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By: Emmanuel Roy
Miami, Florida – In the hours after a would-be assassin’s bullets narrowly missed Donald Trump’s head, America’s leaders are grappling with a choice: to embrace and exacerbate the divisions that have racked our politics or to call for a national lowering of the rhetorical temperature.
There seem to be early signs that many are choosing the latter course. This morning, President Donald Trump called on Americans to “stand united” and show our true character as Americans.”
The former First Lady Melania Trump implored Americans to “look beyond the left and the right, the red and the blue.” And Speaker Mike Johnson implores the nation to “turn the rhetoric down.” “Obviously, we can’t go on like this as a society,” Johnson said on NBC. “We’ve got to turn the temperature down in this country. And we need leaders of all parties on both sides to call that out.”
A few hours after the assassination attempt, the landscape looked entirely different. Republican after Republican reacted with fury and recriminations to the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, which resulted in minor injuries to Trump but left one rallygoer dead and two others hospitalized.
Incendiary remarks came from some of the most prominent members of the GOP, including some vying to be Trump’s running mate, who spoke with no knowledge about the shooter’s motives:
Senator Tim SCOTT (R-S.C.) said: “This was an assassination attempt aided and abetted by the radical Left and corporate media incessantly calling Trump a threat to democracy, fascists, or worse,”
Senator J.D. VANCE (R-OHIO: “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination. “
Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.) said: “They tried to impeach him. They are trying to imprison him. Now, they have tried to assassinate him,”
Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE, (R-GA) said: Democrats wanted this to happen.” “Joe Biden sent the orders,” said Rep. MIKE COLLINS (R-Ga.), adding that Biden should be prosecuted for inciting the assassination attempt.
These are the kinds of vitriolic and hateful speeches that result in the type of violence we witnessed on Saturday. But we are glad to see the very day – Sunday morning things look different. Top Republicans are sending a clear message to cool it. Trump campaign leaders SUSIE WILES and CHRIS LaCIVITA wrote in an internal campaign memo that they “will not tolerate dangerous rhetoric on social media.”
He himself deleted a posting in which he said, “They tried to keep him off the ballot, they tried to put him in jail, and now you see this,” as WaPo’s Michael Scherer notes. The same is true for Rep. MIKE KELLY (R-Pa.)—a Butler native who was at the rally—who scrubbed, “We will not tolerate this attack from the left,” from an early post.
But not everyone is rising to the moment. DONALD TRUMP JR. wrote on X this morning that “Dems and their friends in the media knew exactly what they were doing with the ‘literally Hitler’ bullshit!” He added that if “Democrats got their way, my dad would be dead right now.”
Early this morning, Donald Trump thanked his supporters and said, “It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.” FBI identifies Pennsylvania shooter as 20-year-old THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS, a registered Republican who also donated to a liberal group in 2021.
President JOE BIDEN expected to make on-camera remarks after a briefing from Homeland Security and law enforcement officials. Trump campaign officials say RNC will go on as planned.
If there’s one thing with the potential to unite or divide Washington right now, it’s security. Partisans on both sides are wondering the same thing: How the hell did a gunman get a rifle on a roof within 150 yards of a former president and presumptive nominee?
There are some signs of emerging comity: Reps. MIKE LAWLER (R-N.Y.) and RITCHIE TORRES (D-N.Y.) say they will jointly submit legislation enhancing Secret Service protections for all presidential nominees.
Johnson and other Hill Republicans are demanding immediate answers from the Secret Service. Oversight Chair James Coleman (R-Ky.) has already summoned Director Kimberly Chase for testimony on July 22, the first day Congress is back in session.
But on another front, the response has been sharply partisan, with Republicans accusing Democrats of playing politics with Trump’s security by proposing to withdraw his Secret Service detail if sent to prison.
“This should be a sobering reminder to them & others on the Left that their rhetoric & actions matter.” Homeland Security Chair MICHAEL McCAUL (R-Texas) wrote, attacking the bill introduced in April amid Trump’s hush money trial by Rep. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-Miss.).
Thompson pushed back, saying his bill would have had no impact on Trump’s protection in Pennsylvania: “It aims to clarify lines of authority when a protectee is sentenced to prison and is in the custody of another law enforcement agency,” he said, per Kerry Picket of The Washington Times.
Thompson, we’ll also note, is facing heat for a staffer’s ugly Facebook remark in the immediate aftermath of the shooting: “I don’t condone violence, but please get you some shooting lessons so you don’t miss next time. Ooops, that wasn’t me talking,” wrote field director JACQUELINE MARSAW.
