(Washington) The presidential campaign between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump continues Monday under the sign of violence, the day after a second alleged assassination attempt against the Republican candidate, which raises questions about the security around him.
Joe Biden has called for “more help” for the Secret Service, the elite police force responsible for protecting high-profile political figures, which he says needs “more personnel.”
The Democratic president, who said that “Thank God, [Donald Trump] was doing well,” he called on Congress to address these additional needs Monday during a brief exchange with the press at the White House.
PHOTO MARK SCHIEFELBEIN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
US President Joe Biden spoke briefly to the media on Monday morning.
“The biggest priority is to have answers to understand how President Trump was able to suffer multiple assassination attempts,” commented on X the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, a close ally of the candidate.
The billionaire “is not the sitting president. If he were, we would have completely surrounded the golf course [où il se trouvait dimanche, NDLR]. But since it is not, the security system is limited to locations chosen by the Secret Service” which “did exactly what it had to do,” commented Palm Beach County (Florida) Sheriff Ric Bradshaw on Sunday.
The arrest Sunday of a man armed with an AK-47 rifle who had been loitering on Donald Trump’s Florida golf course came as new bomb threats poured in the same day in 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.
With just fifty days to go until the November 5 election, the campaign is already unprecedented in the history of American democracy.
Trump “safe and sound”
Former President Trump, 78, escaped a first assassination attempt in July, Joe Biden threw in the towel and his Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, replaced him at short notice.
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 Secret Service agents did indeed “open fire on an armed man” who was standing near the edge of the field, according to law enforcement officials.
PHOTO CHANDAN KHANNA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
FBI members at the crime scene outside the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15, 2024.
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.
” Violence ”
Joe Biden, who will leave office on January 20, reaffirmed on Sunday that there was “no place for political violence or any form of violence in our country.”
Billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk has come under fire after posting and then deleting a X-rated post questioning why no one had tried to kill Biden or Harris, US media reported.
Kamala Harris said she was “deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt on former President Trump.”
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.
Which takes place in an extremely tense political and social atmosphere.
A city in the state of Ohio, Springfield, has for days been the target of unfounded rumors spread on social networks according to which Haitian immigrants are stealing cats, dogs and other pets to eat them.
The allegations, echoed at rallies by Donald Trump, have sparked bomb threats and temporary school closures, with police on edge and immigrants on edge.
On Monday, the former president is in Florida and his Democratic rival is in Washington.