--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Sean Rameswaram.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The assassination attempt on Donald Trump is part of a steady uptick in political — and increasingly partisan — violence in the United States. With a push toward unity from Trump and President Biden, this could be a moment to pull the nation back from the brink.
--:-- Ken Thomas: My name is Ken Thomas. I'm a White House reporter with The Wall Street Journal. I've covered politics a long time. This is my third White House. I did cover President Trump for a couple years when he was president.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Ken, you were in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday when the assassination attempt happened. What was your experience like?
--:-- Ken Thomas: I got a flight to Pittsburgh on Saturday morning and drove up to Butler, not expecting a lot of news that day. When I arrived, it was like any other Trump rally I had covered in the past. There's almost a festival-like quality to a Trump rally. And it was no different in Butler.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What happened when Trump took the stage?
--:-- Ken Thomas: When he took the stage, it was around 6 o'clock, and it was just a typical arrival like anything else. We heard Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA. That's one of those Trump anthems that we've heard over the years. And he just went into his remarks. The remarks were very typical. He talked about the need to take back our country.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then what happened?
--:-- Ken Thomas: It was nearly the nine-minute mark or so. And he said he was pointing to some of the immigration statistics. They had a presentation on the screens that showed data related to border crossings and immigration. You know, that's a little bit old, that chart. That chart's a couple of months old, and if you want to really see something that's said, take a look at what happened.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then you heard the sound of gunfire.
--:-- Ken Thomas: I heard three shots initially. It was like a pop, pop, pop. And then it was quickly followed by a series of shots. I was in the press area just below the risers. That's where the news crews set up their cameras to film. I think most reporters knew that something was wrong.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What was the reaction of the crowd?
--:-- Ken Thomas: I saw some reporters drop to the ground to protect themselves. I kind of got low myself. When we saw the Secret Service rush to Trump, I think that was when everyone knew, this is going to be a day we wouldn't forget.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And then what happened?
--:-- Ken Thomas: The crowd then definitely responded when they saw Trump emerge by the lectern with the Secret Service, and he raised his fist defiantly. And it was like they knew, he was going to be OK.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Secret Service rushed Trump off the stage quickly. You tried to rush over to the edge of the media pen to interview bystanders. What did you hear from them?
--:-- Ken Thomas: Many of them were just struck that they had seen blood on the president's ear and cheek area. As people were leaving, the Secret Service pounced and they just started clearing the area.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The Secret Service agent shouted, "This is an active crime scene." What was your reaction to that?
--:-- Ken Thomas: I remember this agent just shouting, this is an active crime scene. Basically, you have to just pack up your gear and leave.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: In the hours that followed, what have we heard from law enforcement and the Secret Service about how this happened?
--:-- Ken Thomas: Yeah, I think at first I was just shocked that something like this could have happened. I've been to a million events in which the Secret Service runs things. It's a very routine process. We go through magnetometers. If you set off the magnetometer, you're wanded, you know, with a handheld system, and your bags are searched.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But it seems like there was a breakdown in the security perimeter.
--:-- Ken Thomas: It been standard practice since the Kennedy assassination that any time you have a protectee, they search buildings and nearby and make sure there isn't some kind of elevated place where a shooter could try to inflict harm on a president or somebody who's protected by the Secret Service.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What do we know about the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks?
--:-- Ken Thomas: We're still trying to piece that together. A group of my colleagues did an initial deep dive into Thomas Matthew Crooks. He was 20 years old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, which is not far from Butler.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Officials found bomb-making materials inside Crook's vehicle and home. What do we know about his motive?
--:-- Ken Thomas: Although the FBI has deemed this an attempted assassination, it could not immediately locate any writings or social media posts to point to a motive.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What's the portrait of Thomas Matthew Crooks that's emerging?
--:-- Ken Thomas: The portrait that we have put together so far is someone who was fairly quiet. We know that he took advanced classes in high school. We have reporting that there were times that he was bullied.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And what about his political views?
--:-- Ken Thomas: He wasn't particularly outspoken about his political views. And so I think there is a real mystery here as to what the motivation was, why he would have done something like this.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social site that he was OK. He confirmed that a bullet had pierced his ear. What does he say in the immediate aftermath and in the 36 hours since?
--:-- Ken Thomas: He has talked about how he hopes this is something that brings people together, that the country needs to come together, put faith in justice and in God.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: President Biden also spoke about the assassination attempt. What did he say?
--:-- Ken Rameswaram: (paraphrasing) Look, there's no place in America for this kind of violence. It's sick. It's one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. We cannot allow for this to be happening.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This is a difficult campaign season. How long do you think these calls for unity will last?
--:-- Ken Thomas: It's an open question on how long that will last. This is just a very difficult and rough campaign. And I think both parties feel like the stakes have never been higher.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: We're going to ask if there's anything we can learn about ourselves and our country in this trying moment.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: My name is Eric Nisbet. I'm a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who studies how the public views political violence.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Eric, you study the stuff, but you were not ready when your phone buzzed on Saturday.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: At first it was disbelief. My hope was that it was someone shooting off firecrackers or some such. It critically turned to sadness when I found that it was an actual assassination attempt.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: People have been killed and injured, and President Trump's ear was grazed by a bullet. What's your reaction to that?
--:-- Eric Nisbet: I noticed that Joe Biden has spoken about three times in about 24 hours about this assassination attempt on his opponent, which for the president is a lot of times. He said, "This isn't us." The second time he said, "This isn't us." The third time he said, "This isn't us."
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: But you think students of history might recall that this is kind of us.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: But let me ask you, is this us? Unfortunately, it's us, but there is something different in this historical moment.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What's different over the last 10 years is that political violence is no longer just political violence, it's partisan violence.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: It's violence that's focused on and centered around our political identities as Democrat and Republican.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Previously, political violence was pretty symmetrical on the left and the right.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: It was focused around more general ideologies, focused on maybe single issues. Now political violence, the trends in recent years are focused on more, I am a Democrat, and thus I have support violence against Republicans or vice versa.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And it has been more right-leaning in recent years than left.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: It's notwithstanding the act we saw on Saturday, the targets of political violence and the perpetrators of political violence have been more on the right.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: What do you think accounts for that shift?
--:-- Eric Nisbet: A few different factors. One is the rise of this political sectarianism, where we're incredibly tribal and where our political identities have become almost mega identities.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: They supersede all other social or cultural identities that we have.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: For some people. This is combined with these perceptions and rhetoric of dehumanizing the other side.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: The other side is immoral and an existential threat to our group, to our identity.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: And if the other side is immoral, not human and a threat, then violence becomes almost morally justified.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How much worse do you think this would have been for this country had President Trump actually been critically injured or killed on Saturday?
--:-- Eric Nisbet: Much worse. Violence begets violence. And one of the drivers of political violence is what we call meta-perceptions.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: If a Democrat thinks Republicans are violent, they're more likely to engage in violence themselves and vice versa.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: It's if they pull a knife, we pull a gun. And so acts of political violence actually will beget violence because it makes each group more willing to engage in violence as sort of a self-protective function.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: How much do you think the former president, whose life was just threatened, has escalated the rhetoric, the polarization himself?
--:-- Eric Nisbet: I think it's hard to pin it on one individual. I think you have to look at the larger sort of information environment.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: When this rifle is the only thing standing between your family and a dozen angry Democrats in Klan hoods, you just might need that semi-automatic.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: And I think one of the things driving right-wing political violence in the United States is sort of this group-based cues where they target often immigrants or other outgroups.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: And Republicans have pointed to Biden's rhetoric, at least specifically, about his claiming that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy as inciting violence.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: Everyone who has called him a fascist, everyone who has called him a threat to democracy, who said that he should be put in a bullseye, as Joe Biden said, they need to have—
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: I think what Democrats have to do is to point out that the best way to deal with a threat to democracy is not through violent action, but rather through the ballot box.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: That engaging in violence, the medicine is worse than the disease. We do need to understand that we all are Americans and that that should be our sort of mega identity that supersedes any partisan differences.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: It's just not only our political leaders, it needs to be all of us.
--:-- Eric Nisbet: Because once we see each other as existential threats and we turn to violence to solve our political differences, our democracy is done.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: Eric Nisbet, Professor of Policy Analysis and Communication at Northwestern University.
--:-- Sean Rameswaram: This episode of Today Explained was produced by Amanda Llewellyn and Peter Ballinon-Rosen.
--:-- [Music continues to fade out]
