Trump survives second assassination attempt

Former president Donald Trump survived a second assassination attempt on Sunday, this one at his golf course in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump reportedly decided yesterday morning to play a round of golf at the Trump International Golf Club and, as the president arriving on the fifth hole, Secret Service officers noticed a gun muzzle sticking out through a chain-link fence between 300 and 500 yards away. Secret Service exchanged fire with the suspect, who fled in a black Nissan and was later captured and charged. He left behind a scoped AK-47 and a GoPro camera.

The suspect was identified as Ryan Routh, a fifty-eight-year-old man from Hawaii, who, unlike the would-be assassin who grazed Trump’s ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, has a much more robust, and strange, online presence. Routh’s social media accounts showed support for Democrats and assertions that Trump was a danger to democracy, and he also had a history of making donations to Democrats and their associated causes. Routh had been interviewed multiple times by major media outlets for his efforts in trying to recruit Afghan veterans to fight in the Ukraine war against Russia and urging the Ukrainian military to accept more foreign soldiers.

Trump has been skeptical of funding the Ukrainian military indefinitely, saying in his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris that he wants to end the war quickly to minimize the death toll. He has also threatened to cut funding if he were to win re-election.

Routh also wrote a self-published book about the war in Ukraine where he gave Iran permission to assassinate the former president and criticized him for leaving the Iran Deal. The Trump campaign was reportedly hacked by Iranian actors last month and, prior to the attempt on his life Butler, Secret Service was made aware of a plot by Iran to assassinate Trump. 

-Amber Duke

On our radar

SWIFT STUNTED An ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 81 percent of voters said pop superstar Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris will not impact how they vote in November. Just 6 percent said they are more likely to vote for Harris, while 13 percent said Swift’s endorsement makes them less likely to vote for the Democratic nominee. 

BALLOTS ON BLAST The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s ruling and will not allow mail-in ballots that had the incorrect date on their external envelopes to be counted in the 2024 election. The state’s high court did not rule on the merits of the case, instead throwing out the challenge because the plaintiffs lacked standing. 

WHAT’S IN A NAME? The Washington Post used voter file data to determine the names most associated with Democrats and Republicans. The most left-leaning names include Latoya, Shaniqua and Jermaine, while the most right-leaning names include Reagan, Allie, Colton and Cody. 

Tick, tock for TikTok

Remember the clamor around “banning” TikTok earlier this year, when the US government moved to force the sale of the Chinese-owned app within twelve months, or else it would lose access to American app stores? Today marked the opening salvo of the social media app’s fight-back. The US Court of Appeals in DC today heard oral arguments in TikTok Inc. v. Merrick Garland, where the US-based corporation and a number of its top content creators are attempting to argue the government’s action is an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.

TikTok would find itself kicked off app stores in January were a forced sale to not take place.The government has argued that the ownership of TikTok by parent company ByteDance “creates a national-security threat of immense depth and scale.” Its reasons for saying so are redacted in the brief — and could center on anything from Chinese state-directed manipulation of the app’s algorithm or its potential deployment in espionage.

“No compelling reason justifies Congress acting like an enforcement agency and specifically targeting petitioners,” Andrew Pincus, an attorney representing TikTok, told the panel of three judges this morning. Pincus was also pressed on whether parent company ByteDance’s divestiture was possible; he argued it was infeasible and would put strain on TikTok “even if it would be possible.”

Judge Sri Srinivasan, one of the panel, quizzed the government’s lawyer on whether “everything under the government’s perspective turns on the fact that ByteDance is subject to Chinese control.”

The case is being fast-tracked and could find its way to the Supreme Court before the January 19 deadline for a sale.

In the time since the ban, both Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns have heavily leaned into the app in an attempt to sway opinion before the election, which is fifty days away.

–Matt McDonald

Democratic consultants play spoiler

The 2024 primary season is over now, but the Democratic Party’s infrastructure was caught red-handed trying to place far-right candidates on the ballot in the hopes of boosting their own candidates’ chances in the general. Democratic consulting firms attempted to primary a group of six Republicans, all military veterans, in some of the most competitive races in America.

The firms spent millions of dollars interfering in Republican primaries in Colorado, Alaska, Maine and beyond this cycle. Their latest efforts succeeded in getting at least two of their preferred candidates on the ballot against Representative Jen Kiggans in Virginia and Representative Angie Craig in Minnesota. Most of the candidates were found and recruited by the Patriots Run Project via Facebook and online surveys, the Associated Press reported. 

The group ran ads heavily targeting the most conservative voters online. “We need American Patriots like YOU to stand for freedom with President Trump and take back control from the globalist elites by running for office,” one ad blared.

Every recruit the AP interviewed described themselves as “retired, disabled — or both.” Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, noted that “Democrats should be ashamed and held accountable for preying on retired or disabled Americans.”

In the other races where Patriots Run Project was involved, some of the candidates realized they were duped and withdrew from the ballot. In Representative Zach Nunn’s district in Iowa, operatives gathered almost 2,000 signatures for Joe Wiederien, only for him to withdraw from the ballot, calling the ordeal “a dirty trick.” 

The AP interviewed Wiederien outside a veterans hospital where “he was seeking treatment for a leaking incision on his head from previous brain surgery.”

“In at least three races, petition signatures to qualify for the ballot were circulated by a Nevada company that works closely with the Democratic consulting firm Sole Strategies, according to documents, including text messages and a draft contract, as well as the firm’s co-founder,” the AP wrote. “In Iowa, a different Democratic firm conducted a poll testing attacks on Nunn.” 

The Spectator reached out to Craig, as well as to Democratic candidates Lanon Baccam, Monica Tranel, Tony Vargas, Christina Bohannan and Missy Cotter Smasal for comment. All six are running in districts where Patriots Run Project attempted to place spoilers on the ballot. None responded.

–Matthew Foldi