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Republican convention gets underway two days after Trump survived an assassination attempt

Republican convention gets underway two days after Trump survived an assassination attempt

MILWAUKEE, WI – The Republican National Convention kicks off on Monday, just two days after former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s standard-bearer, survived an assassination attempt. And the Saturday shooting at Trump’s rally in western Pennsylvania – where one spectator was killed and two more critically injured, and the former president visibly bloodied after a bullet grazed his ear – has altered the tone and raised the stakes of the convention. U.S. Secret Service and other officials announced on the eve of the convention that there are no plans to expand the security perimeter and that there are no known threats. “The arena’s set, the security is here and we feel very comfortable that we’re working with the Secret Service,” Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RNC EMPHASIZE CONVENTION TO ‘PROCEED’ IN AFTERMATH OF ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT Whatley emphasized that “this is going to be a facility where we’re going to be able to have 50,000 delegates and alternates and guests and members of the media who are going to be here and who are going to be safe. That’s very critical for us.” CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING FROM THE REPUBLICAN CONVENTION Trump, in a social media post on Sunday, said that he was going to delay his trip to the convention in the wake of the shooting, but decided against allowing a “potential assassin” to alter his plans. The former president arrived in Milwaukee, swing state Wisconsin’s largest city, a couple of hours later. At the four-day confab, Trump will formally become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee.  And as the convention gets underway, all eyes are on the former president as Trump’s extremely likely to announce his running mate. The first order of business, as roughly 2,400 Republican delegates from across the country gather at the Fiserv Fourm in downtown Milwaukee, will be officially nominating Trump during a roll call of the states during Monday afternoon’s session. Trump is scheduled to accept the nomination as he delivers his address to the convention on Thursday night. The gathering, which is expected to attract roughly 50,000 attendees, is scheduled to maintain its original programming despite Saturday’s shooting. And speakers were asked not to alter their speeches. Republicans are aiming to use the convention as a venue to reunite the party and energize delegates and activists ahead of the final stretch of the campaign in Trump’s 2024 election rematch with President Biden. As part of that push for unity, Trump’s final rival in this year’s GOP presidential nomination race will now speak at the convention. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration, will address the convention on Tuesday, a person familiar with the decision confirmed to Fox News on Sunday. Haley, who was engaged in a bitter two-candidate battle with Trump from late January through early March, when she ended her White House bid, wasn’t originally invited to the convention. Also on tap on Monday as the convention gets under way – A new slimmed-down Republican Party platform that won quick and overwhelming initial approval last week is expected to be passed during the opening session. While the platform – which softens longstanding Republican Party language in support of a federal ban on abortion – was praised by a number of top social conservative leaders, not all evangelicals were happy with the new document. Its expected passage is the latest sign of Trump’s expanding ideological grip over the GOP. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Biden’s Cabinet condemns attempted assassination of former President Trump

Biden’s Cabinet condemns attempted assassination of former President Trump

Amid a sea of inflammatory political rhetoric this election season, President Biden and White House Cabinet members unequivocally condemned political violence after the attempted assassination of former President Trump over the weekend, with many also expressing sympathy for Trump and condolences to the family of a spectator killed during the attack. Vice President Harris wrote on X that “assassination attempts have no place in our nation,” adding that she and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were praying for the family of the deceased victim, identified as a former fire chief, Corey Comperatore. “As @POTUS said, we must work toward unity as Americans. Assassination attempts have no place in our nation, or anywhere. Doug and I pray for the family of the victim who was senselessly killed yesterday and hope for a speedy recovery for those injured. TRUMP SAYS HE WAS ‘SHOT WITH A BULLET’ IN ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT AT PENNSYLVANIA RALLY Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas also condemned “political violence in America.”  “I’m shocked and saddened by the shooting at former President Trump’s rally and grateful that he is safe. As @POTUS said, there is no place for political violence in America and we must all condemn it,” Blinken posted to X on Saturday night. TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT SHINES LIGHT ON RALLY SECURITY Austin said the “entire” Department of Defense “condemns this violence, which has absolutely no place in our democracy.” “This is not the way that we resolve our differences in America — and it must never be. I’m relieved that reports indicate former President Trump is safe, and I am praying for him and his family and everyone affected by this appalling incident,” he said. Garland – who caught the ire of House Republicans this year who voted to hold him in contempt of Congress over the Biden-Hur audio recordings – released a lengthy statement on Sunday offering condolences to the victim’s family and thanking law enforcement officers who responded to the attempted assassination. “I want to reiterate that the violence that we saw yesterday is an attack on our democracy itself,” Garland said. “The Justice Department has no tolerance for such violence. And as Americans, we must have no tolerance for it. This must stop.” SUSPECTED TRUMP SHOOTER MAY HAVE BEEN CONFRONTED BY AN OFFICER ON THE ROOF Becerra, who previously brought a lawsuit against Trump during his presidency over allegedly violating the Clean Air Act, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, said he was “relieved” to hear that Trump was safe. “Political violence is never acceptable. While we learn more about what happened, there is no escaping the fact that gun violence is an urgent public health crisis in this country,” Becerra’s post on X read. Buttigieg, who has been one of Trump’s vocal critics over the years, called the incident a “horrible moment” and said he was “encouraged” that Trump was doing well. “An entire nation must speak with one voice today to completely and unequivocally reject all political violence,” he wrote on X.  Other Cabinet members offering sympathies include Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Veteran Affairs Denis McDonough and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield. “My prayers are with all of the victims who were injured or killed during yesterday’s attack, and with those traumatized by the violence. Such acts ought not to happen at a political rally, or any place else, in our country,” Vilsack wrote on X.  BIDEN VOWS SECRET SERVICE WILL PROVIDE TRUMP WITH ‘EVERY RESOURCE’ TO ENSURE ‘CONTINUED SAFETY’ “We condemn this violence in the strongest possible terms and commend the Secret Service for their swift action today,” Mayorkas – who has also been the subject of House GOP impeachment inquiries – wrote on X. “We are engaged with President Biden, former President Trump, and their campaigns, and are taking every possible measure to ensure their safety and security.” He added that maintaining the safety of presidential candidates is one of the department’s “vital priorities.” The statements come just a day before the Republican National Convention is scheduled to begin on Monday in Milwaukee, where delegates will officially select Trump to be the presumptive GOP presidential candidate. Biden said early Sunday he instructed the Secret Service to thoroughly examine all the Republican National Convention’s security measures ahead of its start time, but the agency said it will not change its current protocol for the weeklong event.

Trump survives shooting, but the politically charged blame game never fades

Trump survives shooting, but the politically charged blame game never fades

The assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Pennsylvania was a chilling and frightening moment in the history of a country that has seen too many such shootings. We are all grateful, of course, that the former president was not wounded more seriously and for the Secret Service agents who protected him. I am especially grateful that President Biden, who called Trump Saturday night, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and many other Democrats have united in declaring that political violence is absolutely unacceptable, in wishing Trump well, in praying for him, and in immediately putting partisanship aside. Trump having the instinct to pump his fist several times in efforts to reassure his supporters that he was all right despite the blood on his face – an image that may have changed the campaign – is naturally part of the story. ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON TRUMP AT PENNSYLVANIA RALLY LEAVES 2 HURT, 2 DEAD, INCLUDING SHOOTER But some ugliness also emerged in the wake of the bullets fired by the 20-year-old, who was killed, and that needs to be forcefully called out as well.  We have had enough of the cynical attempts to blame horrific shootings on the left or right, or on public figures who had nothing to do with it, by exploiting a tragedy to score cheap political points.  While Trump was fortunate to have only his ear grazed by a bullet, spared by perhaps an inch, one person in the Pittsburgh-area crowd was killed. Those who peddle the mean-spirited “blood on his hands” theories, especially on places like X, should just be ignored. The media shouldn’t take the bait, even if it generates clicks and ratings. The blame game is corrosive and irrelevant. Even those who can’t stand Trump decried the attempt to kill him, and I hope that brief interlude of honesty and humanity would be the same if the target was Biden or Vice President Harris. PRESIDENT BIDEN DELIVERS REMARKS DAY AFTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP Whether it’s a mass shooting or a targeted one, the only person to blame is the one who pulled the trigger. Our country has lost four presidents to assassins: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and JFK. Two other presidents have been injured by would-be assassins, Teddy Roosevelt and, more than four decades ago, Ronald Reagan. The connective tissue here is that the murderers and would-be murderers are crazy. You have to be insane to risk death or life imprisonment by firing upon innocent people, or heavily protected leaders. Unless there is evidence of a wider conspiracy, these nutjobs acted alone.  And I don’t really care, in the inevitable profiles, how angry or disaffected they are. That’s why, as in this case, I long ago stopped using their names, so as not to inspire others to seek such infamy. The killer, who also had explosives in his car, was a registered Republican, but also donated $15 to a progressive group, leaving the question of motive a muddle. Trump said after the shooting that we must “stand united” and “remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness.” Biden called the violence “sick” and said “we cannot condone this,” adding yesterday: “It’s not America.” Speaker Mike Johnson said “we’ve got to turn the temperature down in this country.” Those are welcome words, but such pleas didn’t stop Rep. Lauren Boebert and Sen. J.D. Vance from blaming the shooting on Biden’s rhetoric. JOHNSON ASKS PARTIES TO TURN DOWN RHETORIC AFTER TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT If the president had wanted to capitalize on the shooting, he could have noted that hours earlier he had called for gun control, while accusing Trump of doing the bidding of the NRA. Some Trump supporters, though, ripped Biden for saying he would put Trump in a “bullseye,” though he was obviously using a political metaphor.  Trump himself has often been accused of fomenting violence with some of his harsher language at rallies, so it’s ironic that he came close to being a victim. Yet it’s also true that Trump has been pounded by the press for nine long years, particularly after Jan. 6, and castigated as an aspiring dictator and danger to democracy, even going so far as morphing his face into that of Hitler on a recent The New Republic cover. Such demonization could easily convince a mentally unbalanced person that the world would be better off without him. The left has certainly employed the tactic. After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton, who had used his presidential pulpit to criticize Rush Limbaugh, denounced “reckless speech” and said the airwaves are too often used “to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other.” As part of my front-page story, I reported that the radio talk show host was accusing liberals of trying to whip up a “national hysteria” against the conservative movement.   The 1981 shooting of Reagan was done outside the Washington Hilton by a maniac who wanted to impress Jodie Foster. (I had to knock on doors to find a phone after racing to the hospital, and later reported from paramedics that Reagan had lost far more blood than the White House had acknowledged.) TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT STIRS MEMORIES OF SIMILAR ATTACK ON REAGAN The 2011 shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords in Tucson sparked an irrational attack blaming Sarah Palin because her campaign had released a political map with crosshairs marking the Democratic districts being targeted.  I wrote a piece calling this ludicrous, and critical colleagues eventually concluded I was right, as the lunatic who wounded the then-congressswoman and killed six others had never seen the map before the massacre. Palin unsuccessfully sued the New York Times after a sloppy editorial revived the smear.   And in Virginia in 2017, a gunman opened fire on a Republican baseball practice, nearly killing House GOP Whip Steve Scalise. Since the shooter was an unabashed liberal and Rachel Maddow fan, the right went on