The Memo: Attempt on Trump’s life reverberates in White House race

The 2024 presidential election campaign took another dramatic lurch Sunday, when the Secret Service foiled an apparent assassination attempt against former President Trump.

On this occasion, unlike the shooting at a Pennsylvania rally in July, the alleged attacker did not come close to wounding Trump — or worse. 

The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, was foiled when a Secret Service agent spotted the muzzle of a gun poking out of the undergrowth as Trump golfed at his club in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Routh was later arrested. He appeared in court Monday on firearms charges.

But beyond the immediate concerns around Trump’s safety — and the safety of front-line politicians generally — there is also the question of how the events of Sunday might reverberate in the presidential race.

The second attempt on Trump’s life within roughly nine weeks will surely rev up his base, further heightening the passions of supporters who are already prone to believe that the 45th president is a target of larger, nefarious forces.

It’s possible the apparent attempt on Trump’s life could also win over whatever thin sliver of the electorate still populates the center ground — a factor that could be important in a presidential race against Vice President Harris that is essentially deadlocked.

The startling chain of events could perhaps solidify some of Trump’s softer supporters — those Republican-minded or socially conservative voters who are hesitant to back the former president because of his belligerent rhetoric and penchant for personal invective.

But the story has complications — not least because the second assassination attempt has occurred in a political context that differs significantly from back in July.

Back then, Trump was running against President Biden. The shooting that grazed Trump’s ear, at an open-air rally in Butler, Pa., came right in the middle of the crisis that enveloped the incumbent president following his catastrophic debate performance in Atlanta.

The debate had taken place on June 27, Trump was shot on July 13 and Biden ultimately abandoned his reelection bid on July 21. 

The confluence of events makes it almost impossible to disentangle any political ramifications of the shooting from those of the Biden crisis. 

Trump’s poll ratings did tick up around this time, but it is impossible to discern whether he was the beneficiary of public sympathy about his shooting or of the cratering of Democratic sentiments regarding Biden.

There is also the strikingly visual nature of the Pennsylvania shooting to consider, including the fact that it occurred on live television, and the potency of the images of a bloodied Trump raising his fist in defiance seconds afterward.

The situation at the West Palm Beach golf club, serious though it was, did not reach those heights of visceral impact.

Trump, meanwhile, is blaming his political opponents, including Biden and Harris, for the most recent attempt on his life — a tactic that will appeal to his loyalists but may turn off members of the broader electorate.

“He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump told Fox News Digital on Monday, referring to Routh. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at.”

In a Monday social media post, Trump wrapped various grievances into the accusation that because of “Communist Left Rhetoric the bullets are flying and it will only get worse!” 

In the same post, Trump complained about the “highly partisan ABC debate” — which he was widely perceived to have lost badly to Harris — and about migration.

But those attacks from the former president drive new debate about the incendiary rhetoric he himself has used repeatedly.

Springfield, Ohio, has been catapulted into the national spotlight in recent days by evidence-free allegations from the right that migrants from Haiti are killing people’s pets in the city. 

Trump’s comment during the ABC debate that “they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats,” has taken on a life of its own and has helped inflame tensions in Springfield.

Local police have said there have been “no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” 

There have, however, been bomb threats and school evacuations in Springfield, amid what Mayor Rob Rue has characterized as a “hateful” attitude toward immigration.

Trump’s role in fanning those flames is, at least in the mind of his detractors, another example of his propensity to engage in dangerous rhetoric.

Among previous examples cited are remarks made on the 2016 campaign trail that appeared to encourage violence against protesters; comments around the far-right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017; and his pushing of fictional claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election that led up to the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021.

Harris, for her part, has said she is “glad” Trump is safe, adding “violence has no place in America.”

Biden also expressed relief Trump was unharmed and made similar comments to Harris in opposition to any form of violence.

Late Monday afternoon, White House spokesperson Emilie Simons wrote on social media that Biden had spoken with Trump and “conveyed his relief that he is safe.”

“The two shared a cordial conversation and former President Trump expressed his thanks for the call,” Simons noted.

The campaign for the White House, though, appears anything but cordial. 

Even the second attempt on Trump’s life is unlikely to foster any lasting change of tone.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.