Trump shooting: What comes next? 59:00

Hello and welcome to American Friction, the US politics podcast from the makers of Oh God What Now, The Bunker and Papercuts. In years to come, I'm sure you'll remember where you were when you found out that Donald Trump had been shot, when you first saw the panicked video, or a photo of the former president with blood running down his face and his fist held high.

The attempted assassination has left America and the rest of the world shaken, and a nation which already appeared on the edge feels more tense, frightened and fractured than it already did. One person in the crowd was killed, two critically injured, and the shooter, named by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead at the scene at a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

An investigation into how and why this happened is underway, and rightfully, politicians from all sides have condemned the violence, including President Joe Biden. What has also begun, though, is the discussion of what this means for America as a society, on the one hand, and more practically, what it means for the presidential race. I'm Jacob Jarvis, and in this extra edition, I'm joined, as always, by my friends Chris Jones and Nikki McCann-Ramirez.

Nikki, so how did you find out about this and how did you feel when you did? Jesus. Well, Saturday afternoon, I was actually in Wisconsin near Milwaukee, California.

for a birthday party. We'd been out all day on the lake. Things were going really great. We stopped to get a late lunch or early dinner, one might say. And, you know, all of a sudden my phone starts blowing up. I start getting texts, messages, and I didn't have great signal. But the only thing that really came through that I saw the notification clearly for was a friend of mine who texted, Trump just got shot.

So, you know, panicked, search for Wi-Fi, full mobilization of the newsroom. And I think in the initial moments, it was incredibly chaotic because as pretty much everyone in the world has probably seen in the video,

You see Trump sort of grab at his ear, go down to the ground. A few moments later, he comes back up amidst a pile of Secret Service agents, and you can very clearly see blood on the right side of his face and down his cheek. He's hustled off the stage. He's raising his fist, yelling at the crowd, painting this really defiant picture. So I think following those first extremely chaotic moments...

we knew that the president was probably not in a critical condition. So I think then, especially, you know, as a reporter, a news-minded person, your focus immediately shifts to what just happened here, what's going on, what information can we get? And I think...

One of the reasons the following hours were so chaotic, information was coming out at a weird trickle, which does happen in the aftermath of any kind of shooting, is also because this happened on a Saturday. So most newsrooms operate on a really limited staff. You usually have weekend writers and editors who rotate off. So I think the news media in general was also a little bit on the back foot. And I think the feeling is still shock-free.

a lot of confusion. There's still a ton of information we do not know.

And now that it's been confirmed that Trump is okay, that his injuries were minor, obviously there was another person killed, two other people injured, not including the shooter. We're sort of waiting to figure out what the bigger picture of this is. And it might be a couple of days before we really get all the answers. Yeah, I was, I'd just been driving up to Lincoln from London and got on my phone and

Definitely that feeling of being on the back foot with it, it just felt so strange. I saw a tweet about it and I just thought, I don't think he has. I think there may have been some sort of noises or whatever or sounds. And then that video came out and I just, yeah, seeing that and I'm not there in America and it left me just feeling...

just really horrible, really just depresses you. We talk a lot about these people and whatever you feel about the politics of it, watching something like that and that sort of moment, it's pretty horrific. Chris, what about yourself? When did you find out about it? Well, I was several beers deep, so I don't know how much of the reaction was the alcohol or just genuine shock, but I was fairly speechless for a while. And like you, I was searching and scrambling around,

to find what had actually happened. And then when that video did surface, at first I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know what had happened. And then you watch it a few times and it's really like, shit, this is historic. This is massive. And it's really hard to put it into words just how serious this is. And I speak as a Brit and someone who...

Realistically, this doesn't impact that much. But it was shocking. And no matter how much you're against Trump, which I think is fairly obvious, I don't align myself with his politics, I'm very much more against people being shot.

Whoever it is, whatever level of society, this should never happen, ever. But then once that level of shock kind of resided, it was more onto the optics of this, what happens next. And I think the image of the Democratic nominee and Joe Biden struggling on stage to get the names right of the people within his administration, and then the image of Donald Trump, the Republican nominee,

having been wounded, standing with his fist in the air, shouting fight. The contrast is just so plain to see. And it feels like this is a massive...

I mean, there's no other way to say it. A massive advantage now for Trump. So that's what I started to look at once that shock had gone. Completely. You can't help but start to think about it all in the context. And I think, as you said, Nicky, there's so much that we don't know. It does lead you to then start thinking about the more wide thing and what it means way more broadly, because just focusing on the event itself...

We kind of can't do too much at the moment. On that slightly, Chris, though, just because the conspiracy theory shit is in total overdrive. And I've got to be honest, I'm someone who considers myself a person of the left, but the left conspiracy theories piss me off just as much as the mega far-right conspiracy theories. Like, all of this...

kind of bizarre, inane conjecture. It fucks me off and I think it's really unhelpful. So at this moment, what facts do we have? What do we know? What can we actually say? Yeah, in terms of hard facts, I think we know a lot less than social media would have you think. From videos that we can see that have been verified, we know that multiple shots were fired and one shot appeared to have

impacted the right ear of Donald Trump. He fell to the ground and then he was covered by secret service agents, albeit a bit slowly. From other videos...

that were later confirmed as real. We know that one rally attendee has died and two others in the crowd were critically injured. As we record, I think that is still the update we have concerning those two that were taken to hospital. Trump was also taken to hospital but has since been discharged. What we don't know from videos, though, is how much truth is in the

Stories given by eyewitnesses. There's one that is doing the rounds at the moment. This is the first time we've met this character. We don't know exactly where he was when this took place. We don't know how much shock he's in. We don't know because of that, how much of this story is embellished.

And he's basically been doorstepped by the media. And having done that before with people after incidents, people do tell lies, whether it's conscious or subconscious.

It's difficult to take what they're saying from those stories for granted. So it's best for people to wait until verified sources announce further details rather than those eyewitness doorstep interviews. We've also got literature. We've got a press release from the FBI's National Press Office, which says the FBI has identified

Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20th Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, is the subject involved in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Obviously a reputable source. Again, this has been doubted on social media, though. We also know that the killer was shot on the scene. And importantly, officials have also been noted to say that they are not taking for granted that this was a lone wolf attack. There are lots of details we don't know. Probably more will come out once this podcast is published as well. I will add here that we also know that the shooter...

Fired from outside of the rally perimeter, which is, I think, a critical detail here because you do have to go through metal detectors, security screenings to get into a lot of these rallies. And then on Sunday morning, we had confirmation from law enforcement that explosive devices were found in Crooks' vehicle, which was, I think, parked near around the scene.

Again, we still don't know a lot. We have nothing in the way of a motive or a reason behind this attack. We have no information on how he obtained the weapon or what model of weapon it was. There has been some stuff floating around the internet about him being a registered Republican and also having donated to a Democratic or left-leaning PAC organization.

Those posts, those claims have not been verified by any reputable agency that I've seen so far. So for our listeners, counsel caution. I think the journalistic principle applies not only in writing and reporting, but also in reacting and posting in the sense that it's better to be right sometimes than to be first.

So, you know, everything you see with a grain of salt, wait until you have multiple sources for confirmation. There is so much misinformation floating around right now. It's something that's incredibly common in the aftermath of shootings, violent events, especially in the United States, but especially in something like this with so much political significance. The information we have remains sparse and it's better to wait.

I think, as you said, Chris, the thing that's so difficult here in terms of the sources all around it, we've got this strange sense in America that Americans clearly do not trust official news sources or official organizations or institutions of any kind, which then leans people more towards seeing eyewitnesses and taking what they say as completely accurate. And with eyewitnesses, like you said, we've both been at the scene of...

of events where bizarre things have happened and you can speak to two people and hear two entirely different things. The way that you process time, the way that you process your memories,

is completely different when someone asks you about it. And the hard thing around this being is that you don't want to mistrust them. And the hard thing that there is there is that I believe people who are there and saying things will be acting with malice of any variety of kind. It's just something incredibly shocking, incredibly complicated that's just happened. And the way you interpret that and the way that you then communicate how you interpret that

is incredibly, incredibly difficult. I think it's important to add here that this is not to say that eyewitness accounts aren't valuable.

I think the thing here is not relying on a single eyewitness account to make broad-based statements or conclusions about something. The FBI has put out a call for information, for tips and videos. Anyone who has videos that they filmed, photos that they took at the event, they've been asked to provide them to the FBI. The FBI and federal investigators will use eyewitness accounts to create and figure out the bigger picture of what took place here. Sure.

But again, relying on single sources, whether they be a single law enforcement source or a single eyewitness account, everything with a grain of salt. And as we get more and more of those confirmations of those statements, we'll be able to confirm what is accurate, what is inaccurate and paint a bigger picture. The thing that scares me slightly, though, as we move forward with this is the way that

I think it's brilliant for democracy in certain ways that everyone has access to all of that and can cobble it together in their own way and make their own interpretation of that. But that also will lead to so many different interpretations. And the fact is the FBI are probably the best placed people in the world to make an interpretation of this. But we know that the public doesn't trust them entirely. On that, Chris, as well, the Secret Service...

There are massive questions here. And again, it's something that I don't want to get into any sort of conspiracy theory side of it, but the guy managed to get on a roof, unchecked, it appears. And that to me, I don't know. I'm quite clearly not a military minded man, but to me, that seems...

frankly, ludicrous. The, the slowness of how they then approached it. I don't know. And the, and the timelines of the people were flagging him on the roof. And that was minutes. As I say, I think maybe what was seconds for people may feel longer or, or, or what I don't know, but what they said. And yeah, in terms of the question for this, it's mammoth, isn't it? Yeah. Well, essentially what the secret services said is not a lot. Uh,

this has been handed over to the FBI, which is leading investigations into this. And as I mentioned earlier, they released a press release, but there wasn't much in it, which I didn't expect there to be at the moment, to be honest. But on your thoughts there, I agree. There didn't seem to be a lot of vantage points to check whether

And he wasn't that far away, to be honest. The response of the Secret Service agents from the videos that I've seen that have been verified appears to be slow, but also the aftercare and the shielding

to allow Trump to then reveal his face and his head through a gap of those shielding Secret Service agents seems like a massive failure. It seems as though no matter what he does in that situation, your job is to protect him and to shield him from any of the potential bullets. And I mean, first of all, he was hit. If it was a little bit further to the right,

He's a goner. That's the simple fact. I don't know. It feels like a massive failure. And there are going to be big questions of the Secret Service and the FBI. And as you've already mentioned, the FBI isn't trusted. The Secret Service, I guess as well, but I don't have data or facts to back this up, probably isn't trusted that well either.

So, I mean, this is going to cause mayhem for them. And I'm pretty sure there's going to be some kind of internal review into how this situation transpired. Yeah. Republicans in Congress have already called the director of the Secret Service to testify later this month. I think the consensus is that there are massive questions about why a security failure of this nature took place. And just to some of the things you mentioned, Chris, I think this kind of gets back to what information do we have?

We have not yet been made aware of a full timeline of the Secret Service response to this. So one of the questions is, did the Secret Service agents who, you know, got Trump on the ground know that the shooter had been neutralized before they stood him up? How early were they aware that the shooter was on a rooftop? Were they looking for confirmation or authorization to shoot him?

in the minutes before the gunman actually fired. We don't know these questions. Was a security sweep conducted of that building before the event? So I think the Secret Service is going to have to answer to a lot of questions. They were very notably not at the press conference that was held Saturday night with the FBI and Pennsylvania State Police. And I think

A critical thing here is that I'm going to get the direct quote wrong, but there's a saying that like the history of the Secret Service is like painted in blood.

that basically a lot of Secret Service policies as they exist today stem from security failures in the past. You know, we'll talk about like Reagan getting shot in the 80s later on. When I first moved to D.C. under the Obama administration, there was a series of incidents in which people would jump over the fence in front of the White House and try to run into the White House. And I think the Secret Service ended up like shooting and killing three people who tried to do that.

And at the time, tourists were allowed to walk kind of like right up to the fence of the White House. I have a photo of myself with my dad the first time I visited D.C., like standing against the fence in front of the White House. You can't do that anymore. There's now a barrier that is patrolled by White House security secret service agents and they're armed. They're there. But again, security failures like this.

tend to lead to reform. But the problem is the Secret Service is supposed to be reactive. These threats are supposed to be anticipated. Obviously, there's like questions about the ease of securing a closed indoor venue versus the ease of securing an outdoor venue. But the fact that I think this man was able to get on a rooftop so close to

speaks to a massive oversight and security protocol. And I think that's going to be one of the central outcomes of this incident is accountability for the agencies protecting the current president, former presidents, and also other people who are offered Secret Service details like presidential candidates. We've both nailed on there, though, I think as well. This feels like a failure and a massive failure. And I'm going to sound like a

an anti-conspiracy theorist, conspiracy theorist, but people who were suggesting there is some big, grand conspiracy around this, and I don't even want to get into it. You can imagine what they are, or you might have seen them. This is actually more likely just the fact that these are human beings and they're fallible, and sometimes they screw up. And I would suggest it feels like there's been a screw-up here rather than something...

orchestrated in some sort of way, shape or form. And again, to push back on that narrative, just looking at it to me,

I watched a video today and I was wincing along to it like, fuck, this is just crazy. And yeah, look, I'm not a trained Secret Service agent, but I'm sure that happens too in that moment. And people screw up and things go wrong. One of the sort of theories that the Secret Service has pushed back on publicly is there were a lot of claims by Republican lawmakers that

The Biden administration had denied increased Secret Service protections for Trump after they were requested. And a Secret Service spokesperson said this morning that that is incorrect, that Trump's security protocols were recently increased and updated in light of how much he was traveling and how rigorous his campaign schedule was.

With the reaction then, Nicky, you mentioned the conspiracy theories and the pushback there. But then how are people reacting? Is this mainly, do they feel like there's a sense of fear? Do they feel like there's a sense of anger, anxiety? But then also there is this just...

desire for blame as well, isn't there? Which makes a really strange situation. Yeah, of course. I think there's definitely confusion and fear. There's also a lot of anxiety about potential retaliatory violence. I mean, clearly what was already a very tense political climate has now had the temperature turned up to a thousand. There are, like we've said, so, so, so, so many unanswered questions about

And I think what happens in the aftermath of a lot of these shootings, especially because gun violence and mass shootings in the United States are so politicized, that in the absence of concrete information, people often turn toward a blame game, conspiracies, misinformation. They latch on to like every little tidbit, every little nugget of information they see online and try to draw broad-based conclusions about

off of that incomplete information. So it's not surprising to me that that was kind of the immediate reaction that we saw, the immediate sort of gut feeling to

point fingers, blame someone. There was in the minutes after the shooting, a representative in Congress, Mike Collins, who straight up accused Joe Biden of ordering the shooting. That is a sitting member of Congress. That is completely inappropriate, especially given that we had very little information and

The way they justified that accusation, and it wasn't just Collins, it was several other prominent right-wing influencers, political figures. I think Lauren Boebert and the House Judiciary Committee also referenced it, was because earlier this week, I think on Monday, Biden, you know, in light of all of the concerns about his age and everything that we've been talking about, had a call with donors. And during that call with donors, he said basically that it was

Time to stop talking about the debate and shift the focus onto Donald Trump to start talking about Trump and everything he was doing. And the phrase Biden used was, I think, put Trump in the bullseye. And I think if you view the quote in context, it's very clear that Biden is talking about campaign strategy. He's not saying we need to shoot the former president.

But Republicans have seized on that quote and accused Biden of either like tacitly endorsing an attempt against Trump's life or of like inciting violent rhetoric against the former president. And it's that kind of thing that I think is incredibly unhelpful to the conversation. We don't have information right now. We don't know the shooter's motives. We know extremely little about who he was.

And for a sitting congressman to make that kind of accusation is not only completely inappropriate, it's pretty baseless. It also just, again, takes up the temperature of an already incredibly tense situation where people are scared, people are confused.

And we have seen some like posts and tweets from like ultra-right MAGA accounts being like, you know, this might be the civil war, the like dam has broken. And that's a terrifying thing to be living in.

Want a website with unmatched power, speed, and control? Try Bluehost Cloud, the new web hosting plan from Bluehost, built for WordPress creators by WordPress experts. With 100% uptime, incredible load times, and 24-7 WordPress priority support, your site will be lightning fast with global reach. And with Bluehost Cloud, your sites can handle surges in traffic no matter how big.

Plus, you automatically get daily backups and world-class security. Get started now at Bluehost.com.

Hello, Andrew Harrison here. Do you run your own business? Maybe you've got a quick-moving, game-changing, medium-sized outfit, or perhaps a nifty little side hustle that you run from home. If so, and if you want to reach hundreds of thousands of smart, interesting people like you, you might want to try advertising your business on our podcasts. Podcasts are the quickest-growing type of advertising in the UK right now,

And as you know, because you listen to them, people pay a lot more attention to podcasts than they do to certain other forms of media that we could name. Podcast listeners are engaged.

So now's the time to try out advertising with Podmasters. We can help you create a unique ad that's full of character and that will bring your product alive to our very receptive listeners. We'll make it quick and easy for you to get an ad on the pod. We'll take care of all production and editing. We can even get one up and running in as little as 24 hours if you need it. And when you advertise with us, we'll tag you as a supporter of the pods.

so listeners know that they're backing a fellow fan's business. Why not give it a go? Drop us a line at advertising at podmasters.co.uk. That's advertising at podmasters.co.uk and see what podcast advertising can do for you.

That rhetoric though, we've spoken about it as well, that say Biden has got punchier lately, and that maybe will lead to him using phrases which unfortunately out of context can be taken in whatever different way, using a phrase like bullseye. I don't know, it's like, for example, you wouldn't really use the phrase stabbed in the back anymore in a political context because politicians have been stabbed and it's so you don't use it. But

Something that's going to make this really hard to discuss over the next few days, Nikki, is the suggestion that I would really not like to talk about it as if Trump is to blame for this. Blaming someone who's been nearly shot is...

for one, a completely terrible look, but as you say, not useful. But the other thing that's very difficult here is he's said things about political executions in the past. He's made comments around Mark Milley. His supporters said they wanted to hang Mike Pence and he didn't exactly...

push back on that particularly quickly. Nancy Pelosi, the attempt against her life, he joked around it. Yeah, he made fun of her husband who had to undergo brain surgery after being almost beaten to death with a hammer. Exactly. It can't be ignored, can it? And is this just something that the media is going to massively struggle with? Watching this, I found it difficult. There's twofold narratives, one being the narrative that

this is good for Donald Trump politically. And I think, while I think I agree with you, Chris, that the imagery of it makes sense. Another thing that will happen though, is the media will perpetuate that and say that and thus make it so and make it good for Donald Trump by saying, look how amazing this photo of him is. That will happen. But the other thing being is that they're going to have to really try and talk around the things he said and,

How do you think you negotiate that, Nikki? Because you can't just ignore that, that he said those things. But also at this point, you can't say, well, maybe he kind of deserved it because he said those things. Because that is a fucking gruesome thing to say. Yeah. I don't think anyone sensible should say it. So how do you, how do you toe that line? Yeah, no, he did not deserve that. I think the answer is quite simple. The idea that political assassinations and political violence is bad

is not in conflict with the reality that Trump's rhetoric since 2016 has been incendiary, vengeful, and authoritarian. In a healthy, functioning political system, the solution to a politician like Trump shouldn't be murder. I mean...

I'm Mexican-American. I spent most of my early life in Mexico. I grew up in a country where political assassinations are frequent. In this last election cycle in Mexico, we just had a presidential election. More than 30 political candidates were assassinated. I can say with confidence that political assassinations, political violence doesn't fix things. It doesn't help anything. It only breeds more violence and destabilization.

The United States is tragically a country where violent political rhetoric can easily be translated into violent political actions. And obviously, the assassination against Trump is dominating news cycles. And I think, A, it's because he is a former president. It is because he is once again running for the White House. But I think it's critical to remember here that political violence is

isn't most often directed at politicians, because those, especially in the United States, because those politicians oftentimes have robust security details, even if there was a security failure here. But the violence is most often directed at civilians and the communities that are being targeted by the violent rhetoric being espoused by politicians.

In the United States, we see this in violent events and massacres like Charlottesville, wherein a Nazi plowed his car into a crowd of protesters. The Pulse nightclub shooting, El Paso, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the 2022 Buffalo shooting, the Charleston church shooting, the Allen Texas Mall shooting, to name a few. And that doesn't even go into the explicit political violence against lawmakers that was January 6th.

There is a sense in the United States that no community is safe.

particularly minority communities like LGBTQ people, African-Americans, Jewish people, Hispanics, and Latin Americans who have been targeted by violent political rhetoric and have to live in fear going about their day-to-day life that they might be the victims of an angry person who has been listening to all this politically violent rhetoric and decide to take it out on them. And from my perspective,

given the temperature and the string of politically motivated shootings and violence and incidents that we've had in this country, it felt like it was only a matter of time before someone actually made an attempt against Biden or Trump. And to be clear...

Presidents, former presidents, they are regularly the subject of death threats, of assassination plots. There is a robust security system built around identifying those threats, identifying those plots and neutralizing them before it gets to what happened Saturday. And because the barriers in this country for an angry person to obtain a gun and make a plan and execute it are so low, so low in this country that

It really felt like it was only a matter of time before someone found the loophole and managed to fire a gun at Trump or Biden.

It seems it's so complicated and we're talking about how complicated, but again, it is all relatively simple, isn't it? As you create the circumstances where people feel that violence can be accepted, create the circumstances where people can get the resources to enact violence and then violence is enacted and it happens. And the simple thing on every single side has to be to condemn it,

all around and condemn it every single time it happens. And there's never an acceptable situation. Chris, there is a long history of attempts such as this. I mean, I've saw there is one of every nine presidents has been killed and there have been attempts made on lives of

something like one of every four presidents as well. Historically, this is something that happens repeatedly, unfortunately, in the United States. And Nikki, as you were saying, there are countries where it happens more often, but I think it would be loathe to also suggest that America is somewhere where this is not rare. Yeah, not at all. And when I say that presidents are rarely the targets of political violence...

I mean that in the wider context of that there is so much political violence in the U.S. that violence against, like, former presidents and current presidents is like a small sliver of a bigger pie. Yeah, well, I mean...

It's just very depressing to talk about, really, isn't it? I mean, we look at the high profile assassinations and also assassination attempts, you know, Abraham Lincoln being a famous one. I think the last one was 1981, which was Ronald Reagan. He obviously survived that. Can't forget about Kennedy. Exactly. You know, there's more than I think many people think that are public. But then, as you said, Nikki,

A lot goes unnoticed and a lot goes unreported because we don't know about it because these threats are neutralized before they even become a serious threat. And even then, there are things that slip through the net that we never find out about. It's a massive problem.

I don't really know what the remedy is. You could go into, you know, the conversation of gun control because there, you know, a lot of the time it seems as though in the US these assassination attempts are carried out with, with guns. But that will take us down a whole different rabbit hole that we don't have time to get into in this episode. But there's a lot, there's a hell of a lot. And like you say, it's not,

It's not rare, and I'm not surprised. I'm shocked, but I'm not surprised this has happened. I saw something that was from Andy Kim, who is a congressman who,

free-term Democratic congressman. He posted something quite interesting actually around Lincoln. And when President Lincoln was shot, obviously a very long time ago here, but he wore a coat which was embroidered with the phrase, one country, one destiny. And I found that really striking in the suggestion of this, of whatever way you fall, however you feel politically about any of this that is happening, whenever these things happen,

everyone who lives in America and everyone who lives in a country impacted by America, which is the entire world, has to live with the course and the trajectory of

that it is on. And it's just so stark and that this happens often. Really does feel like that notion of us being divided or people being against one another has just hit a total critical mass. And Nicky, in terms of how that plays into the politics and to be crass about it, obviously everyone is going to start talking about that.

I feel in some part that it's almost too early to comment. For example, completely different situation, but Biden, right after the debate where he fucked up pretty massively, everyone said, right, he's out.

he's done like this is it it's over then the next day he goes and gives a speech and then all the big brain takes are like wow see he's back he's just a little bit bad at this then he keeps fucking up and he calls President Zelensky President Putin and you think okay cool and it goes bounces back and forth and

This, again, is something that's going to be framed in all sorts of ways. We're still quite a long way until November, aren't we? Do you think it feels too far out to be talking about in those terms? And also, it has to be something that's almost carved off completely separate. For us to talk about it in a healthy way, we shouldn't be talking about it in the horse race of politics, should we? No.

I think it does, for a lot of people, feel like really, really gauche to talk about the political implications of an event like this so soon after it. But I do think it's important to point out that, like, assassinations, attempted assassinations do have political consequences. I think one of the most prominent examples being Ronald Reagan. After Reagan was shot, he survived, right?

His popularity with the American public shot up by, like, double-digit percentage points. I think it was... It's considered one of the major contributing factors to his re-election, this idea that, like, the outpouring of public sympathy and this idea that it created sort of a human bond between himself and the American people was not, like, a dismissible factor in the political trajectory of his career. Yeah.

Because, I mean, regardless of who the politician is, Reagan, Trump, Kennedy, obviously there were deep political ramifications to Kennedy's assassination, the Vietnam War, America's policies toward communism, the presidencies that followed. We're all human. And there is something incredibly humanizing about a near-death experience. I think we tend to see presidents...

not only in the United States, but throughout the world as these larger than life sort of like American gods, these people that are kind of like above the tier of the masses, the regular humanity. And a lot of the conversation has been about how like, yeah, like one inch to the left or right is,

And we would be having a completely different conversation right now. We would be talking about a murder, an assassination. So we will get into these conversations more in depth. Again, I don't think we'll know the full extent of the political fallout of this for some time. But I think, Jake, like you said earlier in the episode, the contrasting image it already paints between a defiant, angry person

Like, righteous Donald Trump holding up his fist, telling the audience, like, I'm good. You did not get me. I will continue to fight. Versus a Joe Biden who, for almost a month now, we've been having conversations about his frailty, his ability to lead the country. I think that's a contrast that's going to resonate incredibly strongly with voters. And I think pretending it's not...

is a disservice to like our role as journalists and commentators, but also to the American public who we've been talking these past couple of weeks about, you know, being straight with people. One of the criticisms we've had about the Biden campaign is this idea that they want people to sort of like not believe what they're actually seeing. And this is what we're seeing. We're seeing a Trump that survived an assassination attempt who, you know,

either because of his political savvy, the personality he's had since birth, very quickly turned that into a moment of triumph. He didn't have to wait until he was out of the hospital to put out a statement. He made his statement a minute after that bullet grazed, or...

I don't necessarily want to say after the bullet grazed his head because like we've been talking about, there's still some debate about whether it was a bullet or like glass sprayed from the teleprompter. But within a minute of the shooting, he got up and he made his statement. He didn't have to say that many words. He showed the American people where he stood on this and like how he felt about it. And again, it's going to take some time to see how this affects people.

you know, voters perception, the actual race between Biden and Trump.

But the narrative is already there, and I don't think it's responsible to ignore it. The cut through is phenomenal in terms of the event itself, obviously. But I've pushed back against the suggestion of the politics of it now because I have a little bit of time to process it. But the first thing I said when I saw it is I went, okay, well, that's Trump winning. Yeah, I got so many texts from people. Just when, well, that's it. Yeah, exactly. And then my group chats just blew up with...

friends who live in London aren't very engaged in this, don't really necessarily talk about this sort of thing, going, oh my God, did you see this? And saying, well, he's going to win. And then one thing that I found very bizarre is it feels to be the first presidential assassination attempt in the meme era. There were instantly memes about this, people making memes

Jokes around it, people saying this discourse from just how impactful it was blew up at a speed which is incredible. I do just debate whether it can sustain necessarily. But Chris, how do you feel around it? In terms of polling, it's hard to see at the moment. There's no specific polling that's come out because this has only happened recently.

Not so long ago, but I was looking at some betting sites. And there's one called Polymarket, which is a crypto betting site where you can literally bet on anything. But it's very popular. And in that presidential race kind of betting arena there,

Trump has shot up by 10 points to 70%, with Biden around about 17% of winning now. That's the highest it's been on that site. I think there's been over £256 million bet on that site alone, just on that one arena. You can see some impact.

of how this is impacting people. But it's, I mean, with me, again, it's the same story. It's people who have texted me or messaged me saying, well, that's it, like he's won. And as I said at the very start, the contrast of the optics of this is so plain to see. You've got one nominee who can't get the name of his vice president correct. And the other one who's been hit by a projectile, standing bloody face with his fist in the air, shouting fight.

That is the statement. That will resonate with Americans. And I think we will start to see the polls shifting in Trump's favor, unless Biden does something incredible. But I don't think anything he does now can tip the scales.

I was speaking about this and saying it's horrible that the kind of macho outlook has to be the way that politics is filtered through. And seeing people like Elon Musk has tweeted, I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery. And this kind of like Trump...

loving vibe of people who do shift opinion. The issue, you've been talking about the betting market, Elon Musk tweets about cryptocurrency and you can make or break it. Clearly, he can tweet about this and he can shift things in a way. But it is just...

away from, I hate the uber masculine side of it, but I just feel like it's like you said, again, it's just, it's simple. It is just simple. There's one person who I, I fear when president Biden has to talk about this, I fear he will say something. For example, he will say, I condone and will mean condemn and he'll reel back and fuck up. And then he'll have to do the next day. He'll be doing this, this thing. Whereas Trump, uh,

Although he says a lot of things incorrect, had that moment which was straight and it's there. And he kind of doesn't have to say anything more again. He's also not the first president to have a moment like that. I forget exactly what year it was. Ronald Reagan, obviously there was an assassination attempt. But there was another speech he was giving once where someone in the crowd popped a balloon.

But in the moment, I think it sounded like a gunshot and Reagan thought it was a gunshot. And he was giving his speech and he just kind of looks up and he goes, missed me and continues the speech. And it's still one of the most referenced like moment like moments incidents in terms of just like political badassery, political machismo. This idea that like so much of

the idea of the American presidency is about like a man projecting strength. Like the American president is supposed to be the embodiment of the image of the United States as a whole, this like militaristic, intense, like gun hole empire who does not flinch.

In the face of attacks, in the face of like actual violence. And I think the example from Reagan that like missed me and Trump, who I think also yelled just like, fuck you, when he stood up at one point. We still don't have a good transcript on that. It plays into that.

all the sort of stereotypes and conceptions that Americans have about what the president should be. Yeah. It just allows that metaphor and that storytelling, doesn't it? We had something quite similar in Britain, in a way similar, on a completely low level. But me and Chris were at a Labour conference and Keir Starmer, our now prime minister, was on stage. And as he was on stage, someone went up and...

And it appeared to attack him. And what they did was they threw glitter over him. And at the time, people were kind of flippant around it. But you saw it. And realistically, look, we've had a lot of acid attacks. We've had people... We've had MPs murdered. It must have been pretty fucking scary, someone getting that close to you. It was another moment where we thought, okay, it was just glitter. But you think, well, how the fuck did he even get that close to do that with just glitter? And...

But what Starmer did, you saw he looked really angry as if he was going to retaliate. He didn't. He stayed composed. He took his jacket off, rolled up his sleeves and started speaking. And that moment for me was the first time I thought, okay, this person who has been a bit of a void in terms of personality has gone, nope, I'm the guy who gets on with it, rolls his sleeves up and does it. And again, it's a sort of macho kind of moment.

but I went, that's a story. It's an arc. It's a narrative. And it shows that's me. That's the moment of my character. And people see those split moments and it's, it would, I'd be loathe to underestimate how, how impactful they can be. Nikki, on a final note, to be honest, but this is all left me feeling quite depressed. I'm not going to say otherwise. I kind of saw it last night, went to bed, uh,

And I was shocked and didn't think tons about it. I woke up this morning to think this, this is just, it's horrible. I hate the discourse around it. I hate the conspiracy theory around it. I hate the suggestion that some people want to condone this kind of thing in any way, shape or form.

You're there, you're in America, at least me and Chris have the benefit that we're watching this from afar. How do you feel? And how do you feel about the next few months and having to cover this and having to go to these sort of, these kinds of events? - It's kind of terrifying 'cause I don't think it's gonna get any better. I don't see how the temperature comes down, how things don't get more volatile. I think, you know, if we're talking back

in terms of like the political arena of this, this also shuts down the conversation about Biden and his age, at least temporarily. Like all the focus has now shifted on,

I think there are still so many lingering questions that are not going to get addressed because I think rightfully, like this is something that voters and the press and lawmakers should be focused on. It's an incredibly important historic event. I think one of the really telling moments for me was, like I said in the beginning of the show, I was in Wisconsin. I'm currently in Milwaukee. Yesterday, I was at a little lake sort of on the outskirts of Milwaukee. Milwaukee is a very blue city.

The suburbs around it are very Republican. When I was at this lake, we were in a very Republican area. You know, as we were going around, you could see like some Trump flags, don't tread on me flags. You can see the vibe that there were a lot of Republicans around, sort of homeowners around this lake. And the place we got lunch, early dinner at was right on the shore. I was, you know, freaking out, trying to get Wi-Fi, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. And at one point, the bartenders turned on Fox News.

And Fox News shows the moment where Trump stands up, raises his fists, yells, fight, fight, fight. And the people who are at the bar start cheering. And I think that for me just sort of distilled everything we've been talking about today. Everything about how this is going to have political ramifications. It's going to strengthen Trump's position. It plays into everything we've talked about, about what an American president should be.

And it also solidifies for me that people feel incredibly strongly about this. It's not something that people are necessarily going to use as an excuse or as a justification to pull back the reins. I think for a lot of people, especially Trump's core supporters, this is the justification they needed to fight harder, to push more, to...

justify many of the authoritarian policies that Trump has been proposing and has promised should he win a second term. And I think amidst all the emotion covering this, I think there is a lot of fear about the consequences this might have, not just electorally, not just politically, but in the sense that, like we've talked about, this country already experiences a lot of political violence.

And we don't need another gate opened for more. So it's a messy pile of emotion and fear and anxiety. And between here and November, it's not going to go away. And we're all going to have to live with the consequences.

Nikki, thanks for joining us, mate. Always a pleasure. Chris, cheers, man. I contributed barely anything, but you're welcome. Chris, you've been steering the ship for two weeks. It was time that Jarv took over.

That's true. Well, thanks for coming back anyway, Geoff. That's all right, man. We missed you. I bet you did. Just a little bit. I missed you too. I missed you both as well. And now I'm going to be back and we'll be back. We'll be back on Friday with another episode of American Friction. Thanks so much for listening in. I'd say let's just reiterate what Nicky said. Please don't jump to conclusions around all of this, anyone who's listening. And if you're finding this rough,

That's okay. Everyone take care of themselves. It's a really fucked up thing that's happened. Yeah, we'll be back on Friday. Thank you for listening to American Friction. American Friction was written and presented by Chris Jones, Jacob Jarvis and Nicky McCann-Ramirez. Audio production was by me, Simon Williams. The group editor was Andrew Harrison and the executive producer was Martin Boitosch. Artwork was by James Parrott and music was by Orange Factory Music. American Friction is a Podmasters production.