Trump rally shooting flings U.S. to perilous juncture: What path will it take?
CBC
American history is repeating itself in a most macabre way.
If everything unfolds as expected, Donald Trump will deliver a triumphant speech in Milwaukee next Thursday night to accept the Republican presidential nomination.
Adrenaline will be coursing through that crowd for another reason: His admirers will celebrate his very survival from an apparent campaign-stop assassination attempt.
Literally one block away from the convention site, an uncannily similar event occurred. Another former president, also seeking a comeback, who'd just been struck by a bullet in an attack at a campaign stop celebrated his miraculous survival with adoring supporters.
"I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot," Teddy Roosevelt told them, in 1912, a few metres from where Trump is scheduled to accept the nomination.
"But it takes more than that to kill a bull moose."
Roosevelt showed the crowd his blood-stained speaking notes, which may have saved his life by slowing the bullet that slightly punctured his chest.
There's something else Roosevelt did that day, and we'll find out quickly whether Trump emulates him now during a fragile moment for American democracy.
He turned the temperature down.
Surrounded by a potential mob, Roosevelt urged everyone to stay peaceful. His supporters wanted action against the mentally disturbed gunman, chanting "Kill him!" Roosevelt encouraged first them, then the arresting police officers, to leave the man unharmed.
It's what happened north of the border, too, when the leader of the Parti Québécois was targeted by a shooter in 2012. In the aftermath, Pauline Marois maintained rhetoric to avoid stoking more violence.
Trump weighed his words carefully in his first statement on Saturday's shocking events. He thanked police, said he'd been shot in the ear, extended his condolences to a victim in the crowd and said nothing is known about the now-deceased shooter.
"It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country," Trump said.
In fact, if only it were incredible.
The United States broke a longstanding diplomatic taboo by holding secret talks with the militant Palestinian group Hamas on securing the release of U.S. hostages held in Gaza, sources told Reuters on Wednesday, while U.S. President Donald Trump warned of "hell to pay" should the Palestinian militant group not comply.
As Ukraine tries to repair its fractured relations with the U.S. administration, which abruptly halted military aid to the embattled country on Monday, Kyiv says it will be able to hold the sprawling front line in the ongoing war with Russia.
Canada can huff, and puff, but if anything's going to blow down Donald Trump's house of tariffs it's going to be the reaction within the United States.
U.S. President Donald Trump has paused all military aid to Ukraine following his clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week, a White House official said Monday.
One person was killed and others injured when a car rammed into a crowd Monday in the western German city of Mannheim, police said as they asked the public to stay away from the downtown area and remain in their homes.
Britain is hosting a summit of European leaders to shore up support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer opened the meeting Sunday by saying they have a "once in a generation moment" to step up for the security of Europe.
It would take some scrounging around the bottom of the barrel to find a historical precedent for what transpired Friday in the Oval Office.