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July 13, 2024

In PA, an assassination attempt against President Trump *UPDATED*

By Andrea Widburg

At a little after 6 PM Eastern Time, while President Trump was speaking at a huge outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, popping sounds rang out. At the same time, Trump grabbed at the right side of his head before vanishing from view as Secret Service agents hurled themselves atop him.

Immediately after, the Secret Service hustled Trump, who was upright, walking, and talking, off the podium. Blood was pouring from Trump’s right ear and down his cheek. Notice as you watch the video how Trump is desperate to remain on the stage, fighting the Secret Service agents’ efforts to rush him to safety:

It says a great deal about Trump that he had the presence of mind, the courage, and the empathy to pump his fist in the air, assuring the worried crowd—and watching videos who were equally horrified by what they had just witnessed—that he was (seemingly) all right in what will surely be one of modern America’s most iconic political images:

As of this writing, all that I know about President Trump’s status is that he is “safe.”

Given Trump’s feistiness immediately after what happened, I’m hoping that he’s not only safe but is also well—that he has a mere scratch that will repair in days and cause no lasting damage.

Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying that others were shot at the rally and that one person may be dead:

Based on the available facts, I believe that we witnessed an assassination attempt, although I am ready to be corrected if new facts present an alternative narrative. (However, I’m at a loss even to imagine what that alternative narrative might be.)

So, where does that leave us as a nation? I think Scott Adams summed it up with his usual pithy style:

That’s exactly right. Beginning in 2016, the Democrats attacked Donald Trump’s character and actions with a fury unlike anything seen since the Civil War. They invented hoaxes to paint him as a racist and a traitor, impeached him twice, and kept up a steady drumbeat of lies about the horrors that would flow from his presidency—lies that were never affected by the reality of his presidency, which did not involve throwing gays off buildings, setting up concentration camps, segregating blacks, and forcibly impregnating women and confining them, barefoot, to prison kitchens.

I also happen to believe that Democrats cheated mightily to place in the White House a man famous for his corruption, viciousness, and incipient (and readily apparent) dementia.

Even after Trump left office, the Democrats never let up. They’ve tried to sue him into penury and imprison him for life. And then there’s the rhetoric.

Just last week, the once reputable New Republic explicitly promised that Trump’s next administration would be the second coming of Hitler, a claim they’ve been making with increased volume and frequency since 2016 (again, without regard for his completely normal presidential policies and actions):

The assassination fantasies also go back to 2016. Remember the untalented Kathy Griffith holding up a model of Trump’s bloody head? Or the production of Julius Caesar with Trump in Caesar’s role? Just a couple of weeks ago, tech billionaire Reid Hoffman announced that he hoped to make Trump a “real” martyr.

In other words, the Democrat high command has, for years now, been telling its foot soldiers that Trump is a man who is a combination of Hitler and Satan and that he should be wiped off the earth. Indeed, just look at Biden’s rhetoric about Trump. It’s utterly unhinged.

It looks as if today, in Butler, Pennsylvania, one of those foot soldiers decided to act on this mandate. Once assassination attempts enter a campaign, we’re in unchartered political territory. The Democrats must ramp down their rhetoric or this may get even worse.

I’ve been wondering how leftists will play what happened. Currently, there’s radio silence other than very careful, straightforward reporting. I can’t help but remember, though, what it was like to be on the UC Berkeley campus on March 30, 1981, back in my student days. When word spread that President Reagan had been shot, many students celebrated. What I can say is that the word “staged” is trending madly on Twitter.

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UPDATE: This was not staged. At least one person has died. We don't know if it was the shooter. There are conflicting reports that the shooter was killed or arrested:

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Meanwhile, Trump supporters, conservatives who don’t support Trump, and normal, decent people are absolutely horrified at the thought that a presidential candidate was almost certainly the victim of an intended assassination attempt. And if you’re like me, and you believe it was an assassination attempt, you may be thinking that Divine Providence stepped in to save not just Trump but America, too.

Image: X screen grab.

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UPDATES (Check back often):

There are reports that the Secret Service arrested an Antifa member who made a video threatening "justice" for Trump. (UPDATE: While Violets was probably arrested, he was not the shooter.)

AP says the shooter is dead, as is an attendee:

People can't help noticing Biden's rhetoric:

Trump's campaign says he is fine. Honestly, God is watching over that man:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has the right message to Americans:

The shooter fired from a rooftop:

NO WORD FROM BIDEN as of 7:52 PM Eastern Time. They're probably having a hard time waking him up. Or if he's awake, maybe the medicines need time to kick in.

Biden just put out his official, generic message:

Apparently, Trump repeatedly asked for increased Secret Service protection and was repeatedly denied --although we have no idea when these requests or denials occurred:

The man in this video is telling the truth because I'll follow the video with a report I received from a friend, who got it directly from two other eyewitnesses:

Can u believe my 2 nephews were at the trump rally & were close enough to the gunman to see his facial feature of the man that shot at Trump.

He crawled military style on top of the roof of a building next to my nephews and shot from there..at least that's the info I'm getting right now from my sister as the boys call her repeatedly from the scene. They watched the shooter be killed too. They r ok. I cannot believe they were this close to gun violence again. So sad

Here is more.... They said it was so crowded something about being behind a fence and a building next to them. They saw the shooter crawl on his belly. They could describe his face They were that close. And saw the shooter killed

Biden made a live statement, including the fact that he's running to be a unifier, and that shooting people isn't appropriate:

Based on my experiences at Berkeley 43 years ago, I predicted that leftists would mourn the fact that the assassination attempt failed. I was right:

I'm sure there'll be lots of other examples, but I'll stop with those two. They've made my point.

Trump just put out a Truth Social message: 

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