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This is beyond unacceptable.
Donald Trump deserves better protection than this. The country deserves better for the once-and-possibly-future president.
If the Secret Service can’t protect Trump on his own golf course, what has become of our political system?
Especially since the suspected shooter with the AK-47-style rifle has a criminal record.
SUSPECT 'RYAN ROUTH' IN CUSTODY FOLLOWING SECOND ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON TRUMP AT FLORIDA GOLF CLUB
The second attempted assassination of Donald Trump in two months is profoundly chilling. The first one, where the bullet grazed his ear in Butler, Pa., seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime fluke. Sunday’s attempt, at Trump’s West Palm Beach course, seemed predictable, although Secret Service agents, to their credit, reacted more quickly.
Although the suspect was only several hundred yards away, an agent, having seen the barrel of the rifle sticking through the fence, shot at the gunman, who was soon captured and arrested.
While the shooter – whom I’m not naming to avoid giving him the infamy he craved, as evidenced by his GoPro camera – has a criminal history, that didn’t stop him from obtaining the assault rifle.
He faced two gun charges in court yesterday: possessing a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a Soviet-era semi-automatic rifle, developed in the 1940s, with an obliterated serial number.
Investigators say the suspect had a loaded SKS-style semi-automatic assault rifle.
Trump was reported to be initially shaken – who wouldn’t be? – but later joked about wanting to finish his putt, and spent time talking to journalists and supporters.
It took less than 24 hours for the former president to blame Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, although both had put out statements of sympathy, with the vice president saying she is "deeply disturbed" by what happened in Florida.
Trump told Fox’s Brooke Singman:
"He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it. Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out."
Trump cited past Biden and Harris comments as a "threat to democracy," while claiming they are "unity" leaders.
"They are the opposite," Trump said. "These are people that want to destroy our country…
"It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat. They do it with a combination of rhetoric and lawsuits they wrap me up in. These are the things that dangerous fools, like the shooter, listen to – that is the rhetoric they listen to, and the same with the first one," Trump said.
And finally: "They use highly inflammatory language. "I can use it too — far better than they can — but I don’t."
I doubt you could find many people, even among the former president’s allies, who say he doesn’t sometimes use inflammatory language. So each side portrays the other as a danger to democracy.
A New York Times reporter interviewed the 58-year-old shooter last year for an article on Americans volunteering to fight in Ukraine.
By the time they got off the phone, Thomas Gibbons-Neff writes of the suspect’s plan to take several hundred Afghan fighters to support Ukraine, "it was clear he was in way over his head.
"He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it took to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals. At one point he mentioned arranging a U.S. military transport flight from Iraq to Poland with Afghan refugees willing to fight.
"I shook my head. It sounded ridiculous, but the tone in [his] voice said otherwise. He was going to back Ukraine’s war effort, no matter what."
RYAN ROUTH, ARMED MAN ARRESTED AT TRUMP GOLF COURSE, POSTED PROLIFICALLY ABOUT TRUMP, POLITICS
In a $2.99 book, and the Washington Post reports, the gunman wrote that he "must take part of the blame" for electing a "brainless" president, obviously referring to Trump. "You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal." the book declares.
Okay, so he didn’t like Trump (while the Butler shooter was willing to kill Trump or the president). But what connects these and other shootings is that these are life’s losers, desperate to make some kind of mark.
Biden, by the way, told reporters yesterday: "Thank God the president’s okay…the service needs more help. And I think that Congress should respond to their needs if they in fact need more services."
In 2022, a woman describing herself as the suspect’s fiancée raised almost $2,000 by saying he "put his life at home on hold and traveled to Kyiv in April to support the people of Ukraine. He plans on staying for at least 90 days and stays at a hostel with a military unit." There were photos.
Here’s where the whole thing is drenched in hypocrisy. In the wake of Jan. 6 and Trump’s unproven accusations of a stolen election, why shouldn’t Democrats be able to criticize him?
But while denying that their rhetoric might be poisoning the atmosphere, the Democrats turn around and blame Trump and JD Vance for inciting violence in Springfield, Ohio, where a series of bomb threats (which can’t be blamed on any public figures) have shut down schools, city hall and a hospital.
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The 15,000 or so Haitians there under protected status who are filling jobs in the town have caused friction, but Trump’s "they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats," while debunked, has gone viral with online mockery. So the Dems are more than happy to hurl the incitement charge when immigrants are involved.
New Hampshire’s Libertarian Party has tweeted: "Anyone who murders Kamala Harris would be an American hero." That is sick. The party later deleted the X posting, but only to comply with a provider’s rules.
It is difficult to protect a presidential candidate on a golf course, because members, and even regular players, have access to a long, flat area with almost no place to take cover. The Secret Service, meanwhile, had asked Trump to hold only indoor rallies so its agents could control access, but he decided against it.
Here’s the nutso part. If Trump was back in the White House, the agency would shut down the entire golf course to protect him. But right now, the Secret Service can’t – or won’t – even though he’s one of two people who could be in the Oval Office next January.
That should change, immediately, because this is starting to feel like Russian roulette.
