WASHINGTON – Kamala Harris and Donald Trump yesterday headed into a newly-intense phase of the US presidential campaign, with tensions heightened after a second apparent assassination attempt against the Republican former president.
The Sunday arrest of a gunman on Donald Trump’s golf course came the same day as more bomb threats poured into Springfield, Ohio, a small Midwestern city at the centre of Republican-led conspiracies against immigrants.
But the duelling campaigns are set to march on with little interruption, a day after the Secret Service confirmed one or more of its agents “opened fire on a gunman” located near the boundary of Trump’s Florida golf course, and that an “AK-47 style rifle” with a scope was recovered along with a GoPro video camera.
The FBI said it was “investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former president Trump.”
US media named the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, who had expressed support for Ukraine, and had a lengthy arrest record.
Authorities said they had not identified a specific motive or political ideology for the shooter behind the previous bid on Trump’s life, at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump was wounded in the ear in the 13 July shooting.
Authorities on Sunday said it wasn’t clear whether a gunman actually fired a weapon in the direction of the former president before the Secret Service engaged the shooter.
Harris and President Joe Biden both denounced the attack on Trump, with Biden saying “There is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country.”
Vice President Harris, the Democratic nominee who will face ex-president Trump at the polls 5 November, said in a statement Sunday she was “disturbed by the possible assassination attempt,” and “thankful that former president Trump is safe.”
The same day, Clark State College, in Springfield, announced it would hold classes virtually this week, after receiving bomb and shooting threats over the weekend.
The move comes on the fourth consecutive day of threats of bombings and other violence that have targeted the local city hall, public schools and nearby college Wittenberg University, following racist rumours about local Haitian immigrants pushed by Republicans, including Trump.
What started as municipal growing pains in a rapidly-growing city have morphed into allegations of an “invasion” by “illegal” Haitian newcomers, baselessly accused of stealing and eating people’s pets and causing a crime wave.
Threats have hit hospitals, schools and municipal buildings since Trump declared the immigrants were stealing and eating resident’s pets at Tuesday’s presidential debate.
Some Haitians living in the city have told AFP they are scared for their lives.
Adding to the country’s acrimonious political atmosphere, Trump posted on his Truth Social website that “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
Earlier this week, the superstar singer/songwriter posted a message on Instagram saying she would be voting for Harris, calling her a “steady-handed, gifted leader.” Celebrity endorsements rarely carry enormous weight, but the hugely popular Swift is seen as being in a class of her own, with more than 400 million followers on Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms — 10 million of whom “liked” her Instagram post. It was not clear what Trump hoped to gain by attacking Swift, though he may calculate that any publicity is better than none.
He has been criticised, even by fellow Republicans, for his recent association with conspiracy-minded right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, who has at times joined him on his campaign plane.
The 31-year-old Loomer — who has called the September 11 terror attacks an “inside job” and said some of the country’s recent mass shootings were staged by Democrats — recently suggested that Swift had entered an “arranged relationship” with football star Travis Kelce “to influence the 2024 election.”
There is no evidence to support any of those claims.
– Nampa/AFP