The co-founders of Axios are demanding former President Donald Trump take responsibility for an assassination attempt over the weekend when the Republican candidate had part of his ear blown off on live television.
In their “Behind the Curtain” column on Monday, Jim VandeHei and Michael Allen suggested Trump could leverage his political star power to “unify America” by practicing what the Axios founders characterized as “humility.”
“Imagine him telling the nation that he has been too rough, too loose, too combative with his language — and now realizes words can have consequences, and promises to tone it down and bring new voices into the White House if he wins,” VandeHei and Allen wrote. Trump, they said, “could show a different side of himself.”
“People who know Trump well say he’s a gracious host, inquisitive, loves music and social media,” they added. “This is the kind of moment when people give leaders a second look, a second change.”
Trump was shot in the ear at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday following a years-long campaign to smear the GOP candidate as a fascistic political figure on par with Adolf Hitler. Slow-motion videos of Trump delivering his stump speech show the former president was saved by a split-second tilt of his head, which caused the bullet to avoid piercing the back of his brain.
Former First Lady Melania Trump released a statement after the attempted assassination calling on Americans to “ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence.”
“When I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and Barron’s life, were on the brink of devastating change,” she wrote. “I am grateful to the brave secret service agents and law enforcement officials who risked their own lives to protect my husband.”
The weekend assassination attempt, however, was the greatest failure for the Secret Service since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. NBC News reported Sunday that the rooftop from where the gunman fired at Trump was identified by officials as a security threat days before the campaign rally, according to “two sources familiar with the agency’s operations.”
“The Secret Service worked with local law enforcement to maintain event security, including sniper teams poised on rooftops to identify and eliminate threats, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said,” according to NBC. “But no officers were posted on the building used by the would-be assassin, outside the event’s security perimeter but only about 148 yards from the stage — within range of a semiautomatic rifle like the one the gunman was carrying.”
The Associated Press reported the gunman was confronted by a local police officer on the rooftop, but the officer backed down moments before the shooting.
Two rallygoers were injured and another died in Saturday’s failed assassination attempt. Corey Comperatore was a 50-year-old volunteer fire chief who was killed while protecting his family from the bullets.