Whatever damn fool did this has just made the situation about a million times worse. I don’t give a shit who did this, it was the worst move you could have made at the worst time you could have made it.
And those of you jumping to immediate conspiracy theories need to stop and think about how much we tend to make fun of Republicans for doing literally the exact same thing. Us spending the next 3 days circlejerking each other off our own bullshit conspiracy theories isn’t gonna help the situation, its just gonna make us all look like a bunch of hypocrites. Wait a few days, get whatever info they are willing to give us, and then try to figure out what happened. If it still looks fake or like a false flag or whatever the fuck after that point, whatever. but for gods sake use some critical thinking to get there instead of jumping to conclusions with no info.
For what its worth, I am extremely anti-trump, I am scared shitless of what will happen should he win a second term. But dear god, please think about the way you all are acting, when you act like the same kind of psychopaths you claim to stand against it is not a good look. please consider that before you post.
The Boogaloo crowd just got handed exactly what they needed to, in their minds, justify basically anything.
They were going to do that anyway, but nevertheless.
This has immense rhetorical power in terms of amping up support. It makes it easier to recruit, justify, pursue goals, etc.
Put in in Hoi4 terms. If 'political capital' can be reasonably simplified into a score, a currency, this is 'bank error in your favor, have a buttload of free points.'
...with which you can more easily pursue a wide variety of actions or policies.
Nah, he's still a fascist and when anyone reads up on Project 2025 is not going to change their mind about him over this.
You're absolutely right. However, they were going to find a reason regardless, since violence was always their end goal.
If it wasn't this idiot it would have been something else: Trump losing the election is any easy one. The "Boogaloo crowd" resorting to violence was inevitable -- the only thing that has changed is we can no longer pretend it's tomorrow's problem.
It is the match being held to the fuse of the powder keg.
Today is going to be a chapter in the future textbook entitled, “The Fall of the American Empire.”
You’re absolutely right. However, they were going to find a reason regardless, since violence was always their end goal.
If insurrections are no big deal I don't see how assassination attempts are something to get upset about.
Seriously. The last 8 years have shown us that 99% of people are pretty rock solid of who they are voting for. Attempting to overthrow the government moves the needle 0.1%
I'll give you a federated upvote, as I am a Canadian and don't mind FBI scrutiny
I could not agree more. Aren’t we supposed to be the ones who care about democracy, about humanity, and about logic and reason?
Some innocent bystander died, and their family is going to sleep tonight without their loved one alive for the first time. Others are waiting anxiously in hospitals while their innocent loved ones are in critical condition. Fuck Trump, but no one deserves to have been killed or maimed for being at one of his rallies.
Exactly, we all need to be together on this. This is fucking crazy.
Yeah the conspiracies in this thread are cringe. Is it really such a stretch to think that a very hated individual was the target of a botched assassination? No, can't be! Must be a false flag!
Everyone needs to calm the fuck down. This was quite clearly real and not staged.
I don't believe it was a false flag for the sole reason that I don't believe any of them would be competent enough for that level of precision.
I'm no conspiracy guy... But goddam they sure did take their pick of pictures to release showing a bloody trump with fist up in front of a flag that just happened to be waving there. If nothing else, GOP and FOX will say the libs tried to kill Trump, not ' the assassin' tried, but the libs tried. And let the fundraising begin for the GOP
It was a political rally. Those are always done with flags. It was a political rally, there were a bunch of cameras running. Many of which were taking dozens if pictures every second; there wasn't even anything to release there, the media was the ones taking the video. Of course the most striking image would be the one to catch on, and from watching a video of it, that seems like the obvious moment to take.
It was some fast thinking and good political instinct (although bad survival instinct) to make a photo perfect pose while getting escorted out by secret service.
Should we continually be tolerant of the intolerance that wishes to do violence to us and/or destroy our democracy? I’m not advocating for assassination of anyone, but when something like this happens I’m not surprised, nor do I feel much sympathy for a rapist, fraudster, wife beater, advocate of overturning a legitimate election, child beater, person who dog whistles violence against people who don’t support him…etc.
Yeah, the worst thing is that he’s going to capitalize on this. He will make every effort to use it for his personal gain, and being as reactionary as he is I wouldn’t be surprised if he dog whistled his followers into some violence. I bet he’s glad he got shot. He’s going to milk it for everything it’s worth.
But one thing I am in complete agreement with is making everything a conspiracy. Damn it’s getting old. Epstein, Boeing, this… ridiculous.
Time to get out of this shit hole country?
It's been time. For a long time.
I've never been to the US but these goings on concern all of us. Like it or not the US has a lot of influence. It's position on China, Russia, Climate Change, et cetera, will set the standard for half the globe.
It fucking blows my mind people jump straight into, "well what if it's staged." What does that fucking solve? Questions about answering questions and those people act like they know something or they are more aware than the rest of the world when the big fucking picture is being missed and it is right in front of their fucking face. This only fuels repubs saying, "it was an assassination attempt by the left wing."
Trump might be the future dictator of the US but this is just far more ammunition for the very guns that just tried to kill him and this is lighter fluid.
This shit is fucking nuts and none of it is good for anyone stop fucking trying to pull the video apart and going, "see see, it's fake." It doesn't fucking matter because the damage is done.
I always like to say to conspiracy theorists. If COVID was started by China prove to me it wasn't started by the U.S.
Most people are treating this like Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King shooting, but it's not. These people were liked and generally seen as good.
This shooting is more akin to a Hitler shooting, which he had survived many, and was not liked. This is not a martyr situation and most are not going to change their feels for trump.
Trump is definitely liked, there are tons of people who like him. Half the country likes him.
MLK and Lincoln stood against something that was objectively evil. And not half the country likes him, he will still lose the popular vote.
This was the worst possible outcome. Unless someone intends on finishing the job it may as well be his election now.
He'll spend the rest of the election telling people how strong he is, how Biden could not have survived and he'll use the attack to validate all his claims of Democrat corruption/Republican righteousness.
Don’t forget about how through ‘the protection of God’ trump survived so the Christian vote can put him in office with a made up deity’s approval.
Maybe it’s God’s warning for him to cut the crap. That’s the spin I’m going for.
Unfortunately I think he pretty much had the election the moment the democrats showed weakness by publically doubting their own candidate. But yes, this seals the deal for a trump win this year.
What a damn fool. This is something that if you are going to do, you need to make absolutely sure you finish the job apripriately. You fuck this up and you end up giving him a gift.
i agree, but also assassinating the president cannot be an easy task, and considering how far away they were, literally grazing his head is a very very good attempt. trump got absurdly lucky here
You are missing that there is nothing good about this. His protections will double, his base will rally, he will justify further insane actions as he takes over the US. This is like swatting at a hornet and missing and saying it was a pretty great swat though as it stings you repeatedly in the face.
Trump gets absurdly lucky with everything. He is meritless but propped up my multitudes of special interests and hordes of uneducated fools.
Doubt it. The people, the actual Democratic voters, not numbers, know what's at stake, nobody is changing their vote over this, nobody is going to lose votes over this.
I feel like you're a little out of touch here.
There are hardline Democrats and Republicans who aren't going to change their positions over anything. There's also many people who don't pay close attention to politics and only pick up on big news like this. Those are the people that are going to be influenced unfortunately. These people exist. They are uninformed, easily influenced and they can swing the outcome unfortunately.
They're also the big group that the whole political campaigns are targeted to.
It seem like he was hit. Blood was on his right ear in one shot. Unclear if that's because he was hit there or if he touched it after touching something else bloody.
He was escorted away on foot with secret service.
Edit: reports that one bystander and the shooter are now dead.
Claims the suspect was a man named Mark Violets. (This ID may be wrong no official sources covering this)
Edit: his base is going to be insanely fired up now. I'm genuinely scared about what's going to happen now. I can see it already "the deep state tried to stop him and God saved Trump!" ugh.
Yeah this is not going to result in anything good. I keep thinking about what's happened after Robert Fico got shot, basically how it's being used as a confirmation of everything bad his supporters believe about his opponents and as a justification for further sliding into authoritarianism
Yeah, this is my real fear with all of this. Trump is definitely going to feed on his new victimhood to further rally his supporters and make them more extreme.
Yep.
I fully expect at least several "retaliatory" attacks against democrats in the next week by rabid MAGAts.
Edit
Suprised the mods havent deleted this yet, consindering how hog wild they are going and labeling everything conspiracy and deleting it.
expressing their feelings about news media? Unless there’s someone with a blue hat somewhere behind the camera (or they were leading the perp away back there). All speculation here to be clear, not that it’s too critical of an issue in the larger scheme of the incident.
This fucking idiot was being shot at, and he refuses to get off the stage so he can fist up rile the crowd?
What happens next was going to happen eventually anyways. It's been too late for a long time.
I'm finding it so bizarre to witness this mass cognitive dissonance where people can make the connection to Hitler's rise to power, but not to the heroic act so many claim they would perform themselves if they had a time machine..
It's almost like they need a few million marginalised people to die first, just to be sure..
Why were people Scared? Guns are SAFE! Guns are SO SAFE that they're trying to FORCE them into Schools! It would be INCREDIBLY FUCKED UP if the same people who RAN AWAY from the Guns want to FORCE OUR KIDS into that Situation EVERY DAY!
Honestly, folks didn't look that scared. I'd have been diving the fuck off those bleachers, but not these magas.
There were two dudes that didn't even know what was happening. Like one guy looked like he was the offensive head coach waiting for the referee/official to announce the reason for the flag on the play and the other guy was wondering if Slash from Guns N Roses was coming out.
So 3 shots fired (rest were more rapid, so looked like SS responding), 2 people died, only trump get out of it without any major issue. A grazed ear implies that he survived by mere centimeters.
Then when going to the car he is mouthing "fight, fight, fight". I'm sorry, but this is a very odd reaction for somebody that nearly died today.
He was trying to get people rioting on J6 (but that while succeeded, fortunately got stopped), he tried people to riot when he had criminal trial (didn't work at all), and now in the heat of the moment, he thought that was perfect time to try it again?
For sake of everyone I hope this will also be unsuccessful. I'm glad Democrats quickly condemned this (this is something we quite missed in 2017-2020 when similar events happened).
I think his reaction, and the photo op, are the product of a media team who have done some planning and strategising.
Like you'd have to expect that sooner or later there would be some kind of violence at a trump rally.
Trump would've been in shock but one of his minders would've told him what to do.
Then when going to the car he is mouthing “fight, fight, fight”. I’m sorry, but this is a very odd reaction for somebody that nearly died today.
Adrenaline/Shock. Do not expect rational acts from people under shock. Do not expect actions in or out of character for them. You can be a completely different person in such a situation.
Do not expect rational acts from people under shock.
Do not expect rational acts from Donald Trump at all.
That mouth movement could have been "fuck, fuck, fuck". Something you are very likely to say after being shot and it stings like hell.
His fist gesture would coincide more with "fight".
Okay, I’ve gotten over my initial shock of this. Clearly this shouldn’t have happened but this is the same guy who said his VP should be hanged, and he himself has called for political violence against his enemies many, many times
I am glad that decent politicians are condemning this attack, as they should. But I think it makes sense to put this incident in perspective, Trump has promoted and supported political violence himself many times before this, including on Jan 6th
You're confused. Conservative violence is always warranted, justified, and highly effective. That will be the narrative.
Ugh, how many times has this happened already? People were getting spooked by the heritage foundation yucky shit and now they’ll get distracted by this nonsense
I’m afraid of the unhinged violence Trump will use this for in the future. His supporters will have every justification in their mind to do whatever they want to anyone who disagrees with them.
Please let the shooter be a white dude. If he is any minority group they're gonna be the first to get the supreme Court treatment when he takes power, which seems inevitable now.
Rhe article has been updated, it appears he was a registered Republican.
It appears to have been a white dude. He was also wearing a T-shirt from some YouTube channel about guns apparently. That's all I've heard so far.
The YouTube channel is not political for what it's worth (imho, I've watched an occasional video from time to time the last 6+ years or so). Started as a veterinarian who shot weird shit out of a shotgun, and now makes videos doing weird stuff with guns at his range or shoots weird/unique guns.
Oh geez, if that's him, he got that Habsburg jaw hella.
That's because another time traveler was sent by the bad guys to stop him. But then another time traveler was sent to stop that dude. But he tripped up the first time traveler by accident. So the good guys sent another time traveler to stop their own man from messing up the original time traveler. But then the bad guys sent a time traveler, but he failed to materialize. So they tried again, but this dude actually caused the previous dude not to materialize. So they sent another to a more remote location, but his car broke down before he could make it. So they spent a lot of time training someone to fix ancient cars, but then when that dude arrived he nerded out too hard because the car they got was really cool. So they sent another, but this one was stopped by another traveler from the good guys. Turned out these dudes knew each other and played both sides to escape their distopian world and live in the past to grow old together.
Gotta love how people are instantly pulling a QAnon deal of "ITS A FALSE FLAG, FAKE NEWS, NOTHING HAPPENS WITHOUT A GRAND CABAL!"
I'm more pissed at how they missed the big orange fucker. Aim better next time.
Man it is a sad state that folks upvote this. I despise Trump but this behavior is disgusting. Bloodthirsty hypocrites.
Seriously, some innocent spectator lost their life today. Everyone has to really chill the fuck out.
As much as I don't want to encourage this, because it's not the US I want to exist, but I feel like we're quite past that point. Trump and his cabal have more blood on their hands than we could possibly imagine, and they intend to keep going further and further, very openly too. History has show us time and time again how "democracies" fall, the ruling liberals being "tolerant" and allowing this shit to happen while claiming that THEY are TOTALLY winning. Since the democrats aren't even going to bother with any real campaigning or compromising to appeal to the people, what else is left? We are getting dangerously close to a kill or be killed scenario.
There is blood visible on the left hand bleachers. It appears that a rallygoer might have been hit by a ricocheting bullet
I don’t think the person you are replying to thinks there are innocent bystanders at a trump rally
I don't think you see who I'm replying to
About 10 minutes ago Wolf Blitzer was on a phone call interview with someone (I did not get the name), who was apparently sitting in the from row and this person claimed they though a General, some member of Trump's entourage, possibly another speaker at the event... he claimed they were shot in the head.
For those thinking this is staged, listen to the audio carefully. You can hear the impact of the bullets landing near the podium before you hear the sound of the bullet being fired. You can hear a distinct click just before each pop; because bullets typically travel faster than sound, this is accurate to what you would actually hear if you were being shot at. This seems like a detail that Trump's team would be too incompetent to have thought to account for.
You are not hearing the impact of the bullets.
The 'click' you are hearing are the gunshots.
They sound nothing like bullet impacts on anything.
It sounds tinny due to the audio being equalized for a speech in a large open noisy area.
The report that you hear afterward is the echo, the report, of the gunshot, as the sound is in a fairly large open area and it bounces/echoes through the environment.
This confirms that it is real gunshots, not bb guns as some people who have evidently never listened to footage of gunshots are claiming.
To be fair... how many people listen to footage of gunshots? I have only heard them fake in a movie or in real life from my memory.
I have done a lot of this as I have done a good deal of sound design research for mods for various military/realism themed shooter games, and yes that does make me a bit of an odd duck.
However, mixing up certain guns and certain ranges under differing audio conditions is an entirely different ballpark then confusing a firearm with a bb gun.
I didn't mean to be rude, just fact of the matter, with the post I am responding to.
The bb gun thing is a reference to some other person elsewhere in this thread who cited some rando on twitter thinking it was a bb gun, who I do mean to be rude toward.
Shooter has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Some sources say he was affiliated with some anti-fascist group, and other places are saying he was a registered Republican.
May have been both. Just like with Biden, there may be people feeling that their party should win, but not with such a candidate.
So likely just a registered Republican. Antifa gets thrown onto literally every one of these types of people until proved otherwise. Remember the antifa utility attacks that turned out to be white supremacists?
Sad these days that you know both of those can't be true.
Serious question: had this individual been successful in killing Trump, who would be Trump's successor?
The guy who shot him, as it happens with the Sith.
Honestly no one. Trump couldn't get any of his acolytes elected in 2022. For whatever reason the MAGA base only likes Trump.
Which is kind of a good thing, in certain regards.
It really wouldn't matter, he'd be a martyr for "the cause" and everyone riding his coattails would be foaming at the mouth to replace him as the figurehead with big Trump posters behind em for the rest of time.
Tulsi, Vivek, RFK, NIki... There are a lot of choices out there and I think the Republicans would most likely do a quick round of debates/votes to get someone in.
...at least they listen to their party base. The DNC fucked over every candidate who wouldn't fall in line and bow. The base wanted Bernie, and look how that turned out. They don't gaf what their base wants, they'll prop up whoever they think they can control.
Very much sounds like gunfire in the clip CNN is currently playing on repeat, it sounds like the report from fairly distant shots at least a few times as the audio seems to re equalize after he gets pulled down by Secret Service.
CNN had a reporter on scene, showing basically the area for the crowd, then an open area, then a highway or road of some kind, then with a maybe 20 or 30 story building in the background; she indicated basically possible gunshots from that direction.
This would have been basically to Trump's right, by the position he was facing, maybe 70 or 80 degrees to the right of the direction the podium faced.
As best I can tell, it looks like he initially got winged around his right ear? Then more shots are heard and he goes down and is tackled by Secret Service agents.
Its possible he may have just been winged, possible he took more rounds and it was not visible... he did get back up, apparently he got rushed to a motorcade and is presumably headed toward a hospital.
It seems to me to be astonishingly unlikely that a or multiple shooters could possibly have made these shots from inside the crowd without being basically murdered by them.
Update: Wolf is now interviewing someone who was apparently in the front row, and this person claims he saw or thought a General(?), one of Trump's entourage, was shot in the head.
This is extremely not good.
Update 2: Welp, apparently the shooter was inside the crowd, and he did get killed by the crowd.
Update 3: Wolf interviewing another attendee who claims two different calibers and directional sources of gunshots, they seem to think it is some kind of law enforcement shooting at the shooter.
Update 4: Shooter was apparently killed outside the event perimeter, by counter sniper fire according to whoever Wolf is talking to now. Apparently shooter was on some kind of single story building akin to a stable, though this is being described as preliminary and not definitive.
Ever noticed that every time the republicans look like they are doomed, immediately something progressively more implausible happens that swings the vote? And that it's usually fake or blown out of proportion by media?
This looks like just the most recent of a long list of ridiculous but effective marketing operations like the pizza gate.
Were the republicans doomed? It seemed to me republicans were doing very well in the race.
They weren't wanting to talk about project 2025. Now there's a different conversation to have, kind of.
Well, this likely cements Trump's win. It also sidelines the media pressure on Biden to step down. Trump gets a huge bump; Biden hits an iceberg. We are fucked.
It's very sad to see people condoning this. I'm far from a Trump supporter, but this is unacceptable. If this was Biden being shot at, you'd all be saying "typical right wing, gun-toting nutjobs."
Plus what you fail to understand is that Trump being shot at is just further securing his presidency, and anyone who was previously on the fence will now be more inclined to vote for the person who was "shot at for his beliefs."
I have to say without condoning it, his hate speeches have brought him hate. I'm honestly surprised this is the first attempt.
It's interesting times to hear of an assassination attempt and no one I've talked to Republican or Democrat is shocked. It just fits Trumps style of politics.
Anyone got insights to a right-wing forum and what they’re saying? Blaming the libs? Advocating for violence? What conspiracies are they putting together?
Right wingers on Twitter are saying libs "need to pay", Biden did it, even.. "god saved Trump" - Marco Rubio
I don't think this will change much. Biden's response might. But politically, identity politics outweigh martyrdom in US. The right will get rightier and the left leftier. Most likely outcome IMO is emboldened like-actors on either side. Undecided voters could react maybe, but are they really that keyed in to be undecided in the first place?
I think you're right that this won't change much in terms of how people vote, but I believe it will greatly increase the tension between MAGA Republicans and everyone else. It seems probable that there will be some form of violent outburst from them.
Yeah, if nothing else trump will use it as post election legitimization for using lethal force in protest suppression and later, even more grievous acts. Not that he would have cared or needed it.
Someone would say it will accelerate things...
The guns are out, now someone somewhere will shoot back
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"You see, gentlemen, not only have your own efforts failed, but you've rather queered the pitch for everyone else."
Wouldnt it be crazy if trump had some life changing moment being shot and tries to turn his shit around. Totally not going to happrn, but the slim possibility is there.
Aside from the sympathy this will generate, he managed to put his fist in the air, yell "fight!", and generally look as badass as he could for the cameras.
There are lots of reasons why this is a boon for trump but here’s one:
Failed assassination attempts make your political opponents impotent.
From this point forward in the campaign Biden has to hold trumps assassins accountable and use state resources to condemn the actions taken against trump. Effectively your opponent has to support you otherwise they look like they are consenting to the assassination attempt.
What can the Biden campaign really say to counter this narrative? ‘Hey you probably shouldn’t have invited violence because you’ll reap what you sow’ - that’s terrible strategy.
Instead they have to condemn all political violence, ensure trumps safety and effectively congratulate him for surviving.
Bad days for Biden’s campaign. No worthy challenger to Biden will take the mantle now.
I don't think this is will actually make Trump a martyr. The right has been minimizing their own violence so much, (Jan 6th, The attack on Pelosi, the Michigan state reps they sent death threats to, the Uvaldi School Massacre, the countless people Nazis stab or shoot every year) that they aren't going to easily be able to turn the public perception to believing that "THIS IS BEYOND THE PALE".
Even on 4chan's Nazi channel /pol/ a plurality of people are saying it's fake.
Whatever damn fool did this has just made the situation about a million times worse. I don’t give a shit who did this, it was the worst move you could have made at the worst time you could have made it.
And those of you jumping to immediate conspiracy theories need to stop and think about how much we tend to make fun of Republicans for doing literally the exact same thing. Us spending the next 3 days circlejerking each other off our own bullshit conspiracy theories isn’t gonna help the situation, its just gonna make us all look like a bunch of hypocrites. Wait a few days, get whatever info they are willing to give us, and then try to figure out what happened. If it still looks fake or like a false flag or whatever the fuck after that point, whatever. but for gods sake use some critical thinking to get there instead of jumping to conclusions with no info.
For what its worth, I am extremely anti-trump, I am scared shitless of what will happen should he win a second term. But dear god, please think about the way you all are acting, when you act like the same kind of psychopaths you claim to stand against it is not a good look. please consider that before you post.
The Boogaloo crowd just got handed exactly what they needed to, in their minds, justify basically anything.
They were going to do that anyway, but nevertheless.
This has immense rhetorical power in terms of amping up support. It makes it easier to recruit, justify, pursue goals, etc.
Put in in Hoi4 terms. If 'political capital' can be reasonably simplified into a score, a currency, this is 'bank error in your favor, have a buttload of free points.'
...with which you can more easily pursue a wide variety of actions or policies.
Nah, he's still a fascist and when anyone reads up on Project 2025 is not going to change their mind about him over this.
You're absolutely right. However, they were going to find a reason regardless, since violence was always their end goal.
If it wasn't this idiot it would have been something else: Trump losing the election is any easy one. The "Boogaloo crowd" resorting to violence was inevitable -- the only thing that has changed is we can no longer pretend it's tomorrow's problem.
It is the match being held to the fuse of the powder keg.
Today is going to be a chapter in the future textbook entitled, “The Fall of the American Empire.”
Any excuse will serve a tyrant - Aesop
If insurrections are no big deal I don't see how assassination attempts are something to get upset about.
Seriously. The last 8 years have shown us that 99% of people are pretty rock solid of who they are voting for. Attempting to overthrow the government moves the needle 0.1%
I'll give you a federated upvote, as I am a Canadian and don't mind FBI scrutiny
I could not agree more. Aren’t we supposed to be the ones who care about democracy, about humanity, and about logic and reason?
Some innocent bystander died, and their family is going to sleep tonight without their loved one alive for the first time. Others are waiting anxiously in hospitals while their innocent loved ones are in critical condition. Fuck Trump, but no one deserves to have been killed or maimed for being at one of his rallies.
Exactly, we all need to be together on this. This is fucking crazy.
Yeah the conspiracies in this thread are cringe. Is it really such a stretch to think that a very hated individual was the target of a botched assassination? No, can't be! Must be a false flag!
Everyone needs to calm the fuck down. This was quite clearly real and not staged.
I don't believe it was a false flag for the sole reason that I don't believe any of them would be competent enough for that level of precision.
I'm no conspiracy guy... But goddam they sure did take their pick of pictures to release showing a bloody trump with fist up in front of a flag that just happened to be waving there. If nothing else, GOP and FOX will say the libs tried to kill Trump, not ' the assassin' tried, but the libs tried. And let the fundraising begin for the GOP
It was a political rally. Those are always done with flags. It was a political rally, there were a bunch of cameras running. Many of which were taking dozens if pictures every second; there wasn't even anything to release there, the media was the ones taking the video. Of course the most striking image would be the one to catch on, and from watching a video of it, that seems like the obvious moment to take.
It was some fast thinking and good political instinct (although bad survival instinct) to make a photo perfect pose while getting escorted out by secret service.
He was at one of his rallies, which are usually thick with flags. The more likely conclusion is likely the correct one.
Should we continually be tolerant of the intolerance that wishes to do violence to us and/or destroy our democracy? I’m not advocating for assassination of anyone, but when something like this happens I’m not surprised, nor do I feel much sympathy for a rapist, fraudster, wife beater, advocate of overturning a legitimate election, child beater, person who dog whistles violence against people who don’t support him…etc.
Yeah, the worst thing is that he’s going to capitalize on this. He will make every effort to use it for his personal gain, and being as reactionary as he is I wouldn’t be surprised if he dog whistled his followers into some violence. I bet he’s glad he got shot. He’s going to milk it for everything it’s worth.
But one thing I am in complete agreement with is making everything a conspiracy. Damn it’s getting old. Epstein, Boeing, this… ridiculous.
Time to get out of this shit hole country?
It's been time. For a long time.
I've never been to the US but these goings on concern all of us. Like it or not the US has a lot of influence. It's position on China, Russia, Climate Change, et cetera, will set the standard for half the globe.
Logic and reason? In my social media feed?
Thank you for an actually educated take.
It fucking blows my mind people jump straight into, "well what if it's staged." What does that fucking solve? Questions about answering questions and those people act like they know something or they are more aware than the rest of the world when the big fucking picture is being missed and it is right in front of their fucking face. This only fuels repubs saying, "it was an assassination attempt by the left wing."
Trump might be the future dictator of the US but this is just far more ammunition for the very guns that just tried to kill him and this is lighter fluid.
This shit is fucking nuts and none of it is good for anyone stop fucking trying to pull the video apart and going, "see see, it's fake." It doesn't fucking matter because the damage is done.
I always like to say to conspiracy theorists. If COVID was started by China prove to me it wasn't started by the U.S.
Most people are treating this like Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King shooting, but it's not. These people were liked and generally seen as good.
This shooting is more akin to a Hitler shooting, which he had survived many, and was not liked. This is not a martyr situation and most are not going to change their feels for trump.
Trump is definitely liked, there are tons of people who like him. Half the country likes him.
MLK and Lincoln stood against something that was objectively evil. And not half the country likes him, he will still lose the popular vote.
Yup. As much as I hate the GOP and Trump, this is a pretty big Occam's razor moment.
Why are people screaming and afraid? Guns are a part of society in America. Unless… they’re dangerous…
The secret service didn't let anyone but the shooter have a gun, so everyone's feeling awkward
They just witnessed a 2A activist have his rights trampled by the secret service!
Literally the point of 2A. At least according to them.
If it were biden the supreme court would rule that assassination attempts are speech and protected by the 1A.
Plus I thought they were all the shall not be infringed people
Maybe it was an official act of Biden, then it's not a crime. Nothing to see here, just as wanted by SCOTUS.
The supreme Court has found any act Biden does is unofficial
I wish I could upvote this twice lol
Could history please have the decency not to re-enact how Hitler survived dozens of assassination attempts?
This is exactly what I’m afraid of.
I'm afraid he is going to ride this into the White House or it ignites open political shootings. Not a good time.
Haha that was my second thought (my first one was shock that something like that can happen - it means dangerous times are coming for democracy)
Fuck, things are likely going to start really escalating now.
His base is going to go into overdrive, for sure.
Thoughts and prayers
I, too, will be doing nothing
The people that down voted you obviously don't get it.
This was the worst possible outcome. Unless someone intends on finishing the job it may as well be his election now.
He'll spend the rest of the election telling people how strong he is, how Biden could not have survived and he'll use the attack to validate all his claims of Democrat corruption/Republican righteousness.
Don’t forget about how through ‘the protection of God’ trump survived so the Christian vote can put him in office with a made up deity’s approval.
Maybe it’s God’s warning for him to cut the crap. That’s the spin I’m going for.
Unfortunately I think he pretty much had the election the moment the democrats showed weakness by publically doubting their own candidate. But yes, this seals the deal for a trump win this year. What a damn fool. This is something that if you are going to do, you need to make absolutely sure you finish the job apripriately. You fuck this up and you end up giving him a gift.
i agree, but also assassinating the president cannot be an easy task, and considering how far away they were, literally grazing his head is a very very good attempt. trump got absurdly lucky here
You are missing that there is nothing good about this. His protections will double, his base will rally, he will justify further insane actions as he takes over the US. This is like swatting at a hornet and missing and saying it was a pretty great swat though as it stings you repeatedly in the face. Trump gets absurdly lucky with everything. He is meritless but propped up my multitudes of special interests and hordes of uneducated fools.
Doubt it. The people, the actual Democratic voters, not numbers, know what's at stake, nobody is changing their vote over this, nobody is going to lose votes over this.
I feel like you're a little out of touch here.
There are hardline Democrats and Republicans who aren't going to change their positions over anything. There's also many people who don't pay close attention to politics and only pick up on big news like this. Those are the people that are going to be influenced unfortunately. These people exist. They are uninformed, easily influenced and they can swing the outcome unfortunately.
They're also the big group that the whole political campaigns are targeted to.
It seem like he was hit. Blood was on his right ear in one shot. Unclear if that's because he was hit there or if he touched it after touching something else bloody.
He was escorted away on foot with secret service.
Edit: reports that one bystander and the shooter are now dead.
Claims the suspect was a man named Mark Violets. (This ID may be wrong no official sources covering this)
Biden condemns the act.
(I hate the source, F this guy) but here's him being ushered off the stage after... https://x.com/stillgray/status/1812250467071885730
Edit: his base is going to be insanely fired up now. I'm genuinely scared about what's going to happen now. I can see it already "the deep state tried to stop him and God saved Trump!" ugh.
Yeah this is not going to result in anything good. I keep thinking about what's happened after Robert Fico got shot, basically how it's being used as a confirmation of everything bad his supporters believe about his opponents and as a justification for further sliding into authoritarianism
Yeah, this is my real fear with all of this. Trump is definitely going to feed on his new victimhood to further rally his supporters and make them more extreme.
Yep.
I fully expect at least several "retaliatory" attacks against democrats in the next week by rabid MAGAts.
Edit Suprised the mods havent deleted this yet, consindering how hog wild they are going and labeling everything conspiracy and deleting it.
Non x source, c-span: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5123735/shots-fired-trump-rally
So at the end there…
expressing their feelings about news media? Unless there’s someone with a blue hat somewhere behind the camera (or they were leading the perp away back there). All speculation here to be clear, not that it’s too critical of an issue in the larger scheme of the incident.
This fucking idiot was being shot at, and he refuses to get off the stage so he can fist up rile the crowd?
What happens next was going to happen eventually anyways. It's been too late for a long time.
I'm finding it so bizarre to witness this mass cognitive dissonance where people can make the connection to Hitler's rise to power, but not to the heroic act so many claim they would perform themselves if they had a time machine..
It's almost like they need a few million marginalised people to die first, just to be sure..
It could easily be blood from falling to the ground or even getting jumped on by the secret service, old people bleed easily.
I'd be amazed if that was blood from a gunshot, if it was he missed dying by literally an inch.
You can see him grab his ear pretty clearly when it all starts, he got hit by something.
It looks like it's coming both from his ear and his mouth. I'm guessing the mouth part is from being tackled by the Secret Service.
Edit: there's a photo of him on the ground with the blood clearly coming from his ear. I think the only injury was the ear. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/possible-shots-fired-at-trump-rally-in-butler-pennsylvania/
I wonder whether that agent was just waiting for his chance to clock him good
The shooter is dead? Did someone just say this on live TV? Who?
Source pleaaaase.
Only bystander I've heard about being hit is Wolf interviewing a guy who says he saw a General with a gunshot wound to the head.
Well fuck. Yep, CNN is now saying the shooter is dead.
Guy was actually dumb enough to do it from inside the crowd, and he got murdered by them.
What a shitshow.
EDIT: Shooter is dead, but was not in the crowd. Was on a building's roof outside the event and got obliterated by counter sniper fire.
He was reported to have been shot in the head, thus the so-far lack of images showing what may be quite a mutilated head.
Saw this from my wife
Why were people Scared? Guns are SAFE! Guns are SO SAFE that they're trying to FORCE them into Schools! It would be INCREDIBLY FUCKED UP if the same people who RAN AWAY from the Guns want to FORCE OUR KIDS into that Situation EVERY DAY!
Honestly, folks didn't look that scared. I'd have been diving the fuck off those bleachers, but not these magas.
There were two dudes that didn't even know what was happening. Like one guy looked like he was the offensive head coach waiting for the referee/official to announce the reason for the flag on the play and the other guy was wondering if Slash from Guns N Roses was coming out.
So 3 shots fired (rest were more rapid, so looked like SS responding), 2 people died, only trump get out of it without any major issue. A grazed ear implies that he survived by mere centimeters.
Then when going to the car he is mouthing "fight, fight, fight". I'm sorry, but this is a very odd reaction for somebody that nearly died today.
He was trying to get people rioting on J6 (but that while succeeded, fortunately got stopped), he tried people to riot when he had criminal trial (didn't work at all), and now in the heat of the moment, he thought that was perfect time to try it again?
For sake of everyone I hope this will also be unsuccessful. I'm glad Democrats quickly condemned this (this is something we quite missed in 2017-2020 when similar events happened).
I think his reaction, and the photo op, are the product of a media team who have done some planning and strategising.
Like you'd have to expect that sooner or later there would be some kind of violence at a trump rally.
Trump would've been in shock but one of his minders would've told him what to do.
Adrenaline/Shock. Do not expect rational acts from people under shock. Do not expect actions in or out of character for them. You can be a completely different person in such a situation.
Do not expect rational acts from Donald Trump at all.
That mouth movement could have been "fuck, fuck, fuck". Something you are very likely to say after being shot and it stings like hell.
His fist gesture would coincide more with "fight".
Okay, I’ve gotten over my initial shock of this. Clearly this shouldn’t have happened but this is the same guy who said his VP should be hanged, and he himself has called for political violence against his enemies many, many times
I am glad that decent politicians are condemning this attack, as they should. But I think it makes sense to put this incident in perspective, Trump has promoted and supported political violence himself many times before this, including on Jan 6th
You're confused. Conservative violence is always warranted, justified, and highly effective. That will be the narrative.
Ugh, how many times has this happened already? People were getting spooked by the heritage foundation yucky shit and now they’ll get distracted by this nonsense
I’m afraid of the unhinged violence Trump will use this for in the future. His supporters will have every justification in their mind to do whatever they want to anyone who disagrees with them.
Without evidence so many of you calling it fake. I guess we're no smarter than the wackjobs
It's really disheartening see everyone assumes it's fake without all the facts being available yet.
Please let the shooter be a white dude. If he is any minority group they're gonna be the first to get the supreme Court treatment when he takes power, which seems inevitable now.
Rhe article has been updated, it appears he was a registered Republican.
It appears to have been a white dude. He was also wearing a T-shirt from some YouTube channel about guns apparently. That's all I've heard so far.
Edit: someone on Twitter has pictures of the suspected shooter
The YouTube channel is not political for what it's worth (imho, I've watched an occasional video from time to time the last 6+ years or so). Started as a veterinarian who shot weird shit out of a shotgun, and now makes videos doing weird stuff with guns at his range or shoots weird/unique guns.
Oh geez, if that's him, he got that Habsburg jaw hella.
Doesn't matter if your first second or 5th.
You're going to get the camp treatment anyways.
We don't learn from history.
The time traveler sent back to alter our timeline wasn't a very good shot.
Just slow it down, I'll shoot Hitler out the window... Darn! I hit Eleanor Roosevelt by mistake!
John Titor returns
That's because another time traveler was sent by the bad guys to stop him. But then another time traveler was sent to stop that dude. But he tripped up the first time traveler by accident. So the good guys sent another time traveler to stop their own man from messing up the original time traveler. But then the bad guys sent a time traveler, but he failed to materialize. So they tried again, but this dude actually caused the previous dude not to materialize. So they sent another to a more remote location, but his car broke down before he could make it. So they spent a lot of time training someone to fix ancient cars, but then when that dude arrived he nerded out too hard because the car they got was really cool. So they sent another, but this one was stopped by another traveler from the good guys. Turned out these dudes knew each other and played both sides to escape their distopian world and live in the past to grow old together.
This is the worst possible scenario.
Gotta love how people are instantly pulling a QAnon deal of "ITS A FALSE FLAG, FAKE NEWS, NOTHING HAPPENS WITHOUT A GRAND CABAL!"
I'm more pissed at how they missed the big orange fucker. Aim better next time.
Man it is a sad state that folks upvote this. I despise Trump but this behavior is disgusting. Bloodthirsty hypocrites.
Seriously, some innocent spectator lost their life today. Everyone has to really chill the fuck out.
As much as I don't want to encourage this, because it's not the US I want to exist, but I feel like we're quite past that point. Trump and his cabal have more blood on their hands than we could possibly imagine, and they intend to keep going further and further, very openly too. History has show us time and time again how "democracies" fall, the ruling liberals being "tolerant" and allowing this shit to happen while claiming that THEY are TOTALLY winning. Since the democrats aren't even going to bother with any real campaigning or compromising to appeal to the people, what else is left? We are getting dangerously close to a kill or be killed scenario.
I hope no innocent bystanders were injured.
Innocent bystanders? I guess there were some journalists there.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/13/us/biden-trump-election/876674c3-6e5e-5000-8224-fc18c3a6216c?smid=url-share
I don’t think the person you are replying to thinks there are innocent bystanders at a trump rally
I don't think you see who I'm replying to
About 10 minutes ago Wolf Blitzer was on a phone call interview with someone (I did not get the name), who was apparently sitting in the from row and this person claimed they though a General, some member of Trump's entourage, possibly another speaker at the event... he claimed they were shot in the head.
Holy shit.
Legal justice system: ignores domestic terrorist for years
Vigilantes: hi.
Legal justice system:
At least we can talk about this here. Everything on the other site is locked.
Can’t have anything actually controversial on reddit anymore. The shareholders wouldn’t like it.
See! If only Trump had a gun to shoot back. FREE GUN FOR ALL! UNIVERSAL BASIC GUN OWNERS!!
/s
For those thinking this is staged, listen to the audio carefully. You can hear the impact of the bullets landing near the podium before you hear the sound of the bullet being fired. You can hear a distinct click just before each pop; because bullets typically travel faster than sound, this is accurate to what you would actually hear if you were being shot at. This seems like a detail that Trump's team would be too incompetent to have thought to account for.
You are not hearing the impact of the bullets.
The 'click' you are hearing are the gunshots.
They sound nothing like bullet impacts on anything.
It sounds tinny due to the audio being equalized for a speech in a large open noisy area.
The report that you hear afterward is the echo, the report, of the gunshot, as the sound is in a fairly large open area and it bounces/echoes through the environment.
This confirms that it is real gunshots, not bb guns as some people who have evidently never listened to footage of gunshots are claiming.
To be fair... how many people listen to footage of gunshots? I have only heard them fake in a movie or in real life from my memory.
I have done a lot of this as I have done a good deal of sound design research for mods for various military/realism themed shooter games, and yes that does make me a bit of an odd duck.
However, mixing up certain guns and certain ranges under differing audio conditions is an entirely different ballpark then confusing a firearm with a bb gun.
I didn't mean to be rude, just fact of the matter, with the post I am responding to.
The bb gun thing is a reference to some other person elsewhere in this thread who cited some rando on twitter thinking it was a bb gun, who I do mean to be rude toward.
Shooter has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Some sources say he was affiliated with some anti-fascist group, and other places are saying he was a registered Republican.
May have been both. Just like with Biden, there may be people feeling that their party should win, but not with such a candidate.
So likely just a registered Republican. Antifa gets thrown onto literally every one of these types of people until proved otherwise. Remember the antifa utility attacks that turned out to be white supremacists?
Sad these days that you know both of those can't be true.
Serious question: had this individual been successful in killing Trump, who would be Trump's successor?
The guy who shot him, as it happens with the Sith.
Honestly no one. Trump couldn't get any of his acolytes elected in 2022. For whatever reason the MAGA base only likes Trump.
Which is kind of a good thing, in certain regards.
It really wouldn't matter, he'd be a martyr for "the cause" and everyone riding his coattails would be foaming at the mouth to replace him as the figurehead with big Trump posters behind em for the rest of time.
Tulsi, Vivek, RFK, NIki... There are a lot of choices out there and I think the Republicans would most likely do a quick round of debates/votes to get someone in.
...at least they listen to their party base. The DNC fucked over every candidate who wouldn't fall in line and bow. The base wanted Bernie, and look how that turned out. They don't gaf what their base wants, they'll prop up whoever they think they can control.
Nobody knows.
Don Jr? Ivanka? His VP that I'm sure Don Jr knows.
Oh fuck.
Very much sounds like gunfire in the clip CNN is currently playing on repeat, it sounds like the report from fairly distant shots at least a few times as the audio seems to re equalize after he gets pulled down by Secret Service.
CNN had a reporter on scene, showing basically the area for the crowd, then an open area, then a highway or road of some kind, then with a maybe 20 or 30 story building in the background; she indicated basically possible gunshots from that direction.
This would have been basically to Trump's right, by the position he was facing, maybe 70 or 80 degrees to the right of the direction the podium faced.
As best I can tell, it looks like he initially got winged around his right ear? Then more shots are heard and he goes down and is tackled by Secret Service agents.
Its possible he may have just been winged, possible he took more rounds and it was not visible... he did get back up, apparently he got rushed to a motorcade and is presumably headed toward a hospital.
It seems to me to be astonishingly unlikely that a or multiple shooters could possibly have made these shots from inside the crowd without being basically murdered by them.
Update: Wolf is now interviewing someone who was apparently in the front row, and this person claims he saw or thought a General(?), one of Trump's entourage, was shot in the head.
This is extremely not good.
Update 2: Welp, apparently the shooter was inside the crowd, and he did get killed by the crowd.
Update 3: Wolf interviewing another attendee who claims two different calibers and directional sources of gunshots, they seem to think it is some kind of law enforcement shooting at the shooter.
Update 4: Shooter was apparently killed outside the event perimeter, by counter sniper fire according to whoever Wolf is talking to now. Apparently shooter was on some kind of single story building akin to a stable, though this is being described as preliminary and not definitive.
Oh no that's awful! Is the bullet ok?
Ever noticed that every time the republicans look like they are doomed, immediately something progressively more implausible happens that swings the vote? And that it's usually fake or blown out of proportion by media? This looks like just the most recent of a long list of ridiculous but effective marketing operations like the pizza gate.
Were the republicans doomed? It seemed to me republicans were doing very well in the race.
They weren't wanting to talk about project 2025. Now there's a different conversation to have, kind of.
Wonder if this was one of those “second amendment people” Trump was hoping would stop Hilary.
Shit hit the fan big time.
Just reported 2 bystanders dead, shooter dead.
Wife repeated a line from the Butthole Surfer's song Pepper when she reads the news :D
I didn't mind the sun sometimes
For the people saying that the shoes comment is odd, take moment to do some reading, or watch a video, about how people react to trauma.
Basically, it's not outrageous that his brain locked on a seemingly unimportant detail. Humans are very weird sometimes.
Well, this likely cements Trump's win. It also sidelines the media pressure on Biden to step down. Trump gets a huge bump; Biden hits an iceberg. We are fucked.
Will they want to ban guns now?
It's very sad to see people condoning this. I'm far from a Trump supporter, but this is unacceptable. If this was Biden being shot at, you'd all be saying "typical right wing, gun-toting nutjobs."
Plus what you fail to understand is that Trump being shot at is just further securing his presidency, and anyone who was previously on the fence will now be more inclined to vote for the person who was "shot at for his beliefs."
I have to say without condoning it, his hate speeches have brought him hate. I'm honestly surprised this is the first attempt.
It's interesting times to hear of an assassination attempt and no one I've talked to Republican or Democrat is shocked. It just fits Trumps style of politics.
My shoes... My shoes...
Anyone got insights to a right-wing forum and what they’re saying? Blaming the libs? Advocating for violence? What conspiracies are they putting together?
Right wingers on Twitter are saying libs "need to pay", Biden did it, even.. "god saved Trump" - Marco Rubio
Considering this left wing forum's opinion seems to be trending "dang they missed", the opposite reaction is probably not noble.
This is from Nigel Farage, a UK right wing politician - blaming the liberals and their rhetoric for encouraging it to happen.
Video clip: https://x.com/Acyn/status/1812249329203286464
Higher quality, non-Twitter mirror:
https://files.catbox.moe/0j3whm.mp4
Thank you
Imgur mirror: https://imgur.com/a/TqPqVVn
Link is down for me. Is it the news footage? Or an alternate angle?
Edit: it’s still up, keep reloading if it doesn’t work initially.
Try c-span: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5123735/shots-fired-trump-rally
I don't think this will change much. Biden's response might. But politically, identity politics outweigh martyrdom in US. The right will get rightier and the left leftier. Most likely outcome IMO is emboldened like-actors on either side. Undecided voters could react maybe, but are they really that keyed in to be undecided in the first place?
I think you're right that this won't change much in terms of how people vote, but I believe it will greatly increase the tension between MAGA Republicans and everyone else. It seems probable that there will be some form of violent outburst from them.
Yeah, if nothing else trump will use it as post election legitimization for using lethal force in protest suppression and later, even more grievous acts. Not that he would have cared or needed it.
Someone would say it will accelerate things...
The guns are out, now someone somewhere will shoot back
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I think I would rather kill myself then see this shit bags celebrate after he wins in November.
Don't be like that.
"You see, gentlemen, not only have your own efforts failed, but you've rather queered the pitch for everyone else."
Wouldnt it be crazy if trump had some life changing moment being shot and tries to turn his shit around. Totally not going to happrn, but the slim possibility is there.
I'm guessing the ammo used by the gunman was bought from one of those new supermarket vending machines?
So just curious I'm seeing people say this will increase trumps chances of winning how is that exaclty?
Matyrdom is real real strong. Just ask the Germans and Austrians and former Yugoslavians.
Are you joking?
Aside from the sympathy this will generate, he managed to put his fist in the air, yell "fight!", and generally look as badass as he could for the cameras.
There are lots of reasons why this is a boon for trump but here’s one:
Failed assassination attempts make your political opponents impotent.
From this point forward in the campaign Biden has to hold trumps assassins accountable and use state resources to condemn the actions taken against trump. Effectively your opponent has to support you otherwise they look like they are consenting to the assassination attempt.
What can the Biden campaign really say to counter this narrative? ‘Hey you probably shouldn’t have invited violence because you’ll reap what you sow’ - that’s terrible strategy.
Instead they have to condemn all political violence, ensure trumps safety and effectively congratulate him for surviving.
Bad days for Biden’s campaign. No worthy challenger to Biden will take the mantle now.
C-SPAN video: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5123735/shots-fired-trump-rally
I don't think this is will actually make Trump a martyr. The right has been minimizing their own violence so much, (Jan 6th, The attack on Pelosi, the Michigan state reps they sent death threats to, the Uvaldi School Massacre, the countless people Nazis stab or shoot every year) that they aren't going to easily be able to turn the public perception to believing that "THIS IS BEYOND THE PALE".
Even on 4chan's Nazi channel /pol/ a plurality of people are saying it's fake.
Oh look, stochastic terrorism.