Bold and Bloodied: Trump Assassination Attempt Reverberates Around Global Politics

Published Jul 15, 2024, 10:51 AM

Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally over the weekend. Now, attention turns to his response at this week's Republican National Convention, and whether it improves his re-election prospects. We discuss with Bloomberg's senior writer Stephanie Baker and get international reaction from our correspondent Oliver Crook in Berlin. Hosted by Caroline Hepker and Stephen Carroll. 

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Hello, you're listening to Bloomberg UK Politics. I'm Caroline Hepke and.

I'm Stephen Carroll. Welcome to the program. Now we're going to take a bit of a step back from the UK on today's show because of what's been happening in the US over the weekend. The attempt to assassinate Donald Trump on Saturday has upended US politics and the presidential race there, arguably making a second Trump presidency more likely. That's something that could have a big effect on the UK. But there's also the broader question around political violence, and that's something that President Biden spoke about when he made his address to the nation, appealing for a cooling of rhetoric from politicians in the US.

Yeah, and that's not just an American issue. We've seen incidents of violence against politicians in many places, including in Europe. Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico survived an assassination attempt in May has only just got back to work having survived. Here in the UK, we've had two members of Parliament killed, David Ames in twenty twenty one, Joe Cox killed in twenty sixteen, murdered in their constituencies, and then just today Lisa Nandy I note the new Culture Secretary Quota is saying that the UK needs a reset to the tone of its own political debate.

To want to dig into both what happened in the US but what it means both for that country and for those of us looking on from Europe as well. We've got our senior writer Stephanie Baker with us in studio and in Berlin, our correspondent Oliver Crook as well. Stephanie, if we could start with you this, that image of Trump bloodied his fist in the air, a defining moment of the US presidential campaign, doesn't make a Trump presidency look more likely?

You're right, that is going to be the picture of twenty twenty four and it is quite remarkable when you think about it. I think any of us if we had been shot at, would we be able to get up and pump our fist in the air. So in many ways it was really remarkable how he reacted. Does it make it more likely that he will win the presidency? And the short term it certainly looks like that. I do question whether or not that will last. I think there's a lot of time between now and the election. We've got four months. A lot could happen between now and then. People's memories are very short. I think a lot of it depends on how each side reacts. If Trump really rises to the occasion, rises above politics on this, delivers a kind of unifying speech at the convention and continues that controlled discipline tone through the election, I think he could win. But if he reverts to the attacks on Biden that are very very divisive, the kind of you know, whipping up of anger and resentment amongst the Maga Republicans that I actually think that could backfire.

As you say that the kind of shock in Europe it was really fast. Well, there's a kind of seismic event here, wasn't it? And all of the European leaders did send messages of support and concern. Do you think that in the US it's going to galvanize Trump supporters? I mean, surely it will do. But then the question is also about independence and things like turnout. I mean, Europe is watching this election in America so closely.

Yeah, I mean the question is does this get Trump voters out and you know, voting like they might not have been before. Perhaps, I do think that both sides are pretty dug in. I think that the supporters of Trump, you know, will remain. I'm not entirely sure how much this is going to shift the debate amongst swing voters and independence. It could do, but like I said, we're still far out from the election. If this had happened in October, I think it would be a very different calculation. I think the divisions in the US are so deep, people are so dug in. There was a lot of there's a lot of discussion after the debate about Biden's terrible performance, but in reality, the polls didn't shift that much. People are have made up their minds in a large degree. And again, I just think, does this attack, attempted assassination on Trump? Does it change Trump and the way he campaigns? Does it change him as a character. If it happened to me, I think it would change me as a person. I'm not so sure it will change Trump and the way he behaves.

Does it change Joe Biden's campaign dramatically? We've obviously already heard from the President coming out again with this unifying message calling for cooler heads to prevail, But as you say those questions have been swirling around his candidacy as well.

I think it parks, for the short term, the idea that he might step aside, and it will force those Democrats who've been calling for him to step aside because of his age. I think they can't do that right now. The president needs to lead. We need a sense of stability. Think the problem with the Biden campaign was that it was so focused on Trump and the threat he poses to democracy. So now that he can't attack Trump after the assassination, what does he do? And I think there are a lot of people who are calling on the Biden campaign to, instead of just attacking Trump, come up with a more positive vision. And that's one of the problems he's had. You know, with the interviews he's done, he has come back and attacked Trump, He's tried to defend his own, you know abilities, but he hasn't done a really effective job of spelling out why he deserves a second term and what he would do. And I think he's done a bad job, frankly, of selling the successes of his presidency, notably the economic miracle we're seeing in the United States. I mean, it's incredible, the boom. You know, it is the envy of the world. You know, you know, slow economies in Europe would love to have the kind of economic growth that the US is experiencing, but for some reason he has not been able to use that to cut through.

In terms of the perspective here in Europe orie. I mean, I mentioned that the reaction was largely united amongst the European leaders in the aftermath of the attack, But is there now a sort of difference or has there been a difference of reaction amongst European leaders who are more pro Trump and those who maybe are less aligned with his views. I mean, Europe also has its own elections with more populist leaders, even other far right leaders in votes that we've had recently.

I mean, overall, the sort of overwhelming reaction has been one of solidarity, concern, and really one overwhelming message, which is that violence is never the solution to political problems, and this kind of violence in endangerous democracy, which is exactly what all Off Schultz said shortly after the attack, and their goal really is to try to take down the temperature. We were also looking at sort of the interesting reactions from a number of countries that we watched particularly closely China. For example, they gave a sort of message from a spokesperson, very sort of brief, very sort of sober, expressing sympathy, concern this sort of thing. But of course, for all these leaders, US stability is of extremely huge importance, particularly when they are the protagonists in you know, two wars going on, one on the sort of you know, eastern flank of Europe. But not everybody was trying to turn down the temperature. You are probably not shocked to learn, you know, if you want a more colorful response, we heard from the Kremlin, the spokesman. They're saying that quote. After numerous attempts to remove candidate Trump from the political arena using first legal tools, the courts, prosecutors, et cetera, it was obvious to all outside observers that his life was in danger. He did go on to say that the Russians do not believe that the attempt to eliminate Trump was organized by the current authorities, i e. Biden, But he said that the atmosphere around Canadate Trump provoked what it is confronting today, so that is Russia. You obviously take that with a fairly large grain of salt. But you heard some parts of that messaging in other parts of the political spectrum in Europe and elsewhere. You heard it from Faraj saying that the narrative that the so quote liberals that opposed him is so nasty, so unpleasant, that I think it almost encourages this type of behavior. Similar messaging from Javier Milay and builders. You know, so, yes, while many have wanted to sort of bring down the temperature, there are others that are immediately sort of assigning this and sort of blaming it really before we even have any clear motive.

But Ali, at the same time, do you know how much preparation is being done where you are in Germany or across the EU to what a second Trump presidency might mean for these countries as well, because that is another aspect of this that we're we're following.

Well, I think that for many people there's I mean again, with the Trump presidency and Trump policy, there's a huge degree of unknown, right, and this has been the case since the very beginning the first Trump candidacy and presidency. I mean, I'll take you back to just two weeks ago when I was in Ukraine and we sat down with the President of Ukraine's Lensky. And you know, we've had Trump saying repeatedly that he'll have the war between Russia and Ukraine sorded within twenty four hours. We asked Zelensky, do you know what he's talking about? He said, no, we don't, and we really would like to because we can't really take any risks right. And you know, even Putin has said in recent days that he doesn't know what trunk is Trump is talking about wh he's referring that. That is one example of I think a great many things that now world leaders are contending with. Even further because obviously the political discussion going into the weekend was will Biden even be the candidate? So this throws this whole calculation completely off kilter.

Yeah, absolutely, it is, Stephanie. Also deeply awkward, isn't it in terms of what it means the reaction. I mean, the former president Trump faced all of these court cases that we've covered, you know, concern about whether he would even accept the electoral outcome the January sixth fallout. Of course, from the last vote, you can sense that there is a deep awkwardness in terms of political parties having to throw their support behind Trump and stamping out political violence, and yet also the clash of ideologies that they.

Have with him.

I'm not so sure that it's really kind of driving support for Trump, but it's treating him in a very different kind of way. I would agree with what Oliver said was you know that it's hugely consequential a Trump presidency and the attempted assassination threatens to overshadow what a Trump presidency would really mean and damp and debate about, say the future of Ukraine relations with Russia. And I would point out the hypocrisy of the Kremlin's statement on that, given the number of politically motivated killings in Russia in recent years, notably you know Volney alexand Navalni, the opposition leader's death in prison, Boris Nempsov, the opposition leader who has gunned down outside the Kremlin. So they don't have a great track record to point to themselves.

Oliver. On the broader issue of violence against politicians, this is something that we saw in the European Parliament election campaign, for example in Germany. This is an issue that it's not just the US having to deal with.

No, of course, I mean you had the Slovakian Prime minister shot two months ago. You know, you've seen more polarized politics in France, and you saw it, as you say, in Germany and the lead up to the U election there was a lot of violence against politicians and organizers. And actually the German government has put out data on this which I found pretty interesting, and they look at sort of criminally politically motivated crimes. This is not just violent crime, but it includes it as well. Last year there were sixty thousand offenses. That's a two percent increase from the year before, and so twenty two and twenty twenty three were both record years one after the other since two thousand and one when they give this sort of detailed breakdown, and that's almost doubled in the last ten years, right, And this is in focus particularly in Germany right now because we have state elections in September, and again the main protagonists of those elections in those of those three regions is the IFDA, the alternative for Deuts, which you know has certain chapters that have been categorized by the government as extremists and is of course very inflammatory politically. Here for Germany, you see a lot of protests around the streets. They are expected to sweep those three elections. So again it is very much felt in the atmosphere here in Germany.

The big difference between the US and Europe on this. There's you know, divisions within Europe, the rise of the right in Europe. In the US, there's political divisions, but there are so many guns. It's been said again and again there are more guns than people in the United States. So that really raises the stakes for the political divisiveness that we're seeing in the United States right now.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and of course goes without saying that there was an added layer of horror at the use of such powerful weapons, you know, and the kind of shocking fact that people reacted to it is as kind of an active shooter incident is still pretty staggering for Europe. Definitely. Thank you so much for being with us and discussing this our senior writers, definitely, and also to our Germany correspondent Oliver Crook. I'll add to one point to this, which is that the Common Speaker, Sirlyn Lindsay Hall has spoken on this issue of the concern around violence to MPs within the UK number of times, and he's talked about it being the one thing, the safety of MP's being the one thing that keeps him up at night.

Well that's it from us for today. If you like the program, don't forget to subscribe. Give it five stars so other people can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

This episode was produced by tiba Adebayo, our audio engineer, with Sean Guestamakia, I'm Caroline Nepkee.

And I'm Stephen Carol. We'll be back with more tomorrow. This is Bloomberg. Bloomberg UK Politics. Listen weekdays at noon on DAB Digital Radio in London.