Unfortunately, this is not the first attempt on a president in this country's history, nor is it likely to be the last. It's also not the first time an attempt on a president's life has been caught on live television. It is, however, the first time an assassination attempt has been politicized to such an absurd level as to be both surreal and infuriating at the same time.
In the modern era, from the assassinations of national figures including John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, to the assassination attempts on Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, to the foiled plots against George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush, media has performed consistently well over the years to get information out as accurately as possible without bias, especially in instances of such grave national importance.
Virtually everyone in the country learned of the passing of President Kennedy from Walter Cronkite on CBS News. The veteran newsman, very much a man of the left, nevertheless dealt with the news in a straightforward, professional, and human manner.
That same professionalism was applied by Cronkite four and a half years later when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
Frank Reynolds of ABC News soberly and accurately covered the events in a Los Angeles hotel when Sirhan Sirhan shot and killed Bobby Kennedy, who was a shoe-in to become president in 1968.
When Manson family member Squeaky Fromme tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford, John Chancellor and Tom Brokaw reported the story professionally and without political bias.
Even as recently as 2022, when an ISIS plot against George W. Bush was foiled, CBS' John Dickerson played it straight.
Now for the contrast to today's regime media. Of course, by now we've all seen the horrifying video of the attempt on Donald Trump's life in Butler, PA Saturday afternoon. In what can only be described as God's providence, a bullet missed the base of Donald Trump's skull by a fraction of an inch when the former President turned his head precisely at the time the shot was fired, and the bullet missed its target, the base of Trump's skull, and instead traveled through his right ear. The entire event was broadcast live. Every media outlet had the video with which to replay instantly. Within an hour, everyone sentient knew exactly what took place, and what disaster was nearly avoided. Even though Trump survived, tragedy did strike as 50-year old Corey Comperatore, who dove onto his family in order to shield them from harm, was struck by one of the rounds fired, killing him instantly.
Does regime media react to the breaking news by realizing it's an attempted assassination of the presumptive Republican nominee? Do any of them play it straight? Nope. Here's a montage from the time of the shooting running through the next 24 hours or so. CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC are all represented here, and they do not exactly cover themselves in glory.
It took hours before anyone on these channels would even use the "A" word to describe what transpired. You knew it within minutes. I knew it within minutes. Regime media instead pivoted by blaming the rhetoric coming from the victim of the violence, Donald Trump, as if that whataboutism would misdirect people from remembering all the times media insinuated that Trump needed to be taken out any way possible in order to save democracy. And this video highlights only broadcast media. Print media was equal to the task of willfully distorting what took place. Here's the New York Times' immediate reaction.
Disinformation experts immediately urged caution as unsubstantiated claims about the shooting at Donald Trump's rally on Saturday flooded social media. Here's what to know. https://t.co/rteGPfdLjJ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 14, 2024
Yes, the disinformation that turned out to be an assassination attempt. That's what they were cautioning against. Here's the print side of CNN in the first couple of hours after Trump was hit at the rally in Butler.
Mostly peaceful assassination attempt pic.twitter.com/x0UuMdMLqZ
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) July 13, 2024
Yes, that clumsy Donald Trump - always falling down in public. Not to be outdone by the Times, here's the Washington Post.
Here’s another one …The @washingtonpost …pathetic pic.twitter.com/UkCbMU3Oef
— Chris LaCivita (@LaCivitaC) July 13, 2024
Of course, everyone knows loud noises are the bane of political rallies everywhere. The Sunday Denver Post featured this headline.
Today's front page of the Denver Post. Yes, this is real. No, this is not satire. pic.twitter.com/2vqaCvIVL4
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 14, 2024
The main thrust of the event in Pennsylvania, gauging by the font size on the front page, was that a gunman was killed, not why the gunman was there or at whom the gunman was aiming, or that the attempt on Donald Trump's life resulted in the killing of a bystander and seriously injuring two others. Note as a bonus that above "Gunman" in red text is "Trump Says He Was Shot In Ear." This headline appeared hours after the incident took place, and the Post still reported as if Trump, the unreliable witness he is, made the claim that he was shot. You know who else claims he was struck in the ear? Everyone around the world with eyes who watched the video. But that kind of conclusivity was not enough for the Denver Post. They wanted to make sure the first thing you saw above the fold was that Trump only claimed he was shot as if it's just one man's opinion.
More noise blamed by the Houston Chronicle.
The Houston Chronicle is absolute garbage. pic.twitter.com/xnzdImfs4K
— Kenny Webster (@KennethRWebster) July 14, 2024
Back to the New York Times. Once they've had to toss out the disinformation meme from earlier and accept the fact that something did actually take place in Butler, they offered this up in their next at-bat.
Cropped out the flag. Won’t use the word “assassination.”
— Lomez (@L0m3z) July 14, 2024
This is the kind of image/headline that belongs to history, but the NYT is brainwormed and myopic they can’t see past 10 minutes of passive-aggressively denying Trump his full glory to appreciate the moment. pic.twitter.com/s6aGVoVniR
It's one thing to still not refer to the event as an attempted assassination. It's another thing entirely to crop out the flag from Trump as he raised his fist in a sign to the crowd that he's okay and to keep fighting. I shook my head when I saw that and wondered why the Times' staff, since they already went through the effort to turn actual news into a deep fake picture, didn't add on 30 pounds to make the former President look chunkier. Why didn't they add bags under his eyes and a wart on his nose while they were at it to make him look more nefarious?
Since the Times and the Post are in an eternal struggle, jockeying for position as the nation's leading left-wing propaganda outlet for print, here's the Post's second bite at the apple.
You STILL don’t hate the media enough. pic.twitter.com/F7XEdRvLMe
— Naomi Seibt (@SeibtNaomi) July 15, 2024
Former Biden Press Secretary, MSNBC host, and NBC contributor Jen Psaki on Meet the Press Sunday said she feared for the safety of the media in the wake of the assassination attempt. If the media had stayed in the mold of Cronkite, Brokaw, Dickerson, et al, and not morphed into an activist arm of the left-wing of the Democratic Party, fomenting much of the harmful rhetoric that's helping to polarize the country today, there would be no need for fear. If you're a reporter that simply reports the news, you don't become part of the story.
I've said for months on my Aftershow podcast in the Hughniverse, on my new Duane's World podcast, and here on Hot Air in my columns, that if you are a lefty who has been convinced by regime media mantra that the prospects of a second Donald Trump term is nothing short of a threat to democracy itself, truly deluded but sincere in that belief, what won't you do in order to save democracy and block Trump from becoming president? It really was not hard to see something like this from happening.
How will Donald Trump respond? The buzz before the attack Saturday was that the top contender in the Trump veepstakes would be Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. But after the event, Trump spoke with our good friend, reporter and columnist Salena Zito, and told her that he had completely rewritten the speech he will give at the RNC Convention later this week.
Talking as he boarded his plane in Bedminster, New Jersey, for Milwaukee, where the Republican National Convention starts Monday and lasts through Thursday, Trump said his speech will meet the moment that history demands. “It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance.”
Early Sunday morning, Trump posted on Truth social that it was “God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening” and that he would “fear not.” Again, in talking to the Washington Examiner, he invoked “God” for his deliverance.
“This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” he said.
I hope the former President adopts this approach. I think if he can pull this off with sincerity, a likely victory turns into a potential landslide with a mandate on which Congress can work very successfully with him.
But if the speech is going to be a unifying address, that signals to me that the VP selection might not be Senator Vance after all. If you are going to try to unite the country, of all the candidates on the short list - Marco Rubio, Doug Burgum, Tim Scott, Glenn Youngkin, Mike Pompeo, I think Governor Youngkin could leapfrog to the top of the list.
We'll discover soon enough when we see who strides out next to Trump during his cameo appearance tonight as the Republican National Convention convenes in Milwaukee.
