Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Former President Donald Trump was about six minutes into a
Speaker 2: speech on Saturday at a campaign rally. He'd had just
Speaker 2: enough time to start talking about border control when several
Speaker 2: shots rang out.
Speaker 3: Take a look at what happened.
Speaker 4: Some of his supporters screamed and some scattered. Trump threw
Speaker 4: himself down to the ground, and a swarm of Secret
Speaker 4: Service agents dove to shield him. When Trump reappeared moments later,
Speaker 4: his right ear was bleeding where a bullet had grazed him.
Speaker 4: As Secret Service agents hurried to get him off stage,
Speaker 4: Trump pumped his fist in the air, appearing to mouth
Speaker 4: the word fight.
Speaker 2: Trump left the area immediately and within hours released a
Speaker 2: statement on his social media platform saying he was fine.
Speaker 2: He's now in Milwaukee as planned for the republic National Convention,
Speaker 2: which starts on Monday.
Speaker 4: The investigation into the attack is still ongoing, but here's
Speaker 4: what we know as of now. The shooter has been
Speaker 4: identified as twenty year old Thomas Matthew Crooks from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 4: The New York Times reported that Crooks is a registered
Speaker 4: Republican who also donated fifteen dollars to a Democratic voter
Speaker 4: turnout organization in twenty twenty one. He fired an AR
Speaker 4: fifteen style rifle from a rooftop located just a few
Speaker 4: hundred feet away from Trump's podium and was killed on
Speaker 4: the scene. One person at the rally was also killed.
Speaker 4: Two others are reportedly critically injured.
Speaker 3: Three of our fellow Pennsylvanians were shot, one fatally and
Speaker 3: two in critical condition.
Speaker 2: The Secret Service is now under intense scrutiny as authorities
Speaker 2: try to determine how this could have happened and whether
Speaker 2: the agency adequately responded in real time.
Speaker 4: I've directed an independent review of a national security at
Speaker 4: yesterday's rally to assess exactly what happened. In the high
Speaker 4: stakes run up to the twenty twenty four presidential election,
Speaker 4: Saturday's assassination attempt marks a turning point in a particularly
Speaker 4: chaotic campaign season.
Speaker 2: The shooting in Pennsylvania is a kind of event that
Speaker 2: could change the trajectory of both Trump and Biden's campaigns.
Speaker 4: The question is how could this convince undecided voters to
Speaker 4: rally around Trump. Could it upend the Democrats campaign strategy.
Speaker 2: Could the violence give way to a rare moment of
Speaker 2: political unity, or will it just sew more division. Today
Speaker 2: on the show, I speak with politics reporter Gregory Cordy
Speaker 2: about how political violence has shaped history.
Speaker 4: And we'll talk to senior politics editor Wendy Benjaminson for
Speaker 4: more on how the shooting could reshape the twenty twenty
Speaker 4: four race. I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 2: And I'm Salaiamosen. This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. Gregory, Wendy,
Speaker 2: thank you for joining me. It's eight twenty pm Eastern
Speaker 2: on Sunday, July fourteenth. How is it that we're dealing
Speaker 2: with yet another incident, this time an attempt on a
Speaker 2: former president's life.
Speaker 1: It's really been a shocking weekend and a shocking reminder,
Speaker 1: as you point out, Saliyah, that these sort of things
Speaker 1: are happening with increasing frequency. When I was looking over
Speaker 1: the list of the presidential assassinations and assassinations attempts, I
Speaker 1: was sort of struck by how common it was in
Speaker 1: the two hundred and fifty years of our history. But
Speaker 1: this one is different because it is during one of
Speaker 1: the most heated and divisive political campaigns of modern history.
Speaker 1: It's a rematch between two elderly men, and it seems
Speaker 1: more like the beginning of potential violence in elections becoming routine.
Speaker 2: Gregory. The US has faced assassinations, successful and attempts before.
Speaker 2: Can we learn anything from how some of the historic
Speaker 2: moments have shaped the American psyche.
Speaker 3: Anytime that a president has been assassinated, certainly it has
Speaker 3: been a huge blow to our identity as Americans, that
Speaker 3: the idea that we live in a democracy, the idea
Speaker 3: of the peaceful transition of power. And of course the
Speaker 3: first assassination that we had was of Abraham Lincoln in
Speaker 3: the aftermath of yet another traumatic event in our country's history.
Speaker 3: Then we had James Garfield, we had William McKinley, we
Speaker 3: had John F. Kennedy, which is within the public memory
Speaker 3: of this generation, and so that certainly has been a jar.
Speaker 3: But then even these attempted assassinations can be shocking. The
Speaker 3: country does tend to rally in these moments. We saw
Speaker 3: after the Kennedy assassination, his successor, Lyndon Johnson, was able
Speaker 3: to pass a whole litany of significant legislation that we
Speaker 3: still talk about to this day. Ronald Reagan faced a
Speaker 3: little bit of a bump in his popularity after the
Speaker 3: attempt on his life. Part of that was his personality.
Speaker 3: He joked with the doctors. He told them, I hope
Speaker 3: you're all Republicans. He told his wife Nancy Reagan, sorry, honey,
Speaker 3: I forgot to duck. It was charming and it sort
Speaker 3: of helped him politically in the short term. This is
Speaker 3: a much different situation, as Wendy points out, just because
Speaker 3: we are in this very heated moment. All these other assassinations,
Speaker 3: with the exception maybe of obviously the Lincoln assassination, happened
Speaker 3: kind of during moments of relative domestic calm, and this one,
Speaker 3: coming amid the backdrop of this very contentious campaign, is
Speaker 3: likely to just ramp up fears and anxieties around this
Speaker 3: selection even more.
Speaker 2: Wendy, do you think that this is going to change
Speaker 2: how Trump approaches campaigning.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it will change how Trump approaches it.
Speaker 1: Certainly is changing it right now over the last day
Speaker 1: or so since the shooting, because he has been uncharacteristically calm,
Speaker 1: one might say presidential in calling for unity. He and
Speaker 1: Biden are echoing sort of the same theme of unity.
Speaker 1: But Trump also knows, as Gregory pointed out that happened
Speaker 1: with Reagan, the fact that he wasn't hurt seriously really
Speaker 1: helps his campaign. He is now a sympathetic character. All
Speaker 1: weekend I was watching one headline after another. Al Sharpton
Speaker 1: and Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, rally
Speaker 1: behind Trump. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro rallies behind Trump.
Speaker 2: So when you have.
Speaker 1: People like that putting Trump in a good light, when
Speaker 1: you have his base riled up, whether they think erroneously
Speaker 1: that Democrats were behind this or whether they think he's
Speaker 1: the victim of violence and he's a great man, they
Speaker 1: are now going to be sure and turn out in droves.
Speaker 1: So yes, this does nothing but help his campaign. Also,
Speaker 1: two billionaires, Bill Ackman and Elon Musk immediately came out
Speaker 1: and said they backed him when they were on the
Speaker 1: fence before Gregory.
Speaker 2: Do you think that some of the sympathy votes that
Speaker 2: Trump has now will last for the next couple of months,
Speaker 2: because the vote isn't until November, and it is still July.
Speaker 3: I think it's a little early to say. We still
Speaker 3: haven't seen a whole lot of really conclusive polling since
Speaker 3: this incident on Saturday night, and of course the polls
Speaker 3: are trying to keep up with the rapid fire developments
Speaker 3: in this race. What we do know is that every
Speaker 3: time former President Trump was indicted or convicted in the
Speaker 3: past year, and all of these different cases, that the
Speaker 3: four different criminal cases that he's faced, he's received a
Speaker 3: bonanza in fundraising. And those were legal threats to him.
Speaker 3: This was a very real, physical and potentially mortal threat
Speaker 3: to him. I would expect that it would resonate with
Speaker 3: Trump supporters many fold times more than these these criminal cases.
Speaker 3: We'll have to see the fundraising numbers as they come in.
Speaker 2: From what I understand, the Trump campaign has already sent
Speaker 2: to at least fundraising text messages going off of this.
Speaker 2: Everything that's happened, it comes on the heel of two
Speaker 2: fraught weeks for the Biden campaign. Our attention has been
Speaker 2: squarely focused on whether he was fit to serve as president.
Speaker 2: But now the campaign is pulling some of its ads,
Speaker 2: and frankly, it's in a really tough position when it
Speaker 2: comes to attacking a targeted opponent. Think about that photo
Speaker 2: of Trump with blood on his face, the American flag
Speaker 2: in the background, and him standing strong. It's patriotic. On
Speaker 2: top of that, we've seen prominent Republicans, including Trump's potential
Speaker 2: vice presidential pig jd Vance blaming Biden's fiery rhetoric that
Speaker 2: Trump is a danger to democracy. So where does the
Speaker 2: conversation go from here?
Speaker 1: It's going to be a very tricky road to hoe
Speaker 1: for Biden and for Trump. You mentioned fundraising Celeia, and
Speaker 1: Biden was just at the point where Trump was beginning
Speaker 1: to overtake his massive war chest. I think it's over
Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty million dollars now, So Trump was
Speaker 1: just beginning to raise more money than he was. And now,
Speaker 1: as you said, Trump has put out at least two
Speaker 1: fundraising appeals. Biden has had to pull his because he
Speaker 1: cannot look like he is capitalizing or profiteering on the
Speaker 1: injury of his opponent. So they are pulling those they
Speaker 1: are pulling ads. Joe Biden is now acting in support
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, and this cannot help his campaign. There
Speaker 1: will be a period now where Biden cannot call him
Speaker 1: a threat to democracy, cannot call him a dangerous man,
Speaker 1: cannot hit him as hard as he wanted to because
Speaker 1: of this shooting. It's very, very, very tricky. And the
Speaker 1: Republican National Convention starts tomorrow. Trump is a master of
Speaker 1: the moment in a way that Biden is very affable,
Speaker 1: Biden is very kind. He on Sunday night gave these
Speaker 1: remarks about how the country needs to be unified. But
Speaker 1: that photo you mentioned of Trump holding up that defiant
Speaker 1: fist with the American flag and the Secret Service agents
Speaker 1: and him knowing that he needed to do that fist
Speaker 1: pump and then immediately go to the Republican National Convention
Speaker 1: and take charge of it. There are so many American
Speaker 1: stereotypes wrapped into that thing where that people do respond
Speaker 1: to in this country that I think it's going to
Speaker 1: be very, very difficult for Biden to keep up.
Speaker 2: So you go did a snappole right after the rally
Speaker 2: and it found that half of Americans view political violence
Speaker 2: as a quote very big problem. What do you guys
Speaker 2: think it will take to quell this?
Speaker 1: I don't know what it will take to quell this.
Speaker 1: Our poll in May, the Bloomberg News Morning Console polls
Speaker 1: showed a similar figure. So you had half the country
Speaker 1: already sort of resigned to this happening, and now their
Speaker 1: worst fears are realized. There has been political violence in
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four campaign, and let's not forget that
Speaker 1: there was violence in the twenty two any campaign, the
Speaker 1: January sixth insurrection. The United States may be becoming one
Speaker 1: of those countries, at least as long as the rhetoric
Speaker 1: is so heated, where this is becoming commonplace, like it
Speaker 1: is in so many other places around the world, in
Speaker 1: new democracies that aren't used to this sort of peaceful
Speaker 1: transfer of power. It's very, very sad. I don't know
Speaker 1: how we're going to get past it unless the characters
Speaker 1: in play changed dramatically.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the Republican National Convention. It begins Monday in Milwaukee, Gregory.
Speaker 2: You just got there, I think, just an hour ago.
Speaker 2: What can we expect in the next couple of days.
Speaker 3: I think you kind of have to tear up the
Speaker 3: script for how we might have thought that this convention
Speaker 3: was going to go. We still do have some unfinished
Speaker 3: business in that we are a couple of days from
Speaker 3: Trump's nomination and he still hasn't picked his vice presidential
Speaker 3: running mate, so we have to hear that shortly. But
Speaker 3: the tone of this convention has shifted in that it
Speaker 3: reinforces this notion that Trump has very adeptly cultivated on
Speaker 3: the American right, that it is a culture under siege.
Speaker 3: That was a metaphor before, but now it's quite literal.
Speaker 3: And so I would expect every single one of the
Speaker 3: speakers at this convention, and there are as many of
Speaker 3: one hundred of them over the four nights, are busy
Speaker 3: going back to their remarks to try to figure out
Speaker 3: how to incorporate the events of the weekend into their
Speaker 3: message to the delegates on the floor of the convention.
Speaker 2: Malonkey, thanks for listening to The Big Take podcast from
Speaker 2: Bloomberg News. I'm Saleamosen recovering this story on Bloomberg dot Com,
Speaker 2: TV radio and The Terminal. This episode was produced by
Speaker 2: Julia Press. It was mixed by Blake Maples and fact
Speaker 2: checked by David Fox. Naomi Shaven is a senior producer
Speaker 2: and with our executive producer Nicole Beemsterbower, edited this episode.
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