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      Welcome to the Trump show: Republican convention to resemble coronation

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      The political iconography was instant and indelible. His face bloodied, his fist raised, Donald Trump stood defiant as Secret Service agents scrambled around him against the backdrop of the Stars and Stripes and a brilliant blue sky.The apparent attempt to assassinate the former president at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday shook the American political kaleidoscope once again. It cast a shadow over the Republican national convention, due to start in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Monday – but potentially handed Trump and his allies a political opportunity.Trump’s allies will probably praise Trump as a strongman who is quite literally bulletproof – and blame his opponents for the explosion of violence.“Today is not just some isolated incident,” tweeted JD Vance, an Ohio senator widely tipped to be name as Trump’s running mate at the convention. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.”Host city Milwaukee, in the battleground state of Wisconsin, has sudden historical resonance. It was here in 1912 that Theodore Roosevelt, a former president seeking to regain the White House, was the victim of a would-be assassination. The bullet was slowed by a steel case for his glasses and a manuscript of his 50-page speech, ultimately lodging in his chest. Roosevelt went on to deliver the speech while bleeding through his shirt.Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist, wrote on X: “The political consequences of this assassination attempt will be immense, and they will benefit Donald Trump, who just responded to being shot in the exact same way that Teddy Roosevelt did.”Even before Saturday’s shooting, the convention was set to be a coronation of Trump as Republicans’ presidential nominee, throwing in sharp relief the Democratic discord over Joe Biden’s viability as a candidate.Republicans have nominated Trump for the presidency twice before. But in 2016 and even 2020 he faced critics inside his own party and was the underdog in the race for the White House. This time, however, Trump has the edge in opinion polls following Biden’s calamitous debate performance. And his takeover of the Republican party is complete.Dissenters have been purged, losing their congressional seats to Trump allies or quietly fading into retirement. The Republican National Committee co-chair is Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara. This week Nikki Haley, who was Trump’s closest challenger in the Republican primary election, released the delegates she won so that they are free to support him at the convention.Haley herself will not be there. Nor will Mike Pence, the former vice-president who was a key figure at the past two conventions. Nor will Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the Republican ticket that took on Democrat Barack Obama in the 2012 election.But delegates will hear from Tucker Carlson, a broadcaster who promotes white nationalism; Franklin Graham, a Christian evangelical who has called Islam “wicked” and “evil”; Tom Homan, an immigration hardliner who has vowed to run the biggest deportation force in American history; Charlie Kirk, a far-right activist and election denier; and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who wants to increase fossil fuel production. All are sure to play their part in the Trump show.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “Trump’s coronation will for once put British ceremony to shame. You will see speaker after speaker, delegation after delegation, trying to top one another in their superlatives about the greatest president, not just in American history but in world history.”Delegates will hear from Trump, 78, and ratify the Republican policy platform that he personally approved. They will be introduced to Trump’s vice-presidential running mate. They will hear speakers mock Biden as a weak, 81-year-old failure who is facing calls from fellow Democrats to exit the race.Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “The Democrats have spent the last 10 days giving them soundbites to talk about. The Republicans are going to take four days and everything coming out of their mouths will be a reminder that Joe Biden is old, Democrats don’t want him, why should you?”Republicans have been given a gift, Steele added. “Democrats are too stupid to realise what the gift is, and they keep giving it. Just shut the hell up, get behind the man like the Republicans have gotten behind their criminal and run the race. Because the American people are going to line up with Joe Biden if you give them a reason to do that.”Convention delegates, numbering almost 2,400, are sure to approve a policy platform that ranks among the most extreme in American history. Echoing Trump talking points, it backs the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, calls for an end to “the weaponisation of government” and demands election integrity – code for Trump’s false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.The 16-page platform is heavily influenced by Christian nationalism and shares significant ideological DNA with Project 2025, a 922-page plan from a conservative thinktank that outlines a dramatic expansion of presidential power and a plan to fire as many as 50,000 government workers to replace them with Trump loyalists.Biden’s re-election campaign has worked to turn Project 2025 into an electoral liability for Trump, which may explain why last week he sought to distance himself from it. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump posted on his social media website, adding that “some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal”.View image in fullscreenBut both Russ Vought, the Republican National Convention’s platform committee’s policy director, and his deputy, Ed Martin, have strong connections to Project 2025. Both men have also previously taken a hard line against abortion rights.Martin has advocated for a national ban without exceptions for rape or incest and entertained the idea of imprisoning women and their doctors. He once said: “If you ban abortion in Louisiana, is a doctor who has an abortion breaking the law? Yes. Should he be punished? Yes – I think that seems obvious. What is the punishment? Not sure yet. Could be criminal, could be a jail sentence, I suppose.”The platform committee is packed with other anti-abortion extremists including David Barton, a Christian nationalist who has called the separation of church and state a “myth”, Kimberly Guilfoyle, fiancee of Donald Trump Jr, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, and Chad Connelly, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican party who has described abortion as “murder of an innocent child”.Weighing the political risks, Trump intervened to ensure that, for the first time in 40 years, the party platform omits the explicit basis for a national abortion ban, leaving the policy to state governments instead. But the compromise remains fragile: if dissenting voices are raised at the convention, it will fuel Democrats’ argument that Republicans’ true intentions are as extreme as ever.Emilia Rowland, national press secretary of the Democratic National Committee, said: “The reality is that Trump literally put architects of Project 2025 in charge of the Republican platform, and the result is not only the most extreme platform in GOP history but one containing lie after lie after lie.“The American people know that Trump wants a nationwide abortion ban and they know the only thing standing in the way of Trump’s terrifying second-term agenda is re-electing President Biden and Vice-President Harris in November.”Delegates will also formally designate the presidential ticket: Trump and his yet-to-be-named running mate. The leading contender is Vance, followed by the North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, and Florida senator Marco Rubio. All three are expected to address delegates along with the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, who challenged Trump for the nomination and later endorsed him.To critics, the vice-presidential pick is irrelevant. Steele, a broadcaster and former lieutenant governor of Maryland, said: “To be honest, I couldn’t care less who his running mate is. It is a mindless zombified politician who has given up his soul to Donald Trump for the chance that Donald Trump will smile at him and pat him on the head.“It doesn’t matter to me. It will be an unprincipled individual. That’s all I know. They could take a stick figure and stand it next to Donald Trump. Folks in that hall would applaud it, lap it up, nominate it and call it vice-president.”Trump family members will also address the convention, organisers announced on Saturday. The former president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, will both have speaking slots, along with their partners Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump. The former first lady Melania Trump is expected in Milwaukee but she is not listed among the speakers. She has been notably absent from the 2024 campaign – a stark contrast to the first lady Jill Biden’s prominent role at her husband’s side.Trump’s campaign has outlined daily messaging with themes that riff on his signature “Make America great again” slogan. Monday’s theme is economics: “Make America wealthy once again.” Trump has outlined an agenda of sweeping tariffs and accelerated production of oil and gas, even though it already hit a record under Biden.On Tuesday the theme is immigration and crime: “Make America safe once again.” Trump and Republicans believe the border debate is among their strongest issues. They have arranged speeches for the family members of people killed, allegedly by undocumented immigrants, as part of Trump’s broader attempts to blame crime on border policies.Wednesday will be national security day: “Make America strong once again.” Delegates and the viewing audience can expect to hear arguments that Biden is a “weak” and “failed” commander-in-chief and head of state. This is the day, typically, that the vice-presidential nominee addresses the convention.Thursday will culminate with Trump himself: “Make America great once again.”His speech accepting the party nomination will be watched closely for the tension between red meat for the base and outreach to swing state votes. His 2016 address included the memorable line “I alone can fix it” and drew comparisons with the trappings of fascist rallies.Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, said: “The question is whether he goes 80% Maga, 90% Maga or 100% Maga. They would be best off with low-fat milk rather than the 2%, because 2% just goes overboard. He has four days of unchallenged, uninterrupted messaging, and there’s usually a bounce.“He’s going into his convention so strong and with curiosity over who his VP candidate is going to be. If they have discipline and they can exercise it then their their lead will grow. But there’s only so many votes available among the undecideds.”Protesters are expected but will not be permitted inside the security zone established around the convention arena by the Secret Service. Principles First, which describes itself as a nationwide grassroots movement of pro-democracy, anti-Trump conservatives, is holding a rally on Wednesday with Steele among the speakers.The Democratic National Committee is also holding events in Milwaukee, promising daily press conferences, counter-programming and voter engagement in the Democratic stronghold. But the Republican mood inside the arena is likely to be triumphant, lavishing praise on Trump as a great survivor while hammering Democrats over their uncertainty about BidenMonika McDermott, a political science professor, at Fordham University in New York, said: “That’s a winning point for the Republicans after the debate and they’re going to continue to run with it. The Democratic party has been showing such cracks in their support behind President Biden at this point that it would be smart to stick a crowbar in there to make those cracks larger.” More

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      Top Democratic donors revolt as ‘odd and off-putting’ Joe Biden struggles post-debate

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      For every election since 2004, the Monogram Shop in New York’s East Hampton has sold “political cups” featuring the names of the presidential candidates. The cups can be seen at fundraising events across the Hamptons, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, where high-dollar donors mingle in the summer homes of the rich, the famous and the powerful. The cups aren’t looking good for Joe Biden.The shop keeps count of how many cups are sold for each candidate, a very selective poll of the political climate each election. The cup count has only been wrong once, in 2016, when Donald Trump won.This year’s count doesn’t bode well for Biden, whose cup counts have been down compared with Trump’s, especially after the president’s disastrous debate performance last month.“Biden’s numbers going from the 28th of June are so dismal,” said shop owner Valerie Smith, upon studying the recent cup count tallies.This election cycle, the shop introduced a new political cup, one embossed with the words “Let Us Pray 2024” in red, white and blue.The day before the Fourth of July, the shop sold 133 Trump cups and 112 Let Us Pray 2024 cups. Just 13 Biden cups were sold.As unscientific as the Hamptons cup count may seem, it tracks with some of Biden’s top donors calling for him to step aside and let younger candidates take the lead.While Biden – so far – seems determined to tough it out, some donors and fundraisers are expressing their anxieties privately and hoping he will step aside of his own accord.“My own instinct is that this isn’t done yet,” said one source close to Democratic fundraising efforts who requested anonymity.Many donors found the debate “alarming”, especially Biden’s inability to call Trump out for his many lies. Then, at a fundraiser in East Hampton on 29 June, two days after the debate, Biden read from a teleprompter. “It was very odd and off-putting,” an attendee said.“This is not about Biden, we believe that he’s been a great president,” the source said. “This is an existential moment … I don’t know if we can take four more years of [Trump].”A “donor revolt” may seem a bit awkward in the Democratic party, given its criticism of the ultra-wealthy. But wealthy donors are key components to a candidate’s campaign. Any sign that they’re peeling away from a candidate is never good.“The big donors tend to be more consistent and regular donors,” said Michael Kang, a law professor at Northwestern. “These tend to be your real loyal supporters that are putting their money where their mouth is.”The turn in donor support has clearly shaken Biden’s campaign. On Monday, the president told MSNBC: “I don’t care what the millionaires say.” Yet hours later, Biden held a call with his national finance committee – a group of his biggest donors who have donated at least $47,900 to his campaign.Biden told them that his one job is to beat Trump. “I’m the best person to do that,” he reiterated, according to reports, before saying: “We’re done talking about the debate.”But some of Biden’s top donors still very much want to talk about the debate. The list of supporters calling for Biden to step aside has been growing in the two weeks since the debate.Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings told ABC News that “Biden is unfortunately in denial about his mental state”. Tech billionaire Marcus Pincus told the Financial Times that he doesn’t “see how President Biden will ever get around this age competency issue at this point”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOn Wednesday, actor George Clooney, who hosted a $28m fundraiser for Biden in June, called on Biden to step aside as the nominee in a New York Times op-ed.“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney wrote.Biden’s campaign said that it’s seen an uptick in small donations since the debate, but without big donors, Biden could fall behind Trump in fundraising. Less money for a campaign means less advertising and a weaker campaign against Republicans. Down-ballot candidates, like those running for congressional seats, also rely on enthusiasm for a presidential candidate to help fill their own coffers.“I think a lot of other candidates up for election this year are really worried about what’s going to happen to them if the top of the ticket doesn’t do well and doesn’t raise money, and the party has less money to support them,” Kang said.The donor revolt only picked up steam after Biden’s gaff marred a post-Nato summit press conference on Thursday with the New York Times reporting donors had warned Democrats that they were withholding $90m as long as Biden remained their candidate.Biden’s campaign has emphasized that some major donors have stuck with the president amid the revolt, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and philanthropist Amy Goldman Fowler, and that grassroots fundraising has surged post-debate.But polls are showing voters, not just donors, have mixed feelings about Biden after the debate.An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll published on Thursday found that 67% of voters said that Biden should step aside as the nominee. And this is alongside a handful of Democratic lawmakers who are publicly calling on Biden to step aside.Amid the uncertainty around what will happen to Biden’s campaign, Smith, of the Monogram Shop, said she’s been thinking of how many more Biden cups to put on order before November. She recalled previous elections, when there were leftover cups after a candidate dropped out of the race.During the 2016 election, “I learned my lesson with the Jeb Bush cups,” Smith said. More

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      What we know about the shooting at a Donald Trump rally

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      A shooting occurred at a Donald Trump rally on Saturday, followed by the former president being rushed off the stage with blood around his ear. Here’s what we know about the situation so far.

      Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when loud noises were heard in the crowd around 6.13pm.

      Trump appeared to have been struck by something in the area of his right ear as he was speaking, and videos show him quickly clutching his ear and then ducking down to the ground, as security agents and others leap to his aid.

      One spectator was killed and at least two were injured.

      Trump stood up with blood on the side of his face and appeared to be saying “fight, fight” while pumping his fist.

      Trump was then quickly escorted from the stage and into his vehicle.

      The rally location is now an active crime scene. The FBI has taken over the investigation.

      Trump’s team and the Secret Service confirmed that he was “fine” and being checked at a local medical facility.

      Trump later posted a statement on Truth Social, saying he was hit by a “bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear”.

      The Butler county district attorney confirmed that the suspected shooter and one rally attendee were dead. One person at the rally was in serious condition. The Secret Service later said two people were critically injured.

      The shooting is being investigated as an attempted assassination.

      The FBI later named Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, PA as the “subject involved” in the shooting. He is a registered on voter records as a Republican but also once donated $15 to a liberal voter group.

      The Secret Service shared more details on the shooter’s position and confirmed that the shooter was killed by the Secret Service. ABC News reported that law enforcement officials the suspect was perched on a rooftop and used an AR-style rifle.

      The Republican-controlled House of Representatives summoned the director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, to testify at an Oversight Committee hearing scheduled for 22 July.

      The president, Joe Biden, said “everybody must condemn political violence” in a speech shortly after the shooting. The White House later said the president and Trump had spoken. Biden is traveling back to the White House. Trump is in New Jersey. More

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      Attempted assassination of Trump: The long history of violence against U.S. presidents

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      Political assassinations in the United States have a long and disturbing history.

      The attempted assassination of Donald Trump, who narrowly escaped death when a bullet grazed his right ear while he was speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, highlights the danger of those seeking votes in a country whose constitution guarantees citizens the right to bear arms.

      Trump joins a not-so-exclusive club of U.S. presidents, former presidents and presidential candidates who have been the target of bullets. Of the 45 people who have served as president, four have been assassinated while in office.

      Given the near mythic status of U.S. presidents, and the nation’s superpower role, political assassinations strike at the very heart of the American psyche.

      In this Nov. 22, 1963 photo, President John F. Kennedy rides in a motorcade with his wife Jacqueline moments before he was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas.
      (AP Photo, File)

      A life-size painting of President Abraham Lincoln, the first U.S. president to be killed by an assassin’s bullet.
      (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

      Abraham Lincoln’s killing in 1865 and that of John F. Kennedy in 1963 are key moments in the history of the United States. James Garfield (1881) and William McKinley (1901) are less remembered, but their deaths nonetheless rocked the nation at the time.

      It was after McKinley’s assassination that the U.S. Secret Service was given the job of providing full-time protection to presidents.

      The last American president to be shot was Ronald Reagan, who was seriously wounded and required emergency surgery in 1981.

      Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after giving a speech when gunman John Hinckley Jr. fired shots from a .22-calibre pistol. One of the bullets ricocheted off the president’s limousine and hit him under the left armpit. Reagan spent 12 days in hospital before returning to the White House.

      In this March 30, 1981 photo, President Ronald Reagan, center, is shown being shoved into the President’s limousine by secret service agents after being shot outside a Washington hotel.
      (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds, File)

      Other presidents have been shot at, but luckily, not injured.

      In 1933, a gunman fired five shots at the car of then President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt wasn’t hit but the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, who was speaking to Roosevelt after the newly elected president had made some brief remarks to the public, was injured and died 19 days later.

      In September of 1975, President Gerald Ford survived two separate assassination attempts — both by women. The first came on Sept. 5 when Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme, a follower of cult leader Charles Manson, tried to shoot Ford as he was walking through a park in Sacramento, Calif., but her gun misfired and didn’t go off. On Sept. 22, Sara Jane Moore, a woman with ties to left-wing radical groups, got one shot off at Ford as he left a hotel in San Francisco but it missed the president.

      Presidential candidates have not been exempt from assassination attempts, including most notably Senator Robert F. Kennedy killed in 1968 and George Wallace shot and left paralyzed in 1972.

      In 1912, former president Theodore Roosevelt was hit in the chest by a .38-calibre bullet as he was campaigning to regain the White House. But most of the impact of the bullet was absorbed by objects in the chest pocket of Roosevelt’s jacket. Even though he had been shot, Roosevelt went on to make a campaign speech with the bullet still in his chest.

      Other figures with significant — if unelected — political power have also had their lives cut short by gunfire, most notably Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, just a few months before Bobby Kennedy’s death.

      In a country with more guns than people, and with firearms easily available, it is not surprising that invariably shootings are the preferred means of killing or attempting to kill political office holders.

      Like Trump, most assassination attempts occur when candidates and politicians are in public spaces with crowds of people nearby. There is a long history of politicians insisting, against the advice of their security advisers, to “press the flesh” in events that jeopardize their safety. Trump was extraordinarily fortunate to escape with only minor injuries.

      Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024.
      (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) More

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      Trump rally shooting being investigated as attempt on his life as spectator killed

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      Law enforcement agents were investigating what they suspected was an attempt to assassinate Donald Trump after a man with a rifle fired shots at him during a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler county, Pennsylvania.The Secret Service spokesperson, Anthony Gugliemi, said on X that the former Republican president was “safe” following several shots, which prompted agents protecting Trump to leap on him amid the ensuing panic. Gugliemi said Secret Service agents then fatally shot the suspected attacker – who had fired toward Trump “from an elevated position outside of the rally venue”, Gugliemi said.One spectator was killed and two others were critically wounded. The FBI later identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, the Associated Press reported.Officials have not publicly disclosed a possible motive. A public records database showed a Bethel Park man with the exact same name and age as Crooks registered to vote as a Republican in 2021. Yet federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on 20 January 2021, the first day Democratic president Joe Biden took office.In a pair of statements, Trump said he was “fine” after a bullet hit “the upper part of [his] right ear”.The former president also issued thanks to the Secret Service agents as well as other law enforcement officers for “their rapid response” in a Truth Social post in the shooting’s aftermath.“Mostly importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed and also to the family of [those] badly injured,” said Trump, who was taken to a hospital for evaluation and then reportedly released about 10.20pm local time.“It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country.”Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead.Video from NBC News captured more than a dozen shots, with later ones apparently coming from agents protecting the president, who had been speaking on stage at the time.A voice could be heard saying: “Get down, get down, get down!” Agents arrived to throw themselves on top of Trump as the gunfire continued and screams were heard from the crowd.Audio from the network captured agent’s voices saying: “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down. Are we good to move? We’re clear, we’re clear.”As agents tried to move Trump off the stage at the rally, he said: “Let me get my shoes. Let me get my shoes.” Agents can be heard telling the former president: “I got you. Hold on. Your head is bloody. We’ve got to move.”Trump replied: “Wait, wait.” He then pumped his fist, mouthed the words: “Fight, fight, fight.”And the crowd at the rally responded with cries of: “USA! USA! USA!”Armed troops in uniform soon arrived as some spectators shouted abuse at the media.Agents then whisked Trump away from sight.Video showed blood on Trump’s ear. There were also snipers on a roof near the stage where Trump was standing, the Reuters news agency reported.NBC News, citing two senior law enforcement officials, reported there was growing concern among investigators that the shooting at the Trump rally “may have been a serious attempt on his life”.The local district attorney, Richard Goldinger, appeared on CNN and said he wasn’t sure how the suspected shooter “would’ve gotten to the location where he was”.“That’s something we’re going to have to figure out – how he got there.”View image in fullscreenThe BBC, meanwhile, interviewed a Trump supporter who said he was outside the rally site and had been trying to get close enough to hear the former president speak when he saw a man carrying a rifle climb on to the roof of a building.The man said he pointed out the building in question to police and remarked: “There’s a guy on the roof with a rifle.” But none of the police reacted, and about two minutes later, the man fired five or so shots toward Trump.At that point, the man told the BBC, Secret Service agents shot the attacker to death. “They blew his head off,” the man said.Investigators recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene, the AP reported, quoting a law enforcement source.The AP reportedly geolocated a video posted to social media which showed the body of a person lying motionless on the roof of a building at AGR International, a manufacturing plant just north of Saturday’s Trump rally.“The roof was less than 165 yards from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target,” the AP’s Scott Bauer wrote on X.Biden said on X that he had been briefed on the reported shooting.“I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well,” the president said of Trump, with whom he reportedly spoke on Saturday night. “I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information.”In a televised address, Biden urged widespread condemnation of political violence.“The bottom line is, the Trump rally … should have been able to be conducted peacefully without any problem,” Biden said. “But the idea … that there’s political violence … in America like this is just unheard of. It’s just not appropriate. Everybody must condemn it.”The scenes from the rally prompted a flood of reactions, including among Trump’s fellow Republicans.The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, wrote on X that his congressional chamber would “conduct a full investigation of the tragic events today”.“The American people deserve to know the truth,” Johnson said, pledging that the House would summon officials from the Secret Service, homeland security and FBI for hearings as soon as possible.Former Republican president George W Bush said he was “grateful” that Trump was “safe following the cowardly attack on his life”.The top Democrat in the US House, Hakeem Jeffries, offered prayers to Trump.“I am thankful for the decisive law enforcement response,” Jeffries wrote on X. “America is a democracy. Political violence of any kind is never acceptable.”The former Democratic president Barack Obama said in a separate statement: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former president Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.”In a Guardian interview in June, Steve Bannon – a Trump adviser and former White House chief strategist – spoke of his concerns that the Republican nominee would be assassinated before the election in November.“It’s my number one fear,” Bannon said, speaking before he began a four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena. “Assassination has to be at the top of the list and I believe that the woman that’s running the Secret Service part is not doing her job.”Referring to the Republican national convention, due to start Monday, he added: “I’m not comfortable with what’s happening in Milwaukee.” But he added: “His detachment is fantastic.”Bannon argued that Trump had been portrayed as a new Julius Caesar everywhere from a New York theatre production to an essay by leading scholar Robert Kagan, paving the way for a would-be assassin to feel justified in emulating Brutus. He said president Abraham Lincoln received similar treatment after the civil war before his assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth.“Remember John Wilkes Booth,” Bannon said. “In the southern press, and in particular the Richmond papers, Caesar-ism, Lincoln is Caesar, Lincoln is taking your liberties. You fought this war but, even in losing the war, he’s going to take all your liberties and enslave you.” More

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      Bernie Sanders backs Biden and urges Democrats to ‘stop the bickering’

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      Bernie Sanders has offered his backing to Joe Biden, dismissing calls for the man he described as the “most effective president in the modern history of our country” to stand down in the upcoming US presidential election.Sanders, the totemic progressive US senator, used an opinion piece in the New York Times to endorse Biden, who has come under increasing fire from fellow Democrats over his ability to beat Donald Trump following a disastrous televised debate between the two.“Despite my disagreements with him on particular issues, he has been the most effective president in the modern history of our country and is the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump – a demagogue and pathological liar,” Sanders wrote.“It’s time to learn a lesson from the progressive and centrist forces in France who, despite profound political differences, came together this week to soundly defeat rightwing extremism.”Sanders joins Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another key figure on the left of the Democratic party, in voicing support for Biden, even as upwards of 20 elected Democrats have called for him to step down, citing his apparent frailty during the debate and his tough re-election prospects against Trump.So far, the only Democratic senator to call for Biden to stand down is Peter Welch who, like Sanders, an independent who largely votes with the Democrats, represents Vermont.Democrats that have joined a “circular firing squad” need to “stop the bickering and nit-picking” over Biden’s performance, Sanders wrote, and start focusing on Trump’s far greater problems, such as the former president’s felony convictions, him being found liable in a sexual abuse case, his bankruptcies, and what Sanders called “thousands of documented lies and falsehoods”.“I know: Mr Biden is old, is prone to gaffes, walks stiffly and had a disastrous debate with Mr Trump,” Sanders wrote. “But this I also know: a presidential election is not an entertainment contest.“Enough! Mr Biden may not be the ideal candidate, but he will be the candidate and should be the candidate.”Biden has insisted he will not drop out of November’s presidential election, despite polls showing he is either trailing or level with Trump. Biden said he made a “stupid mistake” of being extremely busy prior to the debate, including tiring international trips.“Where’s Trump been?” the president said of his rival. “Riding around on his golf cart? Filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?”The speculation over the future of the 81-year-old president’s future has prompted Trump, and his Republican allies, to turn their fire somewhat on Kamala Harris, the vice-president who is considered the most likely replacement for Biden. Trump unveiled a new, derisive nickname for the vice-president, “Laffin’ Kamala”, which he tested at a campaign rally in Florida this week. More

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      True Gretch review: Whitmer’s story – next stop the White House?

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      Joe Biden’s re-election bid remains on life support, the casualty of an indelible senior moment on the debate stage. Biden says he’s not quitting but polls show him falling behind. The moment has cast a spotlight on the alternatives, including a passel of Democratic governors seen as the party’s future.Among them is Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, who reportedly confided that Biden can’t win her state. But she has since announced that even if he were to drop his re-election bid, she would not run.And she denies that she wants Biden to quit.“Joe Biden is our nominee,” she posted on X. “He is in it to win it and I support him.”As it happens, Whitmer – the non-candidate – is out with a memoir: a traditional marker of ambitions for higher things.Like most campaign memoirs, True Gretch is about image improvement. As expected, Whitmer describes personal growth and political ascent. A light read, True Gretch’s underlying message is simple: “Don’t you forget about me.”Given Michigan is a swing state, that’s unlikely. Regardless of the outcome of the 2024 election, it will matter again in four years.First elected in 2018, Whitmer’s time in office will expire on 1 January 2027. She will need a new gig. Why not the White House?On the page, Lisa Dickey, author and ghostwriter, provides a valuable assist. Her client roster includes Jill Biden, George Stephanopoulos and Newsom. She “melded so well into Whitmer world” that she received “honorary ‘Half-Whit’ status”, according to the governor.Whitmer also reminds us of her familial familiarity with conflict and politics. She pays tribute to Dana “Dano” Whitmer, her grandfather. In the early 1970s, as school superintendent of Pontiac, a city north of Detroit, he implemented court-ordered desegregation. It was rough.The Ku Klux Klan threatened him and his family. Whitmer chronicles school bus bombings and the abuse suffered by her grandmother. “The phone would ring … someone on the other end would say, ‘Your husband’s dead.’ Dano was unflappable through all of it.”Whitmer’s parents were lawyers. Richard Whitmer, a Republican, served in the administration of William Milliken, a Michigan governor, then became chief executive of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Sharon “Sherry” Reisig, the governor’s mother, worked for the state attorney general.Years later, in the depths of Covid, Whitmer faced death threats and a kidnap plot, the affair of the “Wolverine Watchmen”. Charges under state law yielded five convictions. Federal prosecutors charged six more men, four of whom were convicted. Two pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors.Whitmer describes a protest in April 2020 outside her office: “Swastikas. Confederate flags. AR-15s.” Masked men in balaclavas abounded. This spring’s campus demonstrations come to mind. Anonymity cloaks the coward with strength.“One man had tied a noose around the neck of a brown-haired Barbie doll, dangling her from a pole.”Taking a page from his Charlottesville playbook, Donald Trump called the mob “good people” and urged Whitmer to “make a deal”. He tweeted that she should “give a little, and put out the fire”.Negotiate over the barrel of a gun. “That woman from Michigan,” he called her.In hindsight, all was prelude to January 6. Four years on, Trump still won’t rule out violence if he loses.True Gretch contains lighter notes, including an 18-song playlist. Not Ready to Make Nice by the Chicks is top. Other contributors include Aretha Franklin, Taylor Swift, Alanis Morissette, Guns N’ Roses, Eminem, Elton John and Prince.Think of it as jogging music. A good politician, Whitmer gives Motown and Michigan their due. Franklin and Eminem grew up in Detroit.Reminiscing about high school, Whitmer says she spent more time partying than studying. “I ran with a fast crowd,” she confesses. As a sophomore, she passed out drunk after a bout of exuberant tailgating.Whitmer also tells of hanging out, as governor, in a dive restaurant – and violating Covid social-distancing rules. Ostensibly regretting her sin, she mentions that Newsom of California, another ambitious Democratic governor, did the same thing, albeit at a pricier joint. Jab noted.Whitmer has been fortunate in her opponents. The US supreme court decision in Dobbs v Jackson, which removed the right to abortion, has proved a gift that keeps on giving.Tudor Dixon, Whitmer’s Republican challenger in 2022, spoke of the upside of a 14-year-old rape victim carrying the child to term.“The bond that those two people made and the fact that out of that tragedy there was healing through that baby, it’s something that we don’t think about,” Dixon told an interviewer.Whitmer won by double digits – and the Democrats flipped both houses of the state legislature. For the first time in 40 years, the party held a governing trifecta.The generational shift within Whitmer’s family crystalizes the cultural and political trajectory of the country as a whole. Teddy Roosevelt, once a Republican president, then a third-party challenger, is one of Whitmer’s heroes. She quotes from his “Man in the Arena” speech, at length.“Though these words were written more than a hundred years ago, they’re just as true today – except for two things,” she writes. “The ‘man’ may be a woman. And she may just be wearing fuchsia.”

      True Gretch: What I’ve Learned about Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between is published in the US by Simon & Schuster More

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      Films, fashion, law,d politics: George and Amal Clooney’s growing global reach

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      It took a famous TV doctor to diagnose the patient. After two weeks of turmoil in the US Democratic party over President Biden’s re-election bid, it was ER’s Doug Ross, AKA George Clooney, who wrote up a devastating evaluation of the incumbent president.The 63-year-old actor was not in theatrical mode when he wrote a more-in-sorrow letter published by the New York Times last week that called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race that the White House reportedly begged him not to submit, coming three weeks after Clooney helped raise $30m for the Biden-Harris ticket at a lavish Hollywood fundraiser.But Clooney’s bedside manner was impeccable: “I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice-president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him,” he wrote. “But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can.”Clooney was speaking for ­himself – and for a large swathe of liberal-leaning Hollywood donors angry at what they see as White House deception over the apparent decline of Biden’s health. Clooney said the man at the fundraiser “was the same man we all witnessed” in his debate performance two weeks later.In the current spirit of panic and recrimination, with a White House press corps turning every Biden appearance into a test of competence, Democrat money bundlers, including co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign and movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, are under suspicion of helping to cover up Biden’s apparent health issues.Clooney’s letter has put the Ocean’s Eleven actor out of political harm’s way. The Democratic party may not be so lucky. Democrats, says James Carville, the Clinton strategist who last week called for a blitz primary to select a new candidate, “are hellbent on a mission to force the American people to do something they don’t want to do – to vote for Joe Biden”.“George has come out, [former house speaker] Nancy Pelosi has come out – I don’t know what else people can do,” Carville told the Observer. “Other than a few people in Congress, everybody thinks this is a terrible idea [for Biden to run]. But you’re up against a guy who doesn’t want to leave, and that’s just where we are.”View image in fullscreenGeorge Clooney is not the only Clooney making waves on a global stage. Last month his wife Amal Clooney was revealed to have played an important role in making the case for arrest warrants to be issued by the international criminal court (ICC) to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defence minister Yoav Gallant and three top Hamas leaders.Biden called the ICC move “outrageous” and said that whatever the ICC prosecutor might imply, “there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas”. According to the Washington Post, George Clooney called Steve Ricchetti, counsellor to the US president, to protest about the administration’s willingness to impose sanctions in which his wife could get caught.This week, the Biden-Harris campaign attempted to blame Clooney’s letter on “pre-existing tensions” – hinting at the ICC dust-up. A Hollywood producer familiar with the couple told the Observer that the White House’s explanation for the letter was “bullshit” and the lawyer had been smeared because her work is on human rights irrespective of political division.“George has power in Hollywood. Amal doesn’t, except as George’s wife,” they added. “Her power is in the UK, at the Hague and on the pages of Vogue.”The lawyer has not commented on her husband’s political intervention, which may have come with Barack Obama’s tacit approval. But after 10 years together, George and Amal Clooney are seen as one of the most stable couples in Hollywood.View image in fullscreenThey’d met at the actor’s home in Lake Como, Italy, when a mutual friend brought her by. Clooney’s agent had also got wind of the ­introduction, the actor later revealed. “My agent said: ‘I met this woman who is coming to your house, who you’re going to marry.’ It really worked out that way.”“It felt like the most natural thing in the world,” Amal said. “I always hoped there could be love that was overwhelming and didn’t require any weighing or decision-making.”A safari in Kenya to see giraffes sealed the deal. In 2014 he proposed, they married in Venice and now have twins.The political instinct which had surfaced in Clooney films including Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) and The Ides of March (2011), soon took flight. By 2016 the couple were meeting with then-German chancellor Angela Merkel to talk refugee policy; that year they were at a UN refugee summit and soon after established the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which focuses on legal rights for those targeted by oppressive governments, tracking the money of human rights abusers and those profiting from war crimes.“We’re both inspired by the young people out there challenging injustice in their communities, a new generation that won’t accept the status quo,” the actor said in an awards acceptance speech two years ago.But Clooney’s intervention comes with potential costs. The Bidens, like the Clintons and Obamas, may see themselves as benefiting from rubbing shoulders with celebrities, but the intersection of entertainment and politics, and the money and ideologies that underpin it, is repulsive to many outside political-entertainment enclaves. In an echo of Trump, Biden now says the rising chorus against him is coming from members of “the elites”, despite the bad timing of first lady Dr Jill Biden appearing on the cover of the August US Vogue.The tradition of celebrity-political endorsements goes back to Frank Sinatra, who organised his friends, the Rat Pack, to campaign for John F Kennedy. Two decades later, disagreements over Ronald Reagan forced celebrities to choose where they belonged.“That’s where we are still,” explains veteran Democrat strategist Hank Sheinkopf. “Celebrities see themselves as an important part of the Democratic fundraising and thought-based operation, which a lot of Americans would not agree with.”View image in fullscreenSheinkopf says that the fight over Biden’s future is as much about the future of the Democratic party as it is about Biden’s health – and Clooney’s intervention will make Maga Republicans fight harder for candidate Trump.“Democrats are the party of the elites despite the fact that they see themselves as the party of the non-elites,” he says. Regardless of who is writing the cheques – Hollywood celebrities or a rightwing Texas industrialist – “what all elites want is a party that does what they want because they think it’s right”.“But that’s not who Joe Biden is. He represents the old pro-union, almost colour-blind left, but that’s not who the operators behind the scenes are,” he adds.Peter Bart, previous editor of the Hollywood trade bible Variety, wrote in a Deadline column that he had “great respect for Clooney’s decision” but it was also one that “will cost him”.He recalled other Hollywood stars who had mixed politics with entertainment, including Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston and John Wayne. “Apart from potential career damage, Clooney must confront donors who have spent millions at his ­urging to support a ticket he now renounces,” Bart, 91, warned.He recalled a conversation he’d had with Ronald Reagan about Nixon. “I want people to like me, even voters who vote against me,” Reagan told him. “Nixon doesn’t seem to care, but I’m still an actor.”Still, Clooney’s intervention has set him up for criticism. The progressive left and African-American voters, both voting blocs Biden is courting to firm up his support, slammed the actor for taking a position afforded him by being famous, white and male.Others have implied that perspectives are different from the window seat of a Gulfstream jet flying between homes in Los Angeles, England, France and Italy. (Besides being a successful actor, known for pranking friends, Clooney and partner Rande Gerber, husband of Cindy Crawford, split up to $1bn from the sale of their tequila brand Casamigos.)Clooney has been criticised, too, from the other side. Trump weighed in, saying Clooney “turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are”, and some have questioned why Clooney, and Hollywood more broadly, waited until after the debate to disclose what they had witnessed at the fundraiser.Still, the New York Times letter establishes the Kentucky-born actor as a modern-day Warren Beatty, the actor who made his political beliefs part of his public image. Beatty never ran for office and quipped it would be “more like running for crucifixion”, nor has Clooney, allowing both to ride over the humdrum day-to-day of retail politics.“George’s op-ed was provocative, well done, but voters don’t want this anyway: 73% of the voting public say they want something different,” says Carville. “They’re not asking for anything difficult – just a different nominee. We’re in a crisis.” More