Donald Trump has told a rally in Michigan that he “took a bullet for democracy” when an attempt was made on his life last week.
Attended by thousands, it was Trump’s first rally with new running mate JD Vance - and first since he survived the assassination attempt.
He told a packed arena in Grand Rapids that Democrats have accused him of being “a threat to democracy” and, to huge applause, said he was ready to “take back the White House”.
Many of those at the event, in the battleground state of Michigan, told the BBC that the assassination attempt - which killed an audience member and wounded two others - would not stop them from showing support for the Republican presidential nominee.
Some said they came precisely because of the shooting.
Better? Maybe not. But I also don’t engage in such speculation because I prefer to have an evidence-based outlook and I am fine with not knowing the answer to something. When it comes to this dead man’s reasons for doing the thing he was killed for, there’s just not enough evidence. We don’t even know what his political leanings were because he was a registered Republican but also gave a donation to a left-wing group.
I don’t know what his intent was. I may never know. I am also not an expert in psychology or criminology, so any speculation on my part would be far more likely to be wrong than right.
If you want to know a dead person’s intent, asking a former comedian is probably the wrong way about doing things. I can brainstorm some amusing concepts for you if you’d like. Maybe he did it because he was fired from Claire’s and was going to prove to everyone that he could pierce a fucking ear.
I admit that sometimes I spend time on a thing irrationally. It’s certainly true for this line of speculation. My gut says it’ll be valuable later. My experience says there’s no point in trying to reason the nature of the future value.
I respect why you don’t want to speculate, particularly given the history of speculation in modern public forums. Thanks for explaining yourself. I think I again fell short of responsibly adapting: My question wasn’t really fair. I apologize.