The US presidential campaign between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump took a new dimension on Monday following the second alleged assassination attempt against the Republican candidate.
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The arrest Sunday of a man armed with an AK-47 rifle who had been loitering on Donald Trump’s Florida golf course came the same day that new bomb threats were pouring into Springfield, Ohio, a small Midwestern city at the heart of Republican-led conspiracies against immigrants.
The American media have named a pro-Ukrainian American, Ryan Wesley Routh, whom AFP interviewed in 2022 in Kyiv where he had gone in support of the Ukrainian people, as the author of this alleged assassination attempt.
AFP
With about fifty days to go before the November 5 election, the campaign is already unprecedented in the history of American democracy: former President Trump escaped a first assassination attempt in July, the outgoing head of state, Democrat Joe Biden, threw in the towel and his vice-president Kamala Harris replaced him at short notice.
And while Mme Harris, 59, and Mr Trump, 78, have been locked in acrimonious conflict amid a volatile political climate, with the conservative populist stalwart targeted in a new “suspected assassination attempt” on Sunday, according to federal police.
AFP
Trump “safe and sound”
Donald Trump, who said he was “safe and sound,” was on his golf course early Sunday afternoon when “shots” were fired “nearby,” according to his campaign team.
Several agents of the Secret Service, the elite police force that protects presidents, ex-presidents and high-profile political figures, did indeed “open fire on an armed man” who was near the edge of the field, according to law enforcement officials.
Photo AFP / GETTY IMAGES
An AK-47 rifle with a scope was found, along with two backpacks and video recording equipment.
A man was taken into custody after being caught thanks to a witness who identified his car.
But the Secret Service acknowledged that it was “not certain at this time that the individual could have fired on the agents.”
And, a fortiori, there is nothing to say that the man arrested even opened fire towards the area of the golf course where Donald Trump was playing.
Biden ‘relieved’
Joe Biden said he was “relieved” that his rival had “not been hit.”
The elderly and physically weakened 81-year-old president, who will leave office on January 20, reiterated that there was “no place for political violence or any form of violence in our country.”
AFP
Billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk has come under fire after posting and then deleting a X-rated post in which he questioned why no one had tried to kill Biden or Harris, US media reported.
Mme Harris said she was “deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt on former President Trump.”
MEGA/WENN
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the alleged assassination attempt.
The Kremlin, for its part, considered it a sign of an “intensification” of the American electoral campaign.
Tense climate
This campaign is taking place in a tense political and social atmosphere.
A city in the state of Ohio, Springfield, has for days been plagued by unfounded rumors spread on social networks according to which Haitian immigrants are stealing cats, dogs and other pets to eat them.
AFP
These allegations, relayed in meetings by Donald Trump, have triggered bomb threats and temporary school closures, with police on edge and frightened immigrants.
The campaign really got going on the evening of June 27 during a calamitous televised debate between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump that prompted the former to leave the race on July 21, to be replaced immediately by Mr.me Harris.
On July 13, Donald Trump, who dreams of returning to the White House after his term from 2017 to 2021, was injured in the ear by gunfire from a young American, shot dead by law enforcement, after killing one person and injuring two others during a campaign meeting in Pennsylvania.
This rural, industrial state in the northeast is one of six or seven states that are key to winning the indirect presidential election.
Candidates continue to tour these so-called “pivot” or “key” states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada.
On Monday, according to their pre-weekend broadcast schedules, Mr. Trump was to be in Florida and Mr.me Harris in Washington.
