Trump praises Secret Service after apparent assassination attempt; Biden speaks of relief former president is safe – live

Trump praises Secret Service after apparent assassination attempt

Trump is speaking about the apparent assassination attempt, praising the Secret Service. Of the first he says, “the agent did a fantastic job there was no question”. Of the second he repeats a claim that “maybe God wants me to be president”. He is talking in detail about the first attempt.

He falsely claims that both of the alleged gunmen were of the “radical left”.

Ryan Wesley Routh, the man suspected of carrying out a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump, has undergone shifting political convictions that elude partisan definition.

Although records show the 58-year-old former roofing contractor making small financial donations to Democratic candidates in recent years, Routh has acknowledged voting for Trump in his 2016 election before subsequently embarking on a ideological odyssey the aims of which appear incoherent and confused.

Thomas Matthew Crooks was killed after firing shots at Trump. His motivation remains unclear.

Key events

State troopers have been deployed to schools in Springfield, Ohio, following false claims about immigrants repeated by Trump and JD Vance.

The state’s governor has said that he sees the troopers there “for the foreseeable future”.

On Monday Harris met with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a labor union of white and blue-collar workers with 1.3 million members, in Washington.

She’s as hoping to win their endorsement, but it wasn’t immediately forthcoming.

The vice president was scheduled Tuesday to campaign in swing-state Pennsylvania and planned later in the week to speak in Washington, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Republican Florida governor Ron De Santis has spoken more about his announcement yesterday that Florida will conduct its own investigation into the apparent assassination attempt on Trump in the state on Sunday. In an interview on Fox news, De Santis questioned the impartiality of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and US Department of Justice (DoJ).

DeSantis was once considered Trump’s top rival in the Republican presidential primary, but a bungled presidential run meant DeSantis left the race after the Iowa caucus in January, and has since voiced his support for Trump.

He told Fox on Monday night, “We have an interest, I think, in vindicating the truth about where this guy came from, what his motivations were. The people of our state deserve that. I don’t think it’s in the best interests of our country to say that agencies like the FBI and DOJ, which are trying to prosecute Trump in south Florida – they’re on appeal at the 11th circuit trying to reinstate an indictment that had been dismissed – that they’re the best people to turn around and, one: give us the truth about this defendant but also to prosecute the case where they don’t have strong jurisdictional claims.”

He repeated Trump campaign messaging seeking to blame Democrats for “rhetoric” they say fuelled an assassination attempt in July, and an apparent second attempt on Sunday.

Trump is expected return to the campaign trail on Tuesday for a town hall in Flint, Michigan, and has appearances later in the week in New York, Washington and North Carolina.

Trump says the political climate currently “is nasty” and “if I don’t win it’s only going to get worse”.

He talks about Biden’s call with him earlier today, saying “he couldn’t have been nicer” and repeats claims that Biden, who chose to drop out of the race, was unfairly treated.

He refers, falsely, to Harris as a “Marxist Communist president”.

The space’s host then pivots to cryptocurrency, saying that it appears to him that Trump has become a “crypto bro”.

This event, extraordinarily for a presidential candidate, is actually the launch of his sons’ crypto platform.

Trump praises Secret Service after apparent assassination attempt

He falsely claims that both of the alleged gunmen were of the “radical left”.

Ryan Wesley Routh, the man suspected of carrying out a second assassination attempt on Donald Trump, has undergone shifting political convictions that elude partisan definition.

Thomas Matthew Crooks was killed after firing shots at Trump. His motivation remains unclear.

In the meantime, a new Suffolk/USA TODAY poll from Pennsylvania, a swing state with a whopping 19 electoral college votes, shows Harris three points ahead of Trump statewide among likely voters.

Polling expert Nate Silver said on X it was, “Likely an important poll for the model. Few high-quality polls of PA lately and Harris +3 here”:

Suffolk/USA TODAY PA Likely Voter Polls
Statewide and 2 BW Counties:

Statewide – KH 49, DT 46, Others 1, Und 5
Erie – KH 48, DT 44, Others 3, Und 5
Northampton – KH 50, DT 45, Others 1, Und 4

All 3 polls show huge gender advantage for KH

KH winning Northampton Hispanics 60-25

— David Paleologos (@davidpaleologos) September 16, 2024

Trump has started to stream an event live on X. He is set to speak from Florida about cryptocurrency for the launch of his sons’ crypto platform. It is unclear how much that might have changed since the apparent assassination attempt. We will bring you anything relevant from the event.

JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, has published a 1200 word post on X/Twitter, the platform once known for its 140 character limit.

In it, he echoes Trump campaign rhetoric seeking to blame Harris and her campaign for Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt against Trump. There is no evidence of this. Harris, her campaign, her running mate Tim Walz and the Biden administration have repeatedly condemned political violence.

Earlier, Trump sought to blame the president and vice-president for the shooting, because they have criticized him as a threat to democracy following his attempt to overturn the 2020 election result.

On 6 January 2021, Trump incited an attack on Congress now linked to nine deaths, including law enforcement suicides and the shooting by a police officer of Ashley Babbitt, who Trump voters widely claim as a martyr.

Vance in his post seeks to draw parallels between the suspect in Sunday’s shooting and the Democratic party leadership. You can read more about the muddled politics of the suspect in Sunday’s shooting here.

Vance calls on people to “reject censorship”, insinuating that there are those whose political dissent is being silenced.

Vance ends by saying, “The logic of censorship leads directly to one place, for there is only one way to permanently silence a human being” – he then uses violent rhetoric to describe a person being killed.

Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico rose slightly in August, authorities said Monday, ending a stretch of five straight months of declines and signalling that flows may be levelling off, the Associated Press reports.

The Border Patrol made 58,038 arrests on the Mexican border during the month, hovering near four-year lows but up 2.9% from 56,399 in July, according to US Customs and Border Protection. The total was in line with preliminary estimates.

Troy Miller, acting CBP commissioner, said restrictions introduced in June to suspend asylum when illegal crossings hit certain thresholds showed the government will “deliver strong consequences for illegal entry.”

A decline from an all-time high of 250,000 arrests in December, partly a result of more enforcement by Mexican authorities within their borders, is welcome news for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as they fend off Republican accusations that they allowed the border to spin out of control.

“The Biden-Harris Administration has taken effective action, and Republican officials continue to do nothing,” said White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández.

Many Republicans have criticised Biden for new and expanded pathways to legal entry, calling them a “shell game” to drive down illegal crossings.

A judge has rejected former Donald Trump presidential chief of staff Mark Meadows’ bid to move his charges in Arizona’s fake elector case to federal court, marking the second time he has failed in trying to get his charges moved out of state court.

In a decision Monday, US District Judge John Tuchi said Meadows missed a deadline for asking for his charges to be moved to federal court and failed to show that the allegations against him related to his official duties as chief of staff to the president.

The former chief of staff, who faces charges in Arizona and Georgia in what state authorities alleged was an illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Trump’s favor, had unsuccessfully tried to move state charges to federal court last year in an election subversion case in Georgia. While not a fake elector in Arizona, prosecutors said Meadows worked with other Trump campaign members to submit names of fake electors from Arizona and other states to Congress in a bid to keep Trump in office despite his November 2020 defeat. Meadows has pleaded not guilty to charges in Arizona and Georgia.

In 2020, President Joe Biden won Arizona by 10,457 votes.

More now on Robert F Kennedy Jr’s bids to have his name removed from the ballots.

Kennedy asked a state appellate court to consider the case last week, days before Ehlke issued his ruling. The second district court of appeals has been waiting for Ehlke’s decision before deciding whether to take the case.

The Wisconsin elections commission voted 5-1 earlier this month to approve Kennedy’s name for the ballot after an attempt by Republican commissioners to remove him failed. The commission noted the statute that prevents candidates from removing themselves from the ballot short of death.

The presence of independent and third-party candidates on the ballot could be a key factor in Wisconsin, where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by between 5,700 votes and about 23,000 votes.

In 2016, Green party nominee Jill Stein got just over 31,000 votes in Wisconsin – more than Trump’s winning margin of just under 23,000 votes. Some Democrats have blamed her for helping Trump win the state and the presidency that year.

Kennedy suspended his campaign in August and endorsed Republican candidate Donald Trump. Kennedy said he would try to get his name removed from ballots in battleground states while telling his supporters that they could continue to back him in the majority of states where they are unlikely to sway the outcome.

Trump will stream an event live on X in an hour’s time. He was, before the apparent assassination attempt, set to speak from Florida about cryptocurrency for the launch of his sons’ crypto platform. It is unclear how much that might have changed.

RFK Jr’s name will remain on ballot in swing state Wisconsin, judge rules

Robert F Kennedy Jr’s name will remain on the ballot in the swing state of Wisconsin, a judge ruled on Monday.

Dane county circuit judge Stephen Ehlke ruled that Wisconsin law clearly states presidential candidates who have submitted nomination papers can’t be removed from the ballot unless they die. Kennedy’s campaign submitted nomination papers before the state’s 6 August deadline.

“The statute is plain on its face,” Ehlke said, adding later: “Mr Kennedy has no one to blame but himself if he didn’t want to be on the ballot.”

Time is running out for Kennedy to get his name off the Wisconsin ballot. County clerks face a Wednesday deadline to print ballots and distribute them to more than 1,800 local officials in cities, towns and villages who run elections.

Trump says call with Biden was ‘very nice’

Trump has spoken about the call with Biden, saying it was “very nice” and was “about Secret Service protection”, according to a statement sent to CNN:

More from that Washington Post report: “People who have played at Trump’s club in West Palm Beach said they were surprised they weren’t screened more extensively or kept away from the former president. One person who played last year said he wasn’t asked any questions or subject to a bag search. After he finished his round, this person said, he walked into the clubhouse and took a corner table near where Trump later came to dine.”

The Washington Post reports that, “Soon after Donald Trump became president, authorities tried to warn him about the risks posed by golfing at his own courses because of their proximity to public roads.”

The story cites unnamed former US officials.

Secret service agents showed photographs taken with long-range lenses, “they reasoned that if photographers with long-range lenses could get the president in their sights while he golfed, so too could potential gunmen,” the Washington Post reports.

“But Trump insisted that his clubs were safe and that he wanted to keep golfing, the former officials said.”

Biden has spoken with Trump – White House

A White House official says that Biden has spoken with Trump following the apparent assassination attempt.

According to the press pool, the White House said, “Biden just spoke with former President Trump, and conveyed his relief that he is safe. The two shared a cordial conversation and former President Trump expressed his thanks for the call.”

Summary

If you’re just joining us, here is where things stand:

Federal prosecutors have brought gun charges against Ryan Wesley Routh, who was arrested yesterday in Florida after what investigators believe may have been a potential assassination attempt against Donald Trump. In charging documents, an FBI special agent said that Routh’s cellphone spent nearly 12 hours in the vicinity of the tree line at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, and that he had previously been convicted in North Carolina on a felony charge of possessing “a weapon of mass death and destruction” after being found with a fully automatic gun. Trump sought to use the incident, in which he was not injured, to his advantage, telling Fox News that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were to blame because they’ve described him as a threat to democracy for his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Here’s what else has happened today:

The sheriff’s office in Martin county, Florida, shared footage of the moment that Routh was arrested yesterday.
Biden spoke briefly to reporters about the incident, saying the Secret Service should be given more resources, perhaps personnel.
Harris said she was “deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt” targeting Trump.
In addition to blaming Democrats, Trump is fundraising off the potential assassination attempt.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s Democratic majority leader, said more funding for the Secret Service could be included in a spending bill under negotiation with House Republicans.
Springfield, Ohio, has had its annual celebration of cultural diversity canceled after the city became a target for criticism of the Biden administration’s border policies.
Ronald Rowe from the Secret Service said he has “ordered a paradigm shift”. He said that the current methodologies work and described them as “sound”, but called on a reevaluation amid the current “dynamic threat environment”. Earlier, he said that the Secret Service constantly evaluates their methodologies “based on threat.”
Trump was not scheduled to be at the golf course on Sunday, Rowe said. When reporters asked if Routh knew whether Trump was going to be at the golf course at that time, Rowe responded: “It’s an active investigation. I don’t have any information on that subject.”
Routh “did not fire or get off any shots at our agent,” Rowe said. “With reports of gunfire, the former president’s close protection detail immediately evacuated the president to a safe location.” Rowe also told reporters that Trump was “out of sight of the gunman” during his unscheduled visit to the golf club.

This is Helen Sullivan taking over the Guardian’s live US politics coverage.