TRUMP SHOT, SURVIVES ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
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Well, folks, obviously, this is a special broadcast of the show. We are doing this on Sunday. This is not normally a broadcast day, but yesterday marked one of the darkest incidents in modern American history. One of the darkest moments of my lifetime when President Donald Trump was the victim of an assassination attempt. And only thanks to the absolute grace of God is Donald Trump still alive. I found about this.

On Shabbat, it was Shabbat over where I am in Los Angeles. I was here to do Bill Maher's show and my security came and told me what was happening. Obviously, I was just as shocked and appalled as everyone else. And this is indeed the end result of a temperature in the United States that is absolutely unbearable.

appalling. This is an increase in rhetorical temperature pushed by the radical left, unfortunately, by the media, by the president of the United States that has raised the temperature radically. Only the shooter is responsible for the shooting. But if you increase the temperature over and over and over again by saying the former president of the United States, current frontrunner in the presidential race, major party nominee, is in fact Hitler, then

It is not particularly surprising. It is shocking, but it is not particularly surprising when someone goes and takes that seriously. We'll have more to say about who the shooter was in just one moment. First, for those who have not had all the details revealed to them, as you've had, here was this timeline yesterday. So the shooting broke out, according to USA Today, just minutes before 6.15 p.m. in the city of Butler, which is about 35 miles north of Pittsburgh. President Trump

who has been doing rallies around the country over the past couple of weeks, was doing one in Pennsylvania, which of course is a battleground state. He took the stage at 6.03 p.m. Eastern time. At about 6.11 p.m., he was speaking. And all of a sudden, audible pops could be heard. Here is the footage of President Trump speaking. The footage is shocking. So if you haven't seen it, just be warned. It is footage of an assassination attempt.

It's going to be some of the most iconic footage in American history. This whole incident is an astonishing incident. The hand of God, there's no way that honestly, I don't have another way to put this. The hand of God is protecting President Trump here because there is no way that he should survive what just happened here. The shooter was extremely close to President Trump. We'll talk about the Secret Service failures in just one moment. But the shooter was extremely close. He was on a very nearby building to President Trump. He was using apparently an AR-15,

which is in fact a rifle. So he had a rifle that is certainly well within range of killing the president. And he hits President Trump in the ear in this video. President Trump, if you play this video in slow motion, you will see he shifts the positioning of his head literally milliseconds before the bullet whizzes past his head and hits his ear. And it is that shift in head motion that saves his life.

And in fact, you don't know that there were three shots at least fired. We know that because one person in the crowd was killed on the spot. Apparently had his head blown away. I don't mean to be graphic, but it's an assassination attempt. That's what this is. Two other people in the crowd were severely wounded. Here is the footage from yesterday afternoon, Butler, Pennsylvania. Take a look at what happened. You can hear the pops there. He goes down. He reaches for his ear. He realized what's happening. Secret Service jumps on top of him.

We can hear people screaming, obviously. They can hear one final shot there. The crowd obviously crouching, trying to see what's happening. President Trump is on the ground. His Secret Service are on top of him. We can hear President Trump say, let me get my shoes. The crowd is obviously...

They're holding President Trump down to make sure that he's safe. Now they're going to start moving him. President Trump gets up as he does. You hear him say, let me get my shoes. The crowd starts cheering because they see that President Trump's life has blood all over his face. He raises his fist and he says, fight, fight, fight. The crowd starts cheering.

And then they start chanting USA. He holds up his fist again to show everyone that he's OK. It's an amazing response by him, honestly. Most people would just be rushed off by Secret Service as fast as humanly possible. President Trump taking those extra few moments to assure the crowd that not only is he fine, but that he's not going to be cowed by this is, in fact, an amazing personal response. And that that can't be taught. I mean, that's an innate fight or flight response. And President Trump is an innate fighter. He is not an innate flight response guy.

He is then ushered into the Secret Service vehicle, and by 6.14 p.m., he is out of there. Now, it took the Secret Service a few minutes to figure out exactly what they were going to release to the public. The shooter is, in fact, dead. What you hear in that video is a few shots. You hear at least three shots from the shooter. Then you hear a couple of shots that are probably in response from the Secret Service snipers killing the shooter. And then a final shot, which very likely is Secret Service seeing movement of the shooter and shooting him once more. That's what that...

sort of sequence of shots probably is. The images are astonishing. I mean, just incredible images. This is a picture from the New York Times. You can actually see the pathway in the air of the bullet whizzing past President Trump as he speaks. This is before he realizes he's been hit because obviously the bullet is traveling extremely fast.

And so he would have heard the whiz passes here, which, as we'll see, is what he said in his statement. The most iconic photo, though, is going to be this one. And this is going to be an all time historic American photo. This is a shot of President Trump raising his fist as he's shouting fight, as you see in that video. And above him, the American flag is flying as Secret Service is crouched around him.

It's an amazing photo. It truly is. We were talking about how this photographer, there's video of the photographer getting this shot. It's unbelievable. Everybody else is crouching. The photographer immediately jumps into the fray, finds the perfect shot and framing and takes that shot. And it is iconic because again, it speaks to who President Trump is, which is a person who is not going to be cowed. Say what you will about President Trump. President Trump is indefatigable. There's just no question about it. This is a person who has been hit with every lie as possible to hit him with.

from Russia collusion to impeachment twice. He was then prosecuted politically in four separate jurisdictions. He's been hit with nonsense legal suits that have cost him tens of not hundreds of millions of dollars. They are literally trying to put him in jail for a nonsense crime. And then someone tries to shoot him. And his response is that photo. It's an amazing thing. Later in the evening, President Trump got off the plane in New Jersey. Thank God he's totally physically fine.

Here's footage of the president of the United States disembarking in New Jersey late last night. There he is coming down the stairs of his Trump airplane. Now, there will be and there should be a rally around Trump effect. Elon Musk came out yesterday and endorsed President Trump for the presidency. A lot of people who are shy Trumpers are now not going to be very shy about their support for President Trump. Why? The reason is because, again, Donald Trump has withstood everything

that his opposition can throw at him from legal opposition to actual assassination attempts. And Donald Trump keeps moving forward. He keeps moving forward. Politico has an entire piece acknowledging this as Jonathan Martin. Trump's raised fist will make history and define his candidacy. And there's one other thing here. I mentioned it right at the top. The attempted assassination is one of the most predictable things to happen in American public life in my lifetime. It is simultaneously one of the most shocking and one of the most predictable. Shocking, but not surprising.

Why? Because the temperature has been turned up so high for so long. His political opponents have defined him as literally Hitler. And when you keep saying your political opposition is literally Hitler, who is going to take America into a new dark age, when you say that over and over and over again, you are turning up the temperature. You're turning it up.

It's how you get congressional baseball shootings. And it's how you get attempted assassination attempts on Justice Brett Kavanaugh. And it's how you get what happened yesterday in Butler, Pennsylvania. Again, the only person who is responsible for the actual attempted shooting is the shooter. With that said, when you keep turning up the temperature, when you keep saying that America is going to be literally destroyed, this will be the last election Donald Trump

is the worst person who has ever lived and he must be stopped. Someone is going to take that seriously and think to themselves, shouldn't I do something to stop Hitler? Shouldn't I? So is there a measure of responsibility borne by people who say things like that over and over and over repeatedly, never stopping consistently every day for years on end? Absolutely. Absolutely. So what do we know about the shooter at this time?

So apparently, I don't mention the names of shooters, but this is a presidential assassin. So I'm going to make an exception here. The FBI has identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the suspect in the attempt at assassination. They had an ID on him. They had to use biometric markers in order to figure out who he was. They went to his home last night and they checked it out. They raided it. They brought stuff out. According to state voter records, he was a registered Republicans. But this would have been the first election in which he could have voted because he was only 20 years old.

However, when he was 17, he made a $15 donation to ActBlue, which is a political action committee that raises money for left-leaning and Democratic politicians, according to a 2021 Federal Election Commission filing. That donation was earmarked for the Progressive Turnout Project, a national group that rallies Democrats to vote. Crooks' father, who's 53, told CNN he was still trying to figure out what happened and would wait until he spoke to law enforcement before speaking about his son.

The only thing we know about him is that he graduated high school in 2022 and received a $500 star award from the National Math and Science Initiative. Video from the ceremony posted online shows Crooks with glasses and a black graduation gown posing with a school official, apparently. Again, law enforcement vehicles have been stationed outside the residence, listed at the address on Crooks' voter registration record. They were on the scene. A bomb squad was at the residence as well. Unclear at this point what more we know. We'll bring it to you as it emerges, obviously.

In terms of what actually happened, there are obviously many, many witnesses. So we're going to break this into two parts. There are the witnesses to the actual shooting and the aftermath. And then there are the witnesses who saw the shooter up on the roof. And Secret Service obviously reacted late on this. So here is Pennsylvania State House candidate Rico Elmore, who is present and explains what he saw as this went down.

I yelled everyone to get down. Everybody was getting down. Everybody was yelling, get down. I told people to get down. And then I'm just pointing people and telling people, like, you know, get down. This is safe measures. And people were listening. And then I seen they had yelled for the medic and

There was an individual who was hit in the head. I jumped over the barrier that was there. I ran up into the bleachers, and there was a towel that people had had, and I took the towel and I pushed it against the deceased's head. And just to try to, all I could think about doing was trying to, you know, help him.

It is the most serious assassination attempt on a presidential candidate or sitting president since the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan that nearly ended with Ronald Reagan's death and ended with the severe wounding of his press aide, Jim Brady.

It is an insane, insane incident. It's total. I mean, again, it's disturbing at every possible level. It is possible to be disturbed. Selena Zito is a columnist who's written extensively about President Trump. She was a few feet from the president when this happened. She describes the situation. She says, I was four feet from the stage in a causeway with about five other journalists. My daughter, a photographer, was next to me. Her husband was next to her. Trump started speaking. Six minutes later, we heard the noise. Pop, pop, pop.

Some people in the crowd might have thought they heard fireworks. I knew exactly what it was. I own a gun. I looked up at the president. He touched his ear. I was shocked to see blood on his face, a smear of red across his cheek. Suddenly, he was surrounded. Everyone went down. My daughter hit the ground. My son-in-law lay on top of her. I threw my body next to theirs. Immediately, a security officer on top of me. Are you okay? Are you okay? He asked. Three more shots. Pop, pop, pop. I've since seen videos of what happened. People were screaming, but all I remember hearing was an eerie silence. With that kind of crowd, you'd expect pandemonium, a stampede. I never had that sense of

of chaos. Trump was back on his feet within seconds. Although his red hat was knocked off his head, he was calm. I heard him shout to one of the staffers, get my shoes. He lifted his arm in the air. I think he shouted fight. Then he definitely shouted USA. The crowd chanted it back in unison. I'm still in shock. I can't make any sense of it right now. As journalists, you're always looking 360 degrees around you at all times, not for danger, but for details. The whole thing was deeply disorienting. What's clear to me after today is that if someone is determined to commit an act of political violence, they will find a way.

And that last point is the big point here. We have seen an increase in political violence in this country over the course of the last five years, truly touching off with the riots of 2020. There were obviously riots in 2014 that were winked and nodded at by federal law enforcement. 2020 was the culmination of that.

We saw political violence at the congressional baseball shooting. We've seen political violence in the attempted assassination of Brett Kavanaugh. This is a dark era. We are reentering an era in which political assassination is considered part of the normal life of the nation. If what happened yesterday does not stop. Here is CBS speaking to ER physician, Dr. Jim Sweetland, who tried to save the man who was murdered. You can see that his shirt is still stained with blood.

I heard the shots. I thought it was firecrackers to begin with. Somebody over there was screaming, he's been shot, he's been shot. So I made my way over. I said, I'm an emergency department physician. Let me help you. The guy had spun around, was jammed between the benches. He had a headshot here. There's lots of blood and he had brain matter there. And so I got him. Here's a helicopter coming in to get him.

So I got people there really helpful. I got a shot that you saw in a CPR chest compressions as well as a brief form. Meanwhile, NBC's Dash Burns spoke with an OBGYN who carried the body off the stage. I heard several gunshots. The man beside me suffered a gunshot wound to the head.

was instantly killed, fell to the bottom of the bleachers. Another woman looked like she got hit in the forearm or hand. And at that point, a state police and a SWAT team started evacuating the bleachers, and then I helped carry the man out of the bleachers to a tent that was behind the bleachers. You helped carry the man yourself. What was his condition when you were carrying him? He's deceased.

There's a GoFundMe for the families of the people who were killed and wounded in Pennsylvania. I highly recommend you go check it out. We'll drop a link on YouTube. We'll drop a link wherever we can, obviously, in terms of social media in order to raise money for the families. So what exactly was Secret Service doing? Because if you see an overhead map of the area, there is a building that is extremely close. We're talking like 150 meters, maybe very, very close to the actual stage where President Trump was shot.

How in the world did Secret Service not catch this? There are two questions. One is, why didn't they react faster when they saw the shooter? Because it turns out there are a lot of people who saw the shooter. Number two is, why didn't they know that the shooter was up on the roof? The first question is easier to answer. Susan Crabtree over at RealClearPolitics, she said,

She says,

You want to take a shot, then find out the guy was holding a telescope. The source suggested the secret service is by nature reactive and you better be right when you do react or you're effed. So first of all, that protocol should probably change. If you are foolish enough to go up top of a roof and bring a telescope, then secret service has to do its job.

It has to take preventative measures. The Secret Service Protocol requires a counter sniper aware of a potential shooter to radio directly to Intel division team to respond and investigate. In this case, the investigation may have been cut short by the shooter firing his weapon. So the counter sniper then fired as quickly as possible in return. The source praised the counter sniper who acquired the target and responded within three seconds, calling their performance incredible. The counter snipers are highly trained and extremely accurate. However, that is the answer as to why the shots went off first.

The real question is, why in the world was this person on the roof of an adjacent building with a rifle? So here is video that has emerged of Trump rally goers shouting that they see the shooter moments before the shooting. Stay over here.

You can hear it right there. People shouting he's got a gun before the first shots are fired. TMZ has actual footage of the attempted assassination. You can see him lying on top of the roof. He's killed almost immediately by the Secret Service. How did he get on top of the building? How did he get on top of the building? It's just unbelievable that this was that this was.

even a possibility. Again, an overhead map shows law enforcement snipers on the roof of a nearby building behind the stage where Trump was speaking. The shooter was on the only other nearby building, which is extremely, extremely close to where President Trump was speaking. How was he allowed up there? There are a lot of people who are engaging in a lot of theorizing today, but that is the fundamental question. The fundamental question is, how is it that this person was able to climb onto the roof with a long gun? How was that possible?

How is that possible? Speaker Mike Johnson has already announced a full-scale investigation. He says the House will conduct a full investigation of the tragic events today. The American people deserve to know the truth. We'll have Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheadle and other appropriate officials from DHS and the FBI appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP. This was only exacerbated

by footage of some of the agents afterwards. So as you could even see in the original footage of the attempted assassination of President Trump, many of the people who are attempting to jump on him and cover him are people who are shorter and smaller than President Trump, which is a disaster area. I travel with private security. I am not President Trump. I get some threats. I am not President Trump. My security, they are bigger and stronger than I am. That's why they're security.

If you can't shield President Trump with your body, what are you even doing in this job? This particular video has gone viral as well. It should. It is video of President Trump climbing into his travel vehicle here. And as you'll see, there are two Secret Service agents standing by the car. Both of them are female. Both of them do not look like they are in particularly good shape. One of them is fumbling around to reholster her weapon as she doesn't know how to reholster a weapon. It looks like something out of Reno 911. It's pathetic.

Here's some of the footage. Here she is. She's trying to she's trying to figure out what to do. She reaches in. She's trying to reholster her weapon. She can't find the holster. She's not sure. Like this, of course, is raising some fairly serious questions about what in the hell is Secret Service staffing? How in the hell are they staffing this thing? Well, perhaps one of the explanations for how you end up with Secret Service agents who don't know how to reholster a weapon.

is the fact that they have been actively attempting to DEI the entire Secret Service. And it turns out when you lower standards in order to achieve particular quotas, the quality goes down. There's a damn shock. This is Secret Service head Kimberly Cheadle explaining to CBS News not all that long ago that her goal was a 30% Secret Service agency. Your goal should be protecting people like President Trump. You don't have that many of them.

To expand hiring, they're aiming to have 30% women recruits by 2030 and even allowed YouTube influencer Michelle Carey to train with ages. I'm very conscious as I sit in this chair now of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women.

I'm sorry, that is not the goal of the Secret Service. And once again, the peculiar oddity of diversity, equity, and inclusion in which it matters more who does the job than how well they do it has consequences. Just pathetic. Okay, so President Trump reacted to this. He issued a statement.

And honestly, it's a beautiful statement. He said, I want to thank the United States Secret Service and all of law enforcement for the rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler, Pennsylvania. Most 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 another person that was badly injured. It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter who is now dead. He released this quite early. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong and that I heard a whizzing sound shots and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin.

Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. God bless America. Later, he released a second statement this morning, early this morning. He posted, thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. That is 100% true. I mean, as I pointed out, he moves his head two inches and he's dead. And this country is forever changed in radical and insane ways.

He says, quote, we will fear not, but instead remain resilient in our faith and defiance in the face of wickedness. Our love goes out to other victims and their families. We pray for the recovery of those who are wounded and hold in our hearts the memory of the citizen who was so horribly killed. In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand united and show our true character as Americans, remaining strong and determined and not allowing evil to win. I truly love our country. I love you all. I look forward to speaking to our great nation this week from Wisconsin.

It's, again, a beautiful statement from President Trump in response to all of this. The first major Democratic politician to respond was not the sitting president of the United States. The first major politician to respond was Barack Obama, who issued a statement to media, I quote, there's absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don't know yet 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. Michelle and I are wishing him a quick recovery.

OK, then President Biden finally made a public statement. He came out. He said it was sick, but he still refused to label it an assassination attempt after it was completely obvious. Remember, he didn't speak until about 815 last night, which is past his bedtime. Apparently, this is two hours after the attempted shooting. Everyone knew by this point that there was an assassination attempt. It was on video.

The blood was evident on President Trump's face. And here was Joe Biden saying, well, we just we don't know. We don't know. And then he suggests we have to unify. There's no place in America for this kind of violence. It's sick. It's sick. It's one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this. Mr. President, do you think this was an assassination attempt? I don't know enough. I have an opinion, but I don't have any facts.

So I want to make sure we have all the facts before I make some comment, any more comments. Thank you. Just tepid and pathetic, tepid and pathetic. If this has been an assassination attempt against a Democrat, you know, you know that this would be a completely different statement by President Biden.

And the reason it would be a completely different statement by President Biden is because one of the great lies that the left has told over the course of my lifetime is that heated political rhetoric is only a feature of the right. The left can say whatever the hell they want about any Republican, particularly President Trump. They can say it over and over. They can shout it from the rooftops. They can run entire political campaigns based on it and then declare they're not answerable to reality.

Hearing President Biden call for unity in this moment after this, of course, he should. He should have all along. Instead, he has run a political campaign for reelection on the basis that Donald Trump is Hitler. If you keep saying your opponent is Hitler, somebody might take you seriously as it turns out. Here is Joe Biden. This is his speech at 2022 Independence Hall. I said this is one of the most dangerous and fascistic political speeches I ever heard was Independence Hall 2022 flanked.

by members of the military in the background against a blood red Independence Hall. Here was Joe Biden. Again, this is in the lead up to the midterm elections before Donald Trump was even the nominee. Donald Trump had not even declared his candidacy for the presidency again at this point, suggesting that the victory of his political opponents would end democracy in America. The most irresponsible political rhetoric of my lifetime. Here was Joe Biden in 2022. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans.

represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. History tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader and a willingness to engage in political violence is fatal to democracy. For a long time, we've told ourselves that American democracy is guaranteed, but it's not. We have to defend it, protect it.

So he suggests the answer is vote. But to untrained ears, if someone says this person, Julius Caesar, is a threat to the Senate, if somebody says that

that this person, Hitler, is a threat to democracy, a threat to the West, a threat to your basic freedoms. If this person becomes president, there might not be any more elections. If you say that over and over and over again, why would you possibly be shocked if somebody takes you seriously? Again, only the shooter is responsible for the shooting, but President Biden is responsible for the increase in the temperature in this country to a radical degree. Here is President Biden at University on Interview, April 2024. This is just a couple of months ago.

What, in your view, constitutes the primary threat to freedom and democracy at home? Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the primary threat to freedom and democracy at home. So if you remove the threat, then there is no more threat, according to Joe Biden, the current president of the United States. Absolute insanity. Absolute insanity. And again, he didn't stop. This is a tweet from two days ago. Two days ago. Literally the day before the attempted assassination of Donald J. Trump.

From Joe Biden, 7 p.m. This is in 24 hours before somebody tried to shoot Donald Trump in the head. Quote, Americans want a president, not a dictator, not a dictator. Now, let me explain something to you. Joe Biden doesn't believe that Donald Trump would be a dictator. In fact, he knows he wouldn't. He's lying. He's been lying at the entire time. The Democratic Party has been lying the entire time. How do we know? Because Donald Trump was not that thing. He was already president.

In fact, he exercised executive authority in ways far less far reaching than Joe Biden has. And yet the entire political campaign of Joe Biden has been written on the basis of the idea that Donald Trump is a singular, ever present, clear and present danger to the very foundations of a democratic republic like the United States. Would it be a wonder then that someone took that seriously?

It's meant to be taken seriously. It's meant to be taken seriously. I'm not saying that Joe Biden wanted Donald Trump assassinated. I am saying that Joe Biden wants Donald Trump removed from the political scene. He wants to do it democratically. He wants to do it by voting. Maybe he doesn't want to do it democratically. Maybe he wants to do it by activating his DOJ in order to jail his political opponent. But is it any wonder that an unhinged person

would take those words and translate that into, I need to stop Hitler today. I need to stop the dictator. There's only one way to stop a dictator, typically speaking. That way has very rarely been the ballot box. Again, this is not rare for Joe Biden. This is a tweet from June 28th, 2024. That's two weeks ago. Quote, Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation. He's a threat to our freedom. He's a threat to our democracy. He's literally a threat to everything America stands for. Literally a threat to everything America stands for.

He's a cruel, malevolent, evil man, says Joe Biden, an incipient dictator who, if he wins this election, there may never be another election. And then you're shocked when someone took you seriously. You're shocked when somebody took you seriously just last week after the Supreme Court made what is a fairly routine decision about presidential immunity that was wildly misinterpreted and deliberately misinterpreted by the dissent Sonia Sotomayor to suggest that

Donald Trump might have the ability to activate SEAL Team 6 to kill his political opponents. The Biden-Harris campaign put out a statement, quote,

Today's ruling doesn't change the facts, so let's be very clear about what happened. January 6th, Donald Trump snapped after he lost the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. Trump is already running for president as a convicted felon for the very same reason he sat idly by while the mob violently attacked the Capitol. He thinks he's above the law and is willing to do anything to gain and hold onto power for himself. Since January 6th, Trump has only grown more unhinged

He's promising to be a dictator on day one. By the way, that is a lie. What he said is that he would be a dictator for one day and he was joking and he was saying about executive orders on immigration, calling for our constitution to be terminated. Also a lie. He said that if they had terminated the constitution through electoral fraud, then that would dissolve the country. He was saying they were the ones who are terminating the constitution. Even if I disagree with his take on electoral fraud, this is not what he was saying.

promising a bloodbath if he loses. A lie. That is not what he said. He said there would be an economic bloodbath if he lost. So this is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris lying about President Trump. Quote, the American people already rejected Donald Trump's self-obsessed quest for power. Once Joe Biden will make sure they reject it for good in November. And then he went on national television and suggested that if Donald Trump was made president of the United States again, he might kill his political opponents using the power of presidential immunity. He literally said that two weeks ago.

It doesn't stop. This is the entirety of the Joe Biden campaign because he's got nothing else. Two weeks ago, the Biden headquarters put out a tweet suggesting that Donald Trump's quote unquote Project 2025 America would look like The Handmaid's Tale. They literally took a graphic from The Handmaid's Tale and they tweeted it out of women in the red habit.

and the nun's hat underneath the Washington Monument turned into a cross. And Biden-Harris headquarters tweeted out, 4th of July under Trump's Project 2025, how many times can you say that your political opponent is going to impose a fascist dictatorship before somebody takes you seriously? How many times? The lies that they have told about President Trump are insane and disgusting and vile. They've always been insane, disgusting, and vile. President Trump was already president. We know that these are lies and they keep pushing them.

Joe Biden put out an ad on race just a couple of days ago in which he suggested that President Trump hates black people. This sort of rhetoric raises the temperature. It raises it increases the possibility of free radicals. This has always been true. Here's an ad that Joe Biden just put out. And again, it is just chock filled with lies and the impression that Donald Trump is a racist, bigoted dictator would be. Joe Biden and I approve this message. Of course, I hate these people.

Donald Trump disrespecting black folk is nothing new. He was sued for refusing to rent his apartments to black families and called for the execution of five innocent black and brown teenagers. And it's more than anger. It's hatred. It's why Trump stood with violent white supremacists, warned of a bloodbath if he loses the next election, and if he's president again, vowed to be a dictator who wants revenge on his enemies. Now, who do you think that is? Of course I hate these people. Hey, that ad came out like three days ago.

That ad says that he sides with white supremacists. A lie. It says that he hates black people. A lie. It says that he will be a dictator who unleashes a bloodbath if he loses. A lie. All of those are lies. And they were promulgated for a political purpose by Joe Biden and by his team. Now, I'm old enough to remember when Gabby Giffords, who is a congresswoman from Arizona, was shot in a mass shooting.

And the mass shooter, it turns out, was a schizophrenic, crazy person. And the entire media leapt to blame Sarah Palin because Sarah Palin had put up a list of targeted districts where people should put their money. Well, if Sarah Palin can get blamed for that, then explain to me this. How is it that Joe Biden can days ago say, quote, I have one job that's to beat Donald Trump. I'm absolutely certain I'm the best person to be able to do that. So we're done talking about the debate. It's time to put Trump in a bullseye.

I've been told that that sort of rhetoric is dangerous. But I guess when it comes to Joe Biden, it's not dangerous anymore, I suppose. By the way, it is worth noting at this point,

That it was just a couple of months ago, April 19th, that Democrat Benny Thompson, ranking member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, introduced the denying infinite security and government resources allocated toward convicting an extremely dishonorable, disgraced former protectees act. The disgraced former protectees act. What did it do? It was designed to deny secret service protection from Donald J. Trump. That was like two months ago. And again, all of this was mirrored by the media.

Six days ago, the New Republic put out this image on their cover. The New Republic used to be a fairly serious left liberal publication. Now it's turned into Slate.com, except for even more radical people. The cover, for those who can't see it, says the New Republic, American fascism in sort of the old style German Hitler font, American fascism, what it would look like. And it is a picture of Donald Trump's face merged with the face of Adolf Hitler with the Hitler mustache and everything.

That was the New Republic six days ago, six days ago. This is madness, absolute crazy madness. Here is a montage of members of the media stating over and over that Donald Trump is a would-be dictator, a would-be Hitler, orange Hitler. They were saying this for years.

Let's deal with Hitler, okay? I don't think it's hyperbolic to say that. I mean, that is Mussolini-Hitler-like language. Trump's affinity for Hitler was always covered under an umbrella of his stupidity. Echoing Hitler's words. Listen to this. Well, Hitler was duly elected. Echoing the hateful rhetoric of Adolf Hitler. I've referred to him.

I refuse to live under Donald Trump's reign again. I refuse to risk our democracy. What would a second Trump term in the White House mean for the rule of law in our country?

It would be the end of democracy. Anybody that votes Republican and doesn't understand you are voting for the end of democracy. That's the kind of language Hitler used in Mein Kampf. About Vermin and Hitler and Mussolini. That's a horrifying clip. That's a fascist clip. Just going full on Hitler. If Trump wins, it would be the end of democracy in the United States. This was the campaign. This is the campaign. When you say that over and over and over while condemning Donald Trump's rhetoric,

We can all see what you're doing and it has real consequences. Here is Joy Reid of MSNBC. This is July 5th. This is nine days ago. It's been a week before someone tried to shoot the president of the United States in the head. Here is Joy Reid. Then let me know who I got to vote for to keep Hitler out the White House. That's it. I'm done. Oh, and by the way, if it's Biden in a coma, I'm a vote for Biden in a coma.

I don't even really particularly like the guy. A lot of his policies, don't like him. He's not Donald Trump, right? Yeah. Hitler, White House. We keeping him out. Keeping Project 2025 out. That's all I care about. Up and down the ballot from the root of... Hitler, White House. Okay. You can't keep saying that over and over without somebody saying, hey, maybe I should take out Hitler. Again, why is this in any way something controversial? It's not.

I've been calling for years on my program, my entire political career, actually. Stop saying that your political opponent is the end of democracy. This is the last election. There will never be another one. It is inherently bad and wrong. And the left has been doing it with Donald Trump to an extent that no other American politician in modern history has been treated. Truly, not since Abraham Lincoln has a presidential candidate been treated this way by the media, by their political opposition is, quote unquote, the end of democracy. We know how it ended for Lincoln.

Obviously, somebody attempted to end it for Donald Trump the same way yesterday. The media were complicit in this. The media fomented this. They continue to foment this, by the way. So I should point out that in the very early moments, like the first half hour after the shooting, the attempted shooting of Donald Trump, it wasn't shooting because somebody other people died. The immediate headlines from the media tried to ignore the actual story in a way, you know, they would not have if, God forbid, this were Joe Biden.

Here was CNN's headline. Secret Service rushes Trump offstage after he falls at rally. Did something make him fall? How did he fall exactly? How did he fall? He was shot in the ear. New York Times. Trump hurt, but safe after a shooting. Oh, there was a shooting was there. But like, was it an assassination attempt? That's what you call it when someone tries to kill a political official.

The Associated Press, Donald Trump has been escorted off the stage by Secret Service during a rally after loud noises ring out in the crowd. Oh, someone must have sounded an air horn or something. You wonder why you've destroyed your credibility? It's because you are so hell bent

on destroying your own credibility in the name of a political narrative that you end up with garbage headlines like that. And the media have not stopped. Understand, they have not stopped for one single solitary second. Within moments of the attempted assassination of Donald J. Trump, again, an assassination attempt that failed by centimeters, maybe millimeters. It literally took off a piece of his ear. Within moments, the entire media apparatus had swiveled into position and they were going to finally take on violent rhetoric from President Trump. I'm not even kidding.

The narrative here, the actual story here is an entire political party, an entire political side of the aisle geared around the idea that Donald Trump is a grave existential threat to democracy. And then someone took that seriously, presumably, and tried to shoot the president of the United States. And the media swiveled into place and said the problem was Donald Trump and his supporters and their rhetoric. So here was CNN's Jamie Gangle attacking Donald Trump. Why? Because when he got up from the ground after having been shot,

Near his head, in the ear, he got up and he said, fight, and then USA. And this is the kind of dangerous rhetoric that could lead to violence. You pathetic, sad, sack-ass clowns. Are you kidding me? Are you effing kidding me? Like, what? He's the one who got shot. One of his supporters was murdered. He gets up and he says, fight, USA.

on the basis of just almost getting murdered? And your complaint is that his rhetoric is too heated? What about your rhetoric? What about your side of the political aisle? Yeah, truly the danger, the rhetorical danger to democracy is from Donald Trump. Clearly that's the problem. It has nothing to do with an entire ecosystem built on the idea that Donald Trump is the kind of person who needs to be eliminated from American society in order to ensure the future of democracy. Here's CNN's Jamie Gengel trying to flip the script here.

I do want to say there was one thing that when I watched the tape, I found odd because of all of the heated rhetoric. And that is that after he was hit, former President Trump got up and said, fight, fight, fight. I think what we're hearing from people is that's not the message that we want to be sending right now. We want to tamp it down. I would just know one thing on this, kind of to that point.

To that point, tamp down the rhetoric. He got up after being shot in the head, okay? Your ear is part of your head. He got shot in the ear. If he had turned his head at the last minute, he is dead. It's his brain matter on the stage. And then the media, I'm sure, would issue all of their crocodile tears about how upset they are for the death of Donald Trump. I'm sure they'd be deeply, deeply upset after having called him a deep and existential threat to the democracy. The real problem is that Donald Trump got up

like a champ, and then started pumping his fist and saying fight, and then said USA to the crowd. That's the problem. It's that sort of rhetoric that can't be allowed in America. Every left-wing piece of radical rhetoric is not only allowable, but morally decent. Burning down cities in 2020 is totally decent. But if you get shot in the ear, and God forbid you get up and you say to your crowd, fight, as you should, you are the existential threat to democracy once again. So it's just doubling down. Here is CBS's news, Margaret Brenneran, and she's lecturing Steve Scalise. Now, Steve Scalise,

who is the House majority whip, Steve Scalise, was shot by a radical Bernie Sanders supporter. He almost died. He almost died. Okay, so he too was a victim of a radical left winger. He was shot, almost killed. And Margaret Brennan starts lecturing him about instructing Republican members to rein in the rhetoric. Yeah, clearly the rhetorical problem is on the right side of the aisle. Nailed it.

But I wonder what your message is. Have you specifically instructed members in the coming hours to rein in some of the rhetoric that I will point out some are using online that is somewhat incendiary in terms of really blaming this somehow on the administration? Have you asked them to refrain from that?

I've already been very vocal within moments of the shooting that that political violence is not something anybody should tolerate. But also I came out, went further and said that we need to dial the rhetoric down. And there's been a lot of rhetoric for the last few months. Unbelievable. Margaret Brennan then said this could inspire violence. You mean the attempt to like the big problem is going to be the backlash.

It's going to be the backlash. Now they're all just doing the Norm Macdonald joke. The big problem with 9-11 is how many people might be mean to Muslims. I mean, like this is where we are now.

Donald Trump, somebody almost killed the former president of the United States. And Margaret Brennan's first move is to suggest that this might inspire Republican violence. It seems to me the problem is not Republican violence. It seems to me the problem is someone tried to shoot the president of the United States, the former president and leading presidential contender, and did kill somebody. That seems to me like the big problem. Again, it's like the other Norm Macdonald joke.

Or somebody was talking about like the big problem with with Bill Cosby is that Bill Cosby, there are so many problems with race in America. He said it seems to me the big problem was the rape. It seems to me the big problem was the assassination attempt. Margaret are showing you this video on repeat because these events just happened.

But we want to make clear that this is something we are reporting to you as a historic event as it unfolds. But we are very mindful that this kind of event can inspire violence.

It can inspire retaliation. And we want no part of that, Sam. January, this is not minimizing January 6th. I think January 6th was quite terrible. This is not on the same level. Trying to shoot the former president of the United States in the head is not on the same level. And yet the media are going to treat it as not only on the same level. This will be memory hold within about five minutes if the media have their way here. NBC's Lester Holt and Frank Figliuzzi, they too did the same thing. This is going to be the new media narrative is this might spur violence for my wingers.

You never know. Trump supporters might go nuts now. That's the big problem. The big problem is the Trump supporters. Trump nearly gets shot. The problem is, you know, the Trump supporters. Here is NBC's Lester Holt and Frank Fugliuzzi attempting to explain this one. Are you fearful or does law enforcement look at the possibility that something like this could inspire others who may have harbored similar thoughts?

Oh, absolutely. The copycat thing here, look, sadly, we've seen it over the last couple of years, haven't we, with people kind of taking on FBI buildings and it doesn't end well for them, like Cincinnati, Ohio, or a man who tried to swing a weapon at FBI agents in Provo, Utah, who were arresting him. This

kind of thing begets more violence and revenge. So if you're gonna have protest areas in Milwaukee with presumably people who are anti-Trump, can you imagine people who think in their head the answer is to seek revenge for today's event, maybe against those who are protesting against Trump? This presents quite the challenge for next week. And as you- The wish casting violence on the other side that has not even happened yet. They're wish casting it. It's unbelievable.

NBC's Garrett Haack doing the same thing, fretting that Republicans might seize on the images. We can't show the images anymore because they might seize on the images of President Trump raising his hand to show that he had survived an assassination attempt. That might be really bad. Republicans might be mean after that. His supporters, though, are using images like the ones we're seeing on the screen, including now both of his sons pinning those images to their ex accounts, the website formerly known as Twitter.

Pointing out the idea that their father, the Republican nominee in waiting, if you will, is a fighter and kind of seizing on this moment to elevate him politically. And so we have the physical update here from the former president. Again, he claims that he was shot through the upper part of his right ear. By all accounts, will be just fine. The political reverberations, of course, entirely unpredictable at this moment, but already

going on behind the scenes. The Trump campaign, as we've reported earlier in the evening, putting their staffers on lockdown, telling people not to talk to the press, not to talk at all while they figure out the steps at a more senior level they want to take going forward. And Lester, I'll just add, as I mentioned earlier in our broadcast tonight, that concerns about the former president's safety on the campaign trail have always been on the front burner at the senior level of the Trump campaign.

The media are a funhouse mirror. They're supposed to be a mirror to reality, and they're a funhouse mirror in which everything ends up upside down and backwards. It is left-wing, democratic, radical rhetoric about how Donald Trump is Hitler that raises the temperature. Somebody tries to shoot Donald Trump. Again, I can't repeat this enough. Somebody tries to shoot the former president in the head and misses by literally this much, by this much. Okay, I'm holding my fingers very, very close together because that is literally the difference between Donald Trump being alive and dead today.

And their first move is about the Republican rhetoric. George Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz this morning on ABC News, they started hitting Trump for his rhetoric. Understand. So it's a completely unfalsifiable matrix they've created here. If somebody had tried, God forbid, to kill Joe Biden, it would have been Trump's rhetoric. And if somebody tries to kill Donald Trump, it's also Trump's rhetoric, according to geniuses George Stephanopoulos and Martha Raddatz over at ABC. All right.

President Trump and his supporters have contributed to this violent rhetoric as well. Well, absolutely, George. We were just looking back this morning at some of the things that former President Trump has said. He warned last March of potential death and destruction if he were charged by the Manhattan district attorney. Our country is being destroyed as they tell us to be peaceful. Trump in January warned of bedlam in the country if the criminal charges against him succeeded.

And of course, in March, he said, now, if I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole. That's going to be the least of it. It's going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it. He said he was partly joking and that that was taken out of context. But those are indeed his words. And you have heard it from supporters as well. And supporters are certainly in some parts angry. And let's remember January 6th.

These people are clowns. They're clowns. They've lost the trust of the American people. They should have lost the trust of the American people. George Stephanopoulos said before the debate, the only question he would ask Donald Trump over and over and over again is the threat to democracy question. He can ask whatever questions he wants. But this notion that the radical left wing rhetoric that has been mainstreamed by the Democratic Party

The ad after ad, the picture after picture of Donald Trump as existential threat to America. There will be no more elections. Donald Trump will be a dictator. You might have all your friends killed. All your rights will be taken away. You'll be shipped off on boxcars. That sort of talk is unbelievably dangerous. Rhetoric does have consequences. Again, for the ninth time of the show, only the shooter is responsible for what the shooter does. But when you keep raising the temperature.

When you keep raising the temperature, you're doing something deeply wrong. And when you're lying to do it, you're doing something deeply evil. And the left has been doing something both deeply wrong and deeply evil here. That is the reality of the situation. All right, folks, we'll bring you additional details as they emerge. Obviously, everything is flowing out in real time. At this point, I'm sure we're going to find out more about the shooter.

Meanwhile, the RNC is slated to happen this week. It's going to be yet another shocking and astonishing week in the history of American politics. Thank God Donald Trump is all right. Our prayers go out to the families of the people who were killed and wounded at the rally. Again, there is a GoFundMe. Please give generously if you have the ability to do so.

God save the United States of America. And remember, folks, your fellow Americans are not the enemy. Your fellow Americans are not the enemy. Stop labeling your fellow Americans a danger to the future of the republic sufficient that they must be eliminated from American life or we're not going to last as a country. And it's particularly directed at one political campaign right now and one side of the media infrastructure, which have been saying this trash for years on end. All righty.

We'll be back here tomorrow with much more. I'm Ben Shapiro. This is The Ben Shapiro Show.