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Thursday, 9/12/2024 11:00 AM The prospect of an assassination was on the minds of some Trump supporters long before the Butler rally. In December 2020, Trump told friends he feared Iran might try to kill him as retaliation for the drone strike he ordered to kill Maj. Gen. Soleimani, according to the book “The Divider” by Baker and Glasser. Last year, as Trump stared down four separate criminal cases, he repeatedly passed on invitations to speculate that an assassination attempt could be in his future. “Are you worried that they’re going to try and kill you?” Carlson asked Trump in an interview released on the same night as the first primary debate, in which Trump did not participate. Trump didn’t directly answer, In his first public statements after the July 13 shooting, Trump thanked law enforcement, offered condolences to the rallygoers killed and wounded, and called for unity. On the first night after Trump was injured in an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., some supporters and allies, including campaign staff, immediately began blaming President Biden and Democrats before any information was available about the shooter or his possible motive. The observation that the rally attendees in Butler stayed and watched Trump rather than flee quickly became a popular feature of the story, usually offered as testament to their courage and dedication to Trump - making the brush with disaster something they survived together. That night, after Trump took off in his plane and police cleared the fairgrounds where the rally was held, people put out Trump signs and banners and spray-painted “FIGHT” on the streets. An anonymous petition circulating online gathered more than 7,000 signatures to ask the county judge to impanel a grand jury to investigate the assassination attempt, alleging that federal agencies have conflicts of interest and “possible perceived corruption.” The Secret Service repeatedly turned down the Trump campaign’s requests for additional resources. The attempt on Trump’s life left him unusually spiritual and amazed to be alive, according to people who spoke to him immediately afterward. He stayed relatively quiet through the start of the Republican National Convention that opened just two days later. He began with a dramatic retelling of the assassination attempt, saying it would be the only time because it was “too painful.” He was joined onstage by the firefighter uniform of slain rallygoer Comperatore, and at one point he walked over to kiss the white helmet. “When he stood up after being shot in the face, bloodied, and put his hand up, I thought, at that moment, that was a transformation. This was no longer a man,” Carlson said in his speech on the convention’s final night. “I think it was divine intervention. But the effect that it had on Donald Trump - he was no longer just a political party’s nominee, or a former president, or a future president. This was the leader of a nation.” Depictions of Trump's raised fist after the assassination attempt decorated his July 24 rally in Charlotte. The photo of Trump raising his fist with blood on his face has supplanted his mug shot as the defining image of his campaign, symbolizing the feeling of defiance that Trump has made core to his political persona. Republicans’ new rallying cry became the “Fight! Fight! Fight!” chant inspired by Trump’s first words after getting shot. There would be shirts proclaiming “Still Standing … Impeached, Arrested, Convicted & Shot” and “You Missed.” Some delegates wore paper flaps over their ears in solidarity with Trump’s bandage. Trump proceeded to recount the shooting again and again. At the July 31 rally in Harrisburg, he marveled that the Butler rally had not turned into a stampede when the gunshots rang out. “They all said, ‘Trump is going to be a nice man now. He came close to death.’ And I really agreed with that for about eight hours or so. So, I was nice for about, what would you say, three, four, or five hours, and then I said, ‘These are bad people. We have to win this battle,’ he said. .” Secret Service Director Cheatle resigned under pressure in July, and there are ongoing investigations by congressional committees, the FBI and Homeland Security’s inspector general. In recent weeks, the Republican presidential nominee began promoting conspiracy theories such as those that label the assassination attempt an “inside job” by government agencies. Trump and his running mate, Sen. Vance (R-Ohio), frequently portray the attempt as part of efforts by political opponents to prevent the former president from returning to power. In a recent podcast interview, Trump pointed to FBI Director Wray’s initial uncertainty in congressional testimony about what hit Trump’s ear as reason to distrust him. His frequent retellings of what happened in Butler serve to deepen his bond with his supporters by fostering a collective experience of overcoming adversity. That shared feeling gets intensified by a perceived indifference from the media, as attention quickly moved on from the shooting to Trump’s selection of Vance and Harris’s replacement of Biden as the Democratic nominee. “The more we see what happened that day, the more suspicious it all looks,” ’right-wing’ podcast host Crowley said in an interview with Trump released on Aug. 29. “It looks like the three-letter agencies are slow-walking a lot of this evidence, a lot of the videos, etc. Does it look increasingly to you like this was a suspicious, maybe even inside job?” “It’s very suspicious,” Trump replied. “The more you see it, the more you start to say, ‘There could be something else.’” Trump campaign senior adviser Hughes said: “President Trump wants to ensure we learn where failures happened and how to prevent them in the future.” Trump allies and surrogates are already echoing his language or going further. In a Sept. 6 radio interview, Sen. Johnson (R-Wis.) drew a line connecting the JFK assassination, the downfall of President Nixon and the Butler shooting. “We’ll probably never know because there’s a reason you call it the deep state,” he said. “It’s very deep. It’s very pervasive.” ’This is all set up to prime his base to believe that, if his loses in November, the Democrats have once again stolen the election, that Harris is illegitimate, and they should in some respects come to his defense,’ said Walter, a professor at the University of California at San Diego and the author of ’How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them.’ “I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me,” Trump said at Tuesday’s ABC News debate with Vice President Harris. (Source: msn / The Washington Post)
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