'Time: What We Know—and Don’t Know—So Far About the Trump Rally Gunman'

 Twenty-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified by the FBI on Sunday as the shooter behind the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday evening that left one bystander dead and two others critically injured.

Crooks was killed at the scene by a Secret Service sniper, and investigations continue into his motives, which remain unclear.

Here’s what we know so far.

‘No indication of any mental health issues’

The FBI says that Crooks was not known to the agency prior to the incident.

In a call with reporters Sunday night, the FBI special agent in charge, Kevin Rojek, said there was “no indication of any mental health issues” regarding the shooter.

Limited social media presence

Rojek also said authorities “have not yet identified an ideology” associated with Crooks. The agency is interviewing his family and friends and investigating his phone and internet history for any evidence, as it seeks to understand his motivations. 

Crooks reportedly had a limited social media presence, though a spokesperson for the platform Discord said in a statement shared with TIME that the company “identified” a “rarely utilized” account that appears to be linked to Crooks. The spokesperson said that the company is cooperating with law enforcement but that it “found no evidence” the account was used “to plan this incident, promote violence, or discuss his political views.”

Registered Republican, donor to progressives

State public voting records show that Crooks was a registered Republican, while Federal Election Commision documents show that a donor with the same name and address gave $15 to ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising apparatus, on Jan. 20, 2021—the date of President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The donation was earmarked for the Progressive Turnout Project.

A spokesperson for the Progressive Turnout Project told CNN that “the email address associated with the contribution only made the one contribution and was unsubscribed from our lists 2 years ago.” They added: “We unequivocally condemn political violence in all of its forms, and we denounce anyone who chooses violence over peaceful political action.”

From an affluent Pittsburgh suburb

The FBI identified Crooks’ hometown as Bethel Park, a suburb of Pittsburgh about an hour south of where the Trump rally was held. Dan Gryzbek, a county council member representing the area, described the neighborhood where Crooks’ family lived as “pretty firmly middle class, maybe upper-middle class” to the New York Times. According to the Census Bureau, Bethel Park’s population is 93% white with a 1.3 times higher per capita income than the rest of Pennsylvania.

The address of Crooks’ family home was in a district that President Biden won in 2020 with 52% of the vote to Trump’s 46%. Crooks’ father is a registered Libertarian and his mother is a registered Democrat, according to voter records, CNN and the Times reported. Both parents are licensed professional counselors, according to state records.

Seems to have acted alone

“While the investigation to date indicates the shooter acted alone,” the FBI said Sunday, “the FBI continues to conduct logical investigative activity to determine if there were any co-conspirators associated with this attack. At this time, there are no current public safety concerns.”

Used an AR-15-style rifle purchased legally by his father

Multiple law enforcement officials have said that the firearm used by Crooks in the shooting was an AR-style rifle that was legally purchased by Crooks’ father. Crooks’ family is cooperating with investigators, Rojek has said.

A rifle enthusiast since he was a teen

According to photos and videos of the scene of the shooting, Crooks was wearing a shirt associated with Demolition Ranch, a popular gun channel on YouTube. (Matt Carriker, the host of the channel, said on X that he will make a public statement soon but remains in disbelief.)

Crooks had tried out for his high school’s junior varsity rifle team when he was a freshman, CBS reported, but classmate Jameson Myers said Crooks didn’t make the team and never tried out again.

Jameson Murphy, another former classmate, told the New York Post that Crooks “was such a comically bad shot he was unable to make the team and left after the first day.” Another classmate also told the Post that the rifle team coach had concerns about Crooks based on “some crass jokes” Crooks made and how he interacted with others. “Our old coach was a stickler, he trained Navy marksmen, so he knew people. He knew when someone’s not the greatest person,” the classmate said.

Crooks did, however, belong to a local gun club, the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, which has a 200-yard rifle range among its facilities. The club confirmed Crooks’ membership in a statement provided to multiple media outlets that admonished the violence and offered condolences to the victims but said it couldn’t offer any more details as investigations remain ongoing.

Left behind explosive materials

The FBI said that, when it searched Crooks’ home and vehicle to collect additional evidence, suspicious devices were found and have been “rendered safe” by bomb technicians. According to the Washington Post, officials said a “rudimentary” explosive device was found in his vehicle and has since been rendered safe and is being analyzed. The car, the Wall Street Journal reported, was parked near the rally.

Sources told Fox News that law enforcement found bomb-making materials in Crooks’ home.

A nursing home aid with an engineering science degree

Crooks graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County with an associate degree in engineering science just over two months ago, a school official confirmed to the New York Times.

Crooks worked as a dietary aid at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. “We are shocked and saddened to learn of his involvement,” Marcie Grimm, the facility administrator, said in a statement to multiple media outlets, adding that Crooks “performed his job without concern and his background check was clean.”

A colleague at the nursing home described Crooks as caring and apolitical at work to CNN. “It’s hard seeing everything that’s going on online,” the colleague said, “because he was a really, really good person that did a really bad thing, and I just wish I knew why.”

A quiet, lonely nerd in high school

Bethel Park School District confirmed in a statement that Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High in 2022. It offered its condolences to victims of the shooting and said it is cooperating with law enforcement investigations.

Former peers, speaking to media outlets, painted a portrait of a social outcast who kept a low profile.

“He didn’t really fit in with everybody else,” classmate Sarah D’Angelo told the Wall Street Journal. “He was there but I can’t think of anyone who knew him well,” another classmate told BBC.

Crooks was “a loner” who “would sit alone at lunch,” classmate Jason Kohler told ABC News. He would regularly wear camouflage outfits and was “bullied” for the way he dressed, Kohler told NBC News.

“There was definitely chatter about him just looking a little different,” another classmate, who asked not to be named, told CNN. “Almost a retro nerd vibe.”

Summer Barkley, another classmate, told BBC that Crooks was “always getting good grades on tests” and was “very passionate about history.”

Zach Bradford, another classmate, described Crooks to the New York Times as “incredibly intelligent” and said his views in high school seemed “slightly right leaning.”

Most—but not all—peers expressed disbelief at Crooks’ involvement in the shooting at the Trump rally.

“He never outwardly spoke about his political views or how much he hated Trump or anything,” D’Angelo added to the Wall Street Journal.

“I was just, like, shocked—I just couldn’t believe he did something that bold, considering he was such a quiet and kept-to-himself kind of person,” the anonymous classmate told CNN.

“I will say he was definitely nerdy, for sure, but he never gave off that he was creepy,” classmate Mark Sigafoos told CBS. “He seemed like he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

But Julianna Grooms, who graduated a year after Crooks, told the Wall Street Journal that Crooks stood out for his awkwardness. “If someone would say something to his face, he would just kind of stare at them,” she said. “People would say he was the student who would shoot up high school.”

https://time.com/6998557/thomas-matthew-crooks-trump-rally-shooter-fbi-motive/

Broader Use of Cryoablation for Early Breast Cancer?

 Women with early-stage breast cancer who couldn't enter clinical trials of cryoablation because of "unfavorable" tumor or patient characteristics nevertheless enjoyed a high rate of treatment success and few adverse events (AE) after undergoing the procedure anyway, a multicenter study showed.

Cryoablation procedures were considered technically successful in 98.2% of cases, which were associated with an AE rate of 6.3%, all considered minor. During a median follow-up of 2 years, 10.9% of patients had ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence (IBTR), which proved to be new primary disease in almost half of recurrences.

The outcomes compared favorably with those of prior studies of cryoablation in patients with favorable characteristics, reported Karim Oueidat, MD, of Brown University's Warren Alpert School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island, and co-authors in the American Journal of Roentgenologyopens in a new tab or window.

"This multi-institutional center represents, to our knowledge, the largest study of breast cancer cryoablation in women who are ineligible for clinical trials due to the presence of at least one unfavorable patient or tumor characteristic in terms of the likelihood of ablation success," the authors stated. "Of these patients, 54.3% had at least one comorbidity."

"In select individuals with unfavorable patient or tumor characteristics, cryoablation remains a safe alternative to surgery that has overall good outcomes," they added. "These findings may be particularly relevant in patients who are also poor surgical candidates due to comorbidities."

Cryoablation for early breast cancer has attracted considerable attention in recent years, not only as an option for patients considered unsuitable for surgery, but as a potential alternative to surgeryopens in a new tab or window and a means of treatment de-escalation. Potential advantages over surgery include use of local anesthesia, faster recovery, better cosmesis, and cost savings.

Cryoablation does not yet have an approved indicationopens in a new tab or window for breast cancer. The only approved indication is for treatment of fibroadenomatous lesions. The American Society of Breast Surgeons has a clinical guidelineopens in a new tab or window for use of ablative techniques to treat benign or malignant breast lesions.

Oueidat and colleagues noted that prospective clinical trials of cryoablation for early breast cancer have had strict inclusion criteria associated with favorable outcomes with cryoablation. Patients with clinical or tumor characteristics considered unfavorable have generally been excluded. The trials have shown that cryoablation "is a safe and efficacious alternative to surgery for breast cancer treatment in this restricted patient population."

A paucity of data exist for cryoablation outcomes in trial-ineligible patients, the authors continued. Many such patients might have potentially treatable disease despite less-than-optimal candidacy. The lack of data provided the impetus for a multicenter retrospective review of patients who didn't meet inclusion criteria for clinical trials of cryoablation for early breast cancer.

Investigators at seven U.S. centers contributed data for 112 patients with median age of 71, and 60 (53.6%) had one or more comorbidities. All patients had pretreatment assessment by mammography and ultrasound, and some had contrast-enhanced breast MRI. All patients had follow-up imaging by mammography, ultrasound, and MRI, and some centers also used CT or FDG PET/CT for follow-up.

Common reasons for trial ineligibility included target lesions that were too large or too close to the skin, histology other than invasive ductal carcinoma, hormone receptor status other than that specified in the protocols, and unwillingness or inability to tolerate adjuvant therapy.

The primary outcomes were technical success of cryoablation, IBTR, and AEs. Success was defined as a procedure that was "not prematurely terminated and achieved intended treatment parameters, and the first imaging follow-up showed no evidence of residual disease."

Baseline characteristics included a median largest tumor dimension of 1 cm by ultrasound, and median distance from the nipple, skin, and pectoralis of 5.0, 0.7, and 0.6 cm, respectively. Five patients had N1 disease and/or distant metastases. Invasive ductal carcinoma accounted for 78.6% of all primary lesions. Tumors were grade 1 in 54.5% of patients, grade 2 in 35.7%, and grade 3 in 9.8%. Almost 80% of the patients had hormone receptor-positive/HER2-negative cancer, and 8.9% had triple-negative disease.

Seven patients had AEs, none of which were considered moderate or major. All but two procedures met criteria for treatment success. During follow-up, 22 (20%) patients had biopsies for suspicious findings on imaging in the ipsilateral breast. Pathology results showed benign findings in nine patients and IBTR in 12, resulting in an IBTR rate of 10.9% in the 110 patients with technical success.

After accounting for death as a competing risk, the cohort had a cumulative incidence of IBTR of 5.3%, 12.2%, and 18.2% at 1, 2, and 3 years.

Disclosures

Oueidat reported no relevant financial disclosures.

One co-author disclosed a relationship with IceCure Medical.

Primary Source

American Journal of Roentgenology

Source Reference: opens in a new tab or windowOueidat K, et al "Cryoablation of primary breast cancer in patients ineligible for clinical trials: A multi-institutional study" Am J Roentgenol 2024; DOI: 10.2214/AJR.24.31392.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/hematologyoncology/breastcancer/111083

'One third of US military could be robotic by 2039: Milley'

 The 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff believes growing artificial intelligence and unmanned technology could lead to robotic military forces in the future.

“Ten to fifteen years from now, my guess is a third, maybe 25% to a third of the U.S. military will be robotic,” said retired Army Gen. Mark Milley at an Axios event Thursday launching the publication’s Future of Defense newsletter.

He noted these robots could be commanded and controlled by AI systems.

Advancements in technology and changes in the nature of war will enable militaries worldwide to make smarter and faster decisions, Milley said.

He was careful to clarify the difference between the nature and character of war. The former, he said, involves human activity and acts of politics.

“One side is trying to impose its political will on the other by the use of organized violence,” said Milley.

He noted this aspect of war rarely changes.

The character of war, however, involves tactics, technologies, weapons systems and leader training. Milley said that while these dynamics often change, the world is currently experiencing the biggest fundamental shift in human history with the rise of AI and robotics.

He cited the transition from the Civil War musket to the rifle as a prime example of a transformation that forever altered the landscape of armed conflict.

The country that implements these technologies the quickest for military use will gain the most decisive advantages over its adversaries, Milley said.

For America to maintain its supremacy as the world’s most lethal military, Milley believes it must not only adapt quickly but also in ways that might cause seismic shifts in operations.

Milley said current U.S. policy stipulates a human must always be involved and in charge when it comes to military robots and their use of lethal munitions. He explained the current thinking is that humans possess an ethical framework for decision-making that should be prioritized above all else.

Technology doesn’t have morality, he said.

But he didn’t rule out a reality where that might change.

“You can imagine a future from a technical standpoint [where] a machine enabled by AI, a robot enabled by AI, could make its own decisions,” said Milley. “Is that something the world wants?”

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/2024/07/14/one-third-of-us-military-could-be-robotic-by-2039-milley/

Vertex sues US over fertility support program for Casgevy gene editing therapy

 Vertex Pharmaceuticals sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Monday, seeking a court declaration that a fertility support program for patients who are prescribed its gene editing therapy Casgevy does not violate federal anti-kickback laws.

Casgevy is approved for the treatment of two genetic disorders - sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia - in the United States.

The treatment involves patients receiving high doses of chemotherapy, with infertility being a potential risk.

While fertility preservation methods such as freezing eggs and sperm banking are covered under commercial insurance plans, government-supported plans like Medicaid do not offer coverage.

Vertex offers financial support for some Casgevy patients who meet certain eligibility criteria.

The Office of Inspector General, named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit, had previously conveyed to the company that its program could violate anti-kickback laws as it "poses more than a low risk of fraud and abuse to federal health care programs".

The OIG and other defendants in the lawsuit - the HHS, Secretary Xavier Becerra and Inspector General Christi Grimm - did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Anti-kickback provisions prohibit "quid-pro-quo" transactions, in which remuneration, such as a bribe or kickback, is sought or offered to influence medical decisions.

Vertex said anti-kickback laws do not prohibit support such as the one its program provides.

The program "removes a financial or medical barrier to care and thereby allows patients to receive appropriately prescribed medical treatment," the company said in the court filing.

The lawsuit was filed in the federal court in Washington, D.C.

https://www.aol.com/news/vertex-sues-us-over-fertility-180753129.html

Health services provider Concentra sets terms for $551 million IPO

 Concentra Group Holdings Parent, an occupational health services provider being spun out of Select Medical, announced terms for its IPO on Monday.

The Addison, TX-based company plans to raise $551 million by offering 22.5 million shares at a price range of $23 to $26. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Concentra Group Holdings Parent would command a market value of $3.1 billion.

Concentra states that it is the largest provider of occupational health services in the US by number of locations. As of March 31, 2024, the company operated 547 stand-alone occupational health centers in 41 states, and 151 onsite health clinics at employer worksites in 37 states. It has also expanded its reach via its telemedicine program, serving 43 states and the District of Columbia. Concentra's network of approximately 11,000 colleagues and affiliated physicians and clinicians supported the delivery of services to more than 50,000 patients each business day on average during 2023.

Concentra Group Holdings Parent was founded in 1979 and booked $1.8 billion in revenue for the 12 months ended March 31, 2024. It plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol CON. J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BofA Securities, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo Securities, Mizuho Securities, RBC Capital Markets, and Truist Securities are the joint bookrunners on the deal. It is expected to price during the week of July 22, 2024.

Relevant Profile: CON

https://www.renaissancecapital.com/IPO-Center/News/105677/Health-services-provider-Concentra-sets-terms-for-$551-million-IPO

Rabobank: Remarkable Symmetry of This Weekend's Events, 1981 Reagan Attempted Assassination

 By Benjamin Picton, senior macro strategist at Rabobank

The Shot Heard Around the World

The US presidential campaign was upended over the weekend by an attempted assassination of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Trump was speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania when a shooter opened fire from a nearby rooftop. A bullet grazed the 45th President’s ear, drawing blood before he dropped to the ground and was surrounded by members of the Secret Service. Before being escorted off stage, Trump stood and defiantly punched the air, producing what is sure to be the defining image of the campaign.

The shooter was killed by Secret Service snipers moments after the assassination attempt. According to media reports, one innocent bystander was killed by the shooter’s stray bullets and two others critically injured. Donald Trump was immediately sent for medical evaluation but is reportedly in good health and issued a statement via Truth Social calling for unity. President Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office a short time ago, also calling for unity, condemning political violence and urging partisans to “lower the temperature” in US politics.

The assassination attempt comes just days before the Republican National Convention, due to kick-off in Milwaukee today. Donald Trump arrived in the city on Sunday ahead of his presumptive confirmation as the Republican Party’s nominee for the Presidency and keynote address on Thursday. It is widely expected that Trump will unveil his choice of running mate this week, with odds shortening on Ohio Senator J.D Vance ahead of GOP establishment-type candidates like Doug Burgum and Marco Rubio.

Vance is seen as a torchbearer for the MAGA brand of conservative nationalism. His best-selling memoir ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ (later adapted for film by Ron Howard) was widely seen as a guide to the Trump support base, and an explanation of Trump’s ‘America First’ approach to trade and immigration issues. Does Donald Trump’s recent brush with mortality make the selection of a MAGA true believer as VP more likely? There is also the consideration that, if Trump does indeed win, he will not be eligible to run again in 2028 and may therefore be looking to anoint potential successors who will carry on his program.

In one sense, there is a remarkable symmetry between the events of the weekend and the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981. At the time of Reagan’s shooting, the ‘Reaganomics’ experiment in Neoliberalism that has been the dominant economic paradigm of the last 40 years was still in its infancy. The attempted assassination of Donald Trump perhaps bookends the Neoliberal years as the world turns again to mercantilist economic nationalism, characterized by protective tariffs and tighter controls on the international mobility of labor and capital.

After Reagan was shot in 1981, he received a substantial poll boost and went on to win the 1984 Presidential race against Carter VP Walter Mondale in one of the all-time electoral drubbings. Mondale won just 13 electoral college votes against Reagan’s 525, carrying only his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia.

The Biden campaign will be acutely aware of the historical comparison. Biden had hoped to wrest back some momentum after his disastrous debate performance and subsequent gaffes at last week’s NATO conference saw numerous Democratic politicians and donors express a lack of confidence in the President’s ability to defeat Donald Trump. Bloomberg’s Jordan Fabian suggests that the attempt on Trump’s life deprives the Biden campaign of a favored campaign tactic: making Trump’s behaviour and agenda the central campaign issue.

It will be difficult for President Biden to simultaneously argue for national unity and lowering the temperature of the debate, while also suggesting that Trump’s character and program are a risk to American democracy. The Biden campaign is snookered and will have to run instead on the President’s record in office: a message that has thus far failed to cut through with voters.

Market reaction to the events of the weekend has been reasonably muted. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot index is up minorly on haven buying, crude oil prices are slightly higher and Asian equities are mixed. Aussie 3 and 10-year bond futures have caught a small bid in early trade.

If the assassination attempt improves Donald Trump’s electoral prospects as dramatically as pundits seem to be suggesting, markets may be under-pricing the consequences of universal tariffs and a potential curtailing of Fed independence.

For now, the price action suggests traders remain primarily focused on when the first cut to the Fed Funds rate is going to come, and not on momentous geopolitical recalibrations.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rabobank-there-remarkable-symmetry-between-weekends-events-and-reagans-attempted

10 Burning Questions That Every American Should Be Asking About The Trump Shooting

 by Michael Snyder via The End of The American Dream blog,

The people that guard our leaders are supposed to be the most highly trained security personnel in the world.  So how could something like this have happened?  As I mentioned in a previous article, I have been trying to put the pieces together.  To me, it appears that we either just witnessed incompetence on an epic scale or something more insidious was going on out there.  The American people deserve answers, and hopefully we will get them.  But I think that one thing is clear.  I don’t see any possible way that the head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, can be allowed to keep her job.  There is no way that this shooting would have happened the way that it did if competent people were running the show.

I have been digging into what many of the experts have been saying about this incident, and there is so much that just doesn’t make sense.

So I have compiled a list of 10 burning questions that every American should be asking about the Trump shooting…

#1 How did the shooter get so close without being seen by the Secret Service?  It is being reported that he was able to crawl on to a roof that was just 130 yards away from Trump…

How on earth did a gunman who was acting suspiciously crawl onto the roof of a building 130 yards away from where former president of the United States was speaking and manage to fire at least eight shots before he was taken down?

That is just one of the damning and terrifying questions that are unanswered after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump that is being described as an enormous security failure.

Terrifying new video from TMZ has captured the moment Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, lay down on the roof of a nearby building, in full view of horrified Trump supporters, and fired towards the stage.

#2 Why weren’t security personnel on that roof?  Every roof that had a direct line of sight to Trump should have been covered, and a former SWAT commander is saying that what we just witnessed was “a fundamental security failure”…

Steve Nottingham, a former SWAT commander in Long Beach, California, called Saturday’s shooting “a fundamental security failure.”

He has worked security details for visiting world leaders, including presidents, and now trains officers on how to respond to critical incidents. He pointed at likely breakdowns in the pre-event scouting and real-time monitoring of places a gunman could shoot from.

“They were behind the curve, because they should have had those places covered ahead of time,” Nottingham said.

#3 Why didn’t authorities respond when they were warned about a man with a gun?  One witness says that he repeatedly tried to warn law enforcement about the shooter but he was ignored…

A man who was present at the Pennsylvania rally where former President Donald Trump was grazed by a bullet during a failed assassination attempt Saturday night said police ignored him when he told them there was a man with a rifle crawling on a rooftop moments before the shooting.

In the immediate aftermath of the deadly shooting, a man wearing a red “Trump 2024” visor spoke to BBC News from the community of Butler and claimed he tried to warn law enforcement officers about imminent danger regarding the president.

“Probably five to seven minutes of Trump speaking… we noticed a guy crawling – bear crawling – up the roof of the building beside us, fifty feet away from us,” the man said.

#4 According to testimony from another eyewitness, the shooter actually had time to “move from roof to roof” before he started shooting at Trump.  If people in the crowd could see this movement, why couldn’t the Secret Service?

An attendee at former President Donald Trump’s rally at the Butler County fairgrounds says he saw the alleged shooter on a nearby rooftop as Trump was delivering remarks to supporters Saturday.

Trump is safe after he was rushed offstage by Secret Service agents and whisked away to a secure location. Blood could be seen coming from his face after shots rang out. The shooter was fatally shot by a Secret Service sniper, law enforcement sources told CBS News.

Ben Macer told KDKA-TV’s Jennifer Borraso that he was up along the fence line and “saw the guy move from roof to roof. [I] told an officer [the alleged shooter] was on the roof.”

#5 Once the shooting started, why did it take so long for the Secret Service to get to Trump?

There should always be agents just a couple of steps from Trump at all times.

But somehow Thomas Matthew Crooks was able to get off at least eight shots at Trump.

As I watch video of the incident over and over, it seems like an eternity before Secret Service agents get there.

After Trump is shot, there are several long seconds before a couple of agents finally get to Trump.

If the shooter had better aim, Trump would not have survived.

Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino is calling this entire episode a “catastrophic failure”…

Actively communicating with a number of former colleagues from the Secret Service about the assassination attempt.

This is an obviously catastrophic failure and NO excuses should be made, or even attempted.

The failures are profound and questions must be answered about ground surveillance, air surveillance, post-stander support, and counter-sniper advance work and response.

We have ONE job, and we came within inches of a deadly failure today. An uneventful failure is NOT a success.

#6 Why was security so much better at previous Trump rallies?  One man that was there when Trump was shot said that there was a “noticeable” difference between security at this rally and security at a previous rally that he had attended…

Robert D. Philpot said he attended a Trump rally at the Pittsburgh-Butler Regional Airport during the previous presidential campaign and immediately noted that the location had a lot of buildings similar to those from where the shooter took aim during yesterday’s attack.

“Every rooftop of every hanger had three, four five guys on top,” said Philpot, noting that armed Secret Service and law enforcement were everywhere.

“First thing I did when I got here yesterday, was I did a complete look around at every rooftop and I said to myself that’s strange, I don’t see one cop, sniper, nothing, I don’t see anything, and I just thought that was kind of weird,” said Philpot.

The eyewitness said it was “so noticeable” that the security was so lax for yesterday’s event compared to the one he attended four years prior.

#7 U.S. Representative Mike Waltz claims that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas turned down requests for better Secret Service protection for Trump on multiple occasions.  Why did he do this?…

A House Republican lawmaker is alleging that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas denied stronger Secret Service protection for former President Trump multiple times.

Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., made the accusation hours after Trump was grazed by a bullet at his Saturday Pennsylvania rally.

“I have very reliable sources telling me there have been repeated requests for stronger secret service protection for President Trump. Denied by Secretary Mayorkas,” Waltz wrote on X.

#8 Did inflammatory rhetoric inspire the shooter to do what he did?  As J.D. Vance has aptly observed, the Biden campaign has been labeling Trump as “an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs”…

Today is not just some isolated incident.

The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.

That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.

And many have pointed out that less than a week ago Joe Biden stated that it was time to put a “bullseye” on Trump…

President Joe Biden reportedly told donors on a phone call on Monday that it was “time to put” former President Donald Trump “in the bullseye.”

“Biden told donors on a private call this afternoon: ‘It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye,’” Kenneth P. Vogel, a reporter with the New York Times, wrote in a post on Monday.

#9 I think that the timing of this shooting was very interesting.

If Trump was killed just before the convention, he would not be the Republican nominee.

So who would have come out of the convention as the replacement nominee?

#10 How will this shooting affect the general election?

When Ronald Reagan was shot, his poll numbers went up dramatically.  Will the same thing happen to Trump?…

The polls already suggest that Trump is likely to win back the presidency in November, after a torrid few months for his opponent and a criminal conviction that has had little impact on his popularity.

If history tells us anything, the events of Saturday will only increase his support. In the months after Mr Reagan was shot, the newly-elected Republican president saw a poll boost of eight points.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens to the poll numbers, but already Trump’s odds of winning in the betting markets has been spiking…

On Saturday, prior to the assassination attempt, Trump’s odds of winning the 2024 presidential election were 8/15 (65.2 percent) according to William Hill, a U.K. based betting company. However, after the shooting, this was slashed to a 4/11 (73.3 percent) chance of Trump achieving victory.

I know that Trump likes to hold big open air rallies where he can interact with huge crowds of people.

But I really do hope that he will be a lot more careful in the future.

We really are moving into a time of unprecedented chaos, and what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.

It certainly isn’t going to take much to push our nation over the edge.

If Trump had not moved his head at the last moment, he almost certainly would have been killed.

That would have completely ripped our nation apart, and it is probably only a matter of time before someone else tries again.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/10-burning-questions-every-american-should-be-asking-about-trump-shooting