US vice-president and Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her rival, Republican Donald Trump, headed into a newly intense phase of the US presidential campaign on Monday, with tensions heightened after a second apparent assassination attempt against the Republican former president.
The arrest on Sunday of a gunman on Donald Trump’s Florida golf course came the same day as more bomb threats poured into Springfield, Ohio, a small Midwestern city at the centre of Republican-led conspiracies against immigrants.
But the duelling campaigns are set to march on with little interruption, a day after the Secret Service confirmed one or more of its agents “opened fire on a gunman” located near the boundary of Trump’s Florida golf course and that an “AK-47 style rifle” with a scope was recovered along with a GoPro video camera.
The FBI said it was “investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former president Trump”.
US media identified the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, who has expressed support for Ukraine and has a lengthy arrest record. Ukrainian officials have distanced themselves from Routh.
“He did not serve here and has no ties to state structures, that’s for sure.
He entered Ukraine as a nobody, just a supporter, there are many people like this,” a high ranking Ukrainian official speaking said.
Authorities said they had not identified a specific motive or political ideology for the shooter behind the previous bid on Trump’s life at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump was wounded in the ear in that July 13 shooting. Authorities said it wasn’t clear whether a gunman actually fired a weapon in the direction of the former president before being engaged by the Secret Service.
Harris and US President Joe Biden both denounced the attack on Trump, with Biden saying: “There is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country.”
Biden said that the US Secret Service needed more personnel to perform its duties after the assassination attempt.
Tech billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk faced criticism after he posted, and then deleted, on his social media platform X a question asking why no one had tried to kill Biden or Harris, US media reported.
Harris, who will face Trump at the polls on November 5, said that she was “disturbed by the possible assassination attempt” and “thankful that former president Trump is safe”.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer were among world leaders to condemn the apparent attempt on Trump’s life. The Kremlin said it was a sign that the US election campaign was “intensifying”.
The same day as the apparent assassination attempt, Clark State College in Springfield announced it would hold classes virtually this week after receiving bomb and shooting threats at the weekend.
It was the fourth consecutive day of threats of bombings and other violence that have targeted the local city hall, public schools and nearby college Wittenberg University, following racist rumours about local Haitian immigrants pushed by Republicans including Trump.
What started as municipal growing pains in a rapidly expanding city have morphed into allegations of an “invasion” by “illegal” Haitian newcomers, baselessly accused of stealing and eating people’s pets and causing a crime wave. Threats have since hit hospitals, schools and municipal buildings.
Some Haitians living in the city said they were scared for their lives.
Adding to the country’s acrimonious political atmosphere, Trump posted on his Truth Social website that “I hate Taylor Swift!”
The superstar singer/songwriter posted a message on Instagram saying she would be voting for Harris, calling her a “steady handed, gifted leader”.
Swift has more than 400 million followers on Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms – 10 million of whom “liked” her Instagram post.
An organisation of Swift fans, called Swifties for Kamala, said on Monday that they raised more than $40000 for the Kamala Harris campaign following the post. Trump has been criticised, even by fellow Republicans, for his recent association with conspiracy-minded right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, who has at times joined him on his campaign plane.
The race between Trump and Harris remains tight across the battleground states that will decide the election.
Cape Times