Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of America, I present to you an earnest plea: Stop trying to kill Donald Trump. I’m sorry, I don’t have any wry jokes for you this morning. I am sad and I am tired and I am deeply scared of where this is all heading.
Last night’s attempt on the former president’s life — the second in two months, which amazingly enough does not beat the record set by Gerald Ford back in 1976 — didn’t have the horrifying sense of immediacy and insanity that the events of Butler, Pa., did, for the simple reason that it was preempted. Thankfully, nobody is dead, and we have the attempted assassin — a madman apparently animated by fears Trump would pull support from Ukraine, but mostly madness I’m guessing — in custody as well.
I won’t get into the vulgar politics of it all yet — though it would be patrician folly to pretend they’re irrelevant (hey, imagine how Volodymyr Zelensky feels this morning) — because I care far more about the bottom line: This is now the second time in the late stages of this campaign that someone has tried to murder Trump. Give him presidential level Secret Service coverage, now. Screw the regulations. Joe Biden loves giving unlawful executive orders to spend a ton of money — I know this because he forgave $20,000 of my student loans without me even wanting him to — so break the damn bank if you must. Change the rules on the fly, and let someone file a lawsuit if they have to.
But you don’t want a dead presidential candidate on your hands. And if what Richard Blumenthal recently said about the as-yet-unrevealed systemic collapse of the Secret Service is true? (“I think the American people are going to be shocked, astonished and appalled by what we will report to them about the failures by the Secret Service in this assassination attempt on the former President.”) Then you have no idea how deeply any subsequent attack is going to shake the foundation of our entire civil society if it comes to pass. It clearly can now. Get him more coverage, today.