only when Donald Trump went on the ground did people realize he's been shot, and people started ducking. The people in the front rows of the crowd, interestingly enough, rushed forward to try to help the Secret Service. That's a very interesting reaction that tells you about the emotional connection they have with Donald Trump. But he said afterwards, what struck him is that at least one member of the crowd was there tweeting on his laptop sitting on the ground. The Secret Service is trying to clear the area, and this individual refuses to leave until the Secret Service pull their guns and point at him. This the world we live in now, where people want to capture these things real time and they view everything through politics.

EICHER: Speaking of, though, I’m reminded of the famous line of Britain’s prime minister Harold MacMillan. Asked what was most likely to change the course of governments? And his answer was “events, dear boy, events.” Attempted assassinations certainly qualify, but is it too early to discuss the political ramifications?

ERICKSON: I look, I mean, people are going to. Honestly I think this makes it less likely that Joe Biden gets out of the race. He gets to look leaderly. It changes the conversation from the last two weeks to something about Donald Trump. We're moving into the Republican National Convention today. He'll have the nomination speech on Thursday night. This drags things out for Democrats, but also, I do think there's a distinct segment of independent voters who don't like either side, but are deeply concerned about the growing antagonism of the left. And this may lock them in for Donald Trump.

REICHARD: Wouldn’t this be a great opportunity for Biden and Trump to stand together before the country to say calm down the rhetoric, cool things down, point us to higher angels?

ERICKSON: I would like to think so. I think it should happen. The hatred between these two is something I do wonder if the president, after two weeks of very, very hyperbolic rhetoric against Donald Trump, might realize, “Hey, maybe I should tone down my own rhetoric.” And yeah, if they could do an event together like that, it would be great. I won't hold my breath. They genuinely do not like each other, but he, President Biden, did try to reach out to Donald Trump last night. They did finally speak, and apparently had a pleasant conversation. So maybe this can be the beginning of something.

REICHARD: Erick Erickson is a conservative radio host, lawyer, and former political operative. He’s also a WORLD Opinions contributor. Erick, thank you.

ERICKSON: Thank you.

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