Donald Trump survived another assassination attempt over the weekend. Ryan Wesley Routh, a deranged Kamala Harris supporter and Iranian government sympathizer was arrested Sunday after brandishing a rifle in Trump's vicinity—drawing fire from U.S. Secret Service personnel—while the former president played golf at his club in West Palm Beach. Doing what comes naturally, the mainstream media sought to downplay the violent episode while seizing the opportunity to blame Trump for inciting violence against himself.
The front page of USA Today on Monday proclaimed, "Hope in America," with a brief note on the "incident" in Florida that occurred two months after Trump was "injured" at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. In the same space, the paper touted an update on the condition of Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, along with news about the "winners and best fashions" from the Emmy awards.
Bloomberg described the assassination attempt as "the latest jolt" in a "chaotic" campaign. CBS News and others covered the attempted assassination using photos of Trump in court, rather than the iconic photos taken moments after the first attempt on his life in Pennsylvania, which journalists have denounced as "dangerous" propaganda. Peter Baker of the New York Times wrote that the gunman's decision to target Trump was indicative of "how much the American political landscape has been shaped by anger stirred by [Trump] and against him."
NBC News reported that a man was in custody following the "Trump golf club incident," while network anchor Lester Holt told his Nightly News audience that the "apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric." He wasn't talking about the repeated denunciations of Trump on MSNBC and other media outlets as the modern-day equivalent of Adolf Hitler who must be stopped before he abolishes democracy and murders his enemies. Holt was suggesting (without evidence) a link between the assassination attempt and Trump's comments about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio.
Meanwhile, MSNBC's Alex Witt argued the attempted assassination (of Trump) was an opportunity for Trump to speak out about "toning down the rhetoric, toning down the violence." Just days earlier, MSNBC guest Elie Mystal told host Joy Reid, who frequently compares Trump to Hitler, that the former president's supporters "are just as despicable as he is."
Over on CNN, another network that has repeatedly amplified the Trump-Hitler comparison, analyst Juliette Kayyem said the assassination attempt was "exceptionally unfortunate" because it "could have impacted voters" and "will be used for political purposes." CNN also interviewed a former FBI expert who assessed that Routh, the gunman, was "extremely politically motivated" and "probably was spurred on by much of the political diatribes that are going on these days talking about Trump—equating him to Hitler and things like that."
Washington Post columnist Philip Bump, who has also written about Trump's "flirtations with Hitler," pounced on the news. "Another Chance for Trump To Frame Democrats as Dangerous Has Emerged," read the headline to his latest column, the central point of which was echoed more explicitly in a letter to the editor published in the Cincinnati Enquirer on Monday. "There is no place in politics for violence," wrote Felicia Duncan of Sharonville, Ohio. "That said, the former president, Donald Trump, brings a lot of this stuff on himself."
On The View, co-host Sarah Haines argued that Trump was inciting violence (against himself) with "hate speech" that couldn't be fixed with "regulation" due to the First Amendment. Journalists from all mainstream networks took the opportunity to attack the Second Amendment as well, with one CNN analyst citing the "relatively lax" Florida gun laws and the availability of "assault-style weapons" as reasons why Trump basically deserved to be shot by a politically radicalized lunatic.
Right on cue, Politico led the transition to the "Republicans pounce" stage of the news cycle, lamenting the fact that Republicans were "outraged" after an armed psychopath came within firing distance of Trump for the second time in two months. The news blog, located many, many floors below the Washington Free Beacon headquarters, also noted that the man charged following the "Trump incident" had been hiding out near the golf course with a rifle for nearly 12 hours.
Journalists weren't the only Democratic activists who downplayed the significance of the assassination attempt. "No ears were harmed. Carry on with your Sunday afternoon," Rachel Vindman, the wife of former Trump impeachment witness Alexander Vindman, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) in an apparent reference to the bullet that grazed Trump's ear in Pennsylvania. Vindman, who has since deleted the post, added: "Sorry you're triggered. I mean no I'm not. I don’t care a little bit."
Allison Gill, the controversial activist and host of the Mueller She Wrote podcast, blamed Trump for inciting violence against himself. "If you create your own would-be assassins by failing to condemn political violence, and then arm them with weapons of war, you're not a victim," wrote Gill, who was among the Democratic influencers President Joe Biden hosted at the White House in 2022.