Democrats Slowly Begin to Criticize Trump After Assassination Attempt

MILWAUKEE — The refrain that ran through Pennsylvania delegates’ breakfast Tuesday was one of divine intervention.

“It’s a profound experience to be ordained by God to lead the greatest nation in the history of the world for a second time,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) told Pennsylvania delegates in a hotel conference room on the morning of the second day of the Republican National Convention.

“President Trump has been preserved for a higher purpose as we re-elect him as our commander in chief,” said U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R., Pa.).

The rhetoric coming out of this week’s Republican National Convention is that God saved former President Donald Trump from the bullet that nearly killed him in Butler, Pennsylvania. And as Republicans here blame the shooting on the Democratic campaign, they have also subtly shamed President Joe Biden’s party into not criticizing the GOP nominee — even though such criticism is standard campaign practice.

The assassination attempt on Trump, which killed a western Pennsylvania firefighter and injured Trump and two other participants, initially silenced the Democratic campaign and exposed the party’s political rhetoric to criticism.

But now, as Biden returns to the campaign trail on Tuesday, his party is resuming its political offensive, focusing on the clear programmatic differences between the candidates.

“I don’t want him to get hurt, but I don’t want him to be king,” state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D., Philadelphia) said at a news conference in Philadelphia on Tuesday, where Pennsylvania Democrats gathered at the Harris-Biden campaign office to provide counterprogramming to the torrent of messages coming out of the RNC.

Mustafa Rashed, a Democratic strategist, said Democrats’ ability to take action in response to the shooting will be key. Polls show Biden narrowly trailing Trump in Pennsylvania, a key swing state over the former president’s assassination attempt.

“This is probably the third week that Democrats have not been able to sustain the message,” Rashed said, noting Biden’s struggles after last month’s debate. “After the debate, they were unable to talk about the fundamental differences between the two candidates.”

“On the Border of Dictatorship”

Democrats built their campaign around portraying Trump as a threat to democracy that must be defeated.

Trump refused to accept his 2020 election defeat and was impeached in his final days in office for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump has promised to pardon the Jan. 6 rioters and last year told Fox News he would be a dictator on the first day of his second presidency.

But after the assassination attempt, using Fear of Trump as a motivator is a more complicated campaign challenge.

“My fellow Pennsylvanians, we are on the brink of a dictatorship,” state Rep. Danilo Burgos said at a Biden-Harris event Tuesday.

While everyone speaker at Biden campaign event in Brewerytown, Philadelphia They condemned political violence but did not spare warnings about the dangers if Trump won a second term.

Speakers focused largely on the details of the 2025 Project, a set of conservative policy proposals spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation. Although Trump has sought to distance himself from the document — which was developed with input from former Trump administration officials — Democrats have insisted it will serve as a road map for his second term.

They argue that this reality would result in the loss of America’s social safety net, the restriction of the rights of women and LGBTQ Americans, and mass deportations.

In the wake of Saturday’s shooting in Butler County, Republicans argued that Democratic rhetoric contributed to the anti-Trump violence, saying Democrats had become too personal in their attacks on the GOP.

But Democrats gathered Tuesday in Philadelphia rejected that premise, noting that little is known about the motive of the shooter, a 20-year-old registered Republican. They also cited gun control measures that could reduce the likelihood of a shooting.

“I think it’s absolutely disingenuous to listen to this kind of bipartisanship and say, hey, we need to tone down the rhetoric on both sides,” said state Sen. Maria Collett. “What we can do is look at the records of both of these individuals.”

Kenyatta argued that the messaging in the wake of the shooting required Democrats to unequivocally condemn political violence but also remind voters of perilous actions and rhetoric by Republicans, such as the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

He said condemning political violence does not mean Democrats stop talking about Trump as a threat to democracy.

“I want him to lose the election like he lost the last time, and I want him not to incite his supporters to storm the Capitol or make threats,” said Kenyatta, who is running for Pennsylvania auditor general.

Rashed, the Democratic strategist, said Democrats will have a harder time arguing that Trump is perilous, but they need to do so.

“We’re talking about where the country is going for the next four years,” Rashed said. “President Trump has used, incited, and incited violence as part of the way he does business. And I think Democrats need to make that distinction.”

The challenge is that Trump, having survived the shooting, is even more highly praised by Republicans than he was before. That moment has not only energized his core base but also drawn in previously lukewarm Republicans, uniting the GOP.

When he arrived at the Milwaukee arena unannounced Monday, Trump entered to thunderous applause, like a hero returning from battle. Almost every opening-night speech mentioned or invoked the assassination attempt, bolstering a base that already saw Trump as a god.

Often this rhetoric turns into apocalyptic reality.

“We know from last Saturday that we have on our side who really matters,” Lara Trump told Pennsylvania delegates Tuesday. “This is about good versus evil. We are in a spiritual battle in this country right now.”