Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Monday, the fifteenth of July. I'm Billy, I'm Sam. Yesterday there was an assassination attempt on the former US President Donald Trump. It was the first time a current or former US president has been wounded from
an assassination attempt in more than forty years. There has been a lot of commentary about this attempt and what it means for the future of Trump's campaign and the state of US politics more broadly. But one thing has been clear, and that's that all official authorities and the political community have condemned this act of political violence. We'll tell you exactly what you need to know in today's podcast, But first, Sam, what is making headlines today?
Well, Billy, I know that we're gonna some time talking about it, but it's impossible to start their headlines without talking about yesterday's assassination attempt on former US President Donald Trump. After the events of yesterday, Trump's campaign released a joint statement with the Republican National Convention Body to say that he will still appear at the convention in Milwaukee this week. Where he will formally accept the nomination as the Republican
presidential nominee. Trump is also expected to announce his pick for vice president at that event. There's expected to be heightened security at the four day convention, as well as increased security at the White House and any public appearances by Trump's likely opponent, President Joe Biden. We're going to break all of that down in just a minute.
New South Wales Premier Chris Mins has announced its long awaited drug Summit will begin this October. Leaders are expected to discuss prevention and harm minimization strategies over two days of talks in regional New South Wales. The summit will continue in December, where a two day fourum will be hosted in Sydney. It comes weeks after Victoria announced plans for its first pill testing trial this summer. Queensland and the Act are the two other jurisdictions where the practice is allowed.
At least ninety people have been killed in air strikes that targeted a Hamask commander in Gaza. The IDF strikes on al Mawassi, a designated safe zone in the Strip, injured at least three hundred others. Hamask commander Muhammad Daif has been described as the mastermind behind the October seven attacks that killed twelve hundred people. It has not been confirmed if he was killed in this strike.
And today's good news, Scientists have used a fifty two thousand year old specimen to create a full three D model of a wooly mammoth. The well preserved mammoth was discovered in Russia's Siberian region in what's known as a quote freeze dried state. This allowed researchers to use some of the wooly mammoths chromosomes to figure out its genetic structure.
It is the first time scientists have been able to create such a full picture about the makeup of the animal which went extra two thousands or years ago.
Okay, so Billy, It was a massive day of news yesterday, one of those days that I think we'll all remember as people who read the news all day every day, and here in Australia, we woke up on Sunday morning to this remarkable event that kind of was spilling out on social media almost before traditional media, and that was an assassination attempt on the former US President Donald Trump, who was running again in the upcoming presidential election in the US. I want to start this by coming in
clean to this conversation. What exactly do we know happened, and talk me through the timeline of all of this.
Yeah, an absolutely historic day in US politics. Like I said in the intro, it is the first time a US president has actually been wounded by an assassination attempt in more than forty years. So I'll go through the timeline. On Saturday, Trump was holding a campaign rally in Butler in the US state of Pennsylvania in the lead up to the Republican National Convention, which he talked about in
the story Sam. So, just minutes into this rally, he kind of started at six oh five, and at about six fifteen pm local time, several gunshots were heard, and the footage, which I'm sure many of us have seen by now, shows that Trump kind of immediately grabs his ear. We can see blood coming out, he realizes what is happening, and then he immediately ducks to below the microphone and.
The stand take a look at what happened.
The Secret Service then pretty quickly moved to protect him, and they kind of form this human barrier around him before moving him to get him off stage, and you could see in the footage that there was all of this blood around his ear as he was being rushed.
Off and so the Secret Service members come from everywhere. There's immediately armed offices all over the stage, and that's where this really iconic now moment happened.
Right yeah, just before he was rushed off stage, there was this five to ten second moment that I think, well, you know, not only become one of the defining images of this presidential election, but likely become one of the
most iconic images in US political history. And that was of Trump popping his head up above the scrum of Secret Service offices around him, and you know, putting his fist in the air in this defying gesture as he assures the crowd that he was okay, and he seemed to mouth we couldn't hear the audio, but he seemed to mouth fight, fight, fight. And right after that is when he gets rushed off stage and bundled into a car. I think you can also hear in the audio the
crowd starting to chant. I think there was this moment of complete shock where everyone kind of goes silent. You can hear screams. But then as soon as Trump put his fist in the air, you could then hear them starting to chant.
Usa, Usa is the chant. Yeah, it was a really remarkable spectrum of emotion, like so quickly it went from ten and screaming to defiance, defiance, and yes, I think you're right. This is one of those snapshots that you'll just see in textbooks for the rest of the next couple of hundred years. Maybe there was also another time he did that, just before he was almost pushed into the car by the Secret Service. Remarkable from somebody who
had just survived an assassination attempt. In that footage that you're talking about, The thing that struck me was just how much security there is around the president at all times, both former and sitting. How could this actually have happened.
Yeah, this has been a big conversation in the aftermath. So I'll go through what we know about what the Secret Service has said. So they said that the shooter fired shots, quote from an elevated position outside of the rally venue. So we know that the shooter was not inside the rally, so he didn't have to go through all of the security checks that everyone going into that
rally has to do. But he was on a rooftop outside, and that has been a big question about how this could have happened, because it's a job of the Secret Service to prevent attempts exactly like this. This is what their entire job is. This is exactly what they do all of their training, for sure, and they execute extensive
security checks on every venue that Trump goes into. And so for a person to be on top of a rooftop in the direct line of side of Trump with a gun, I think that fact has donne so many people who know just how extensive security checks are on presidents and presidential candidates and the venues that they all go into.
I even read something that said that normally the Secret Service should have somebody on every rooftop around a venue.
Yeah, and that's why people are stunned about how this happened. There was also an interview that an eyewitness did with BBC where he explained that he was trying to warn police that there was a gunman about to shoot right before it actually happened. Here's some of that interview.
We're like, hey man, there's guy on the roof for the rifle, and the police are like, huh, what you know, like they didn't know what was going on. You know, We're like, okay, right here on the roof, we can see him from right here, we see him, you know, he's crowing. And next thing, you know, I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, why is Trump still speaking? Why have they not pulled him off the stage. I'm standing there pointing at him for you know, two three minutes.
Secret Services looking at us from the top of the barn. I'm pointing at that roof, just standing it like this, and next thing, you know, five shouts ring out.
So there will of course be an extensive investigation into exactly what happened here. And just quickly to mention, you know, this conversation, we're not trying to undermine the importance of what the Secret Service did and the fact that they did run towards where a bullet had hit Donald Trump. I think it's just a big part of the conversation about how could something like this be prevented in the future. Is needing to understand how this happened in the first place.
Well, definitely, And I think especially when we're in a cycle for the next five months at least of daily rallies, this almost has a sense of urgency about it.
Yeah, but there has been a lot of appreciation for what the Secret Servers did and how quickly they did respond.
Sure, and officials are now really focused on who this shooter is and this is obviously now the number one priority for law enforcement in the US. This is happening very quickly, this investigation. As we're recording this billy, what do we know about the shooter?
So the first thing we know is that he is now dead. Secret Service said that they quote neutralize the shooter before he did then die. So at the time of recording, the FBI is saying that they do know the identity of the shooter, and it's understood he is a young man who is twenty years old, so really quite young. We know that he lives in Pennsylvania in a local town there, and they are just in the process right now of confirming more information about what exactly
his motive was. At the time of recording, we don't know what that motive.
Was, and I'm sure stuff like his social media profiles and whether he talked publicly online about politics before will form a key part of all of that. But the shooter wasn't the only who died.
Right, No, so we also know that one spectator was killed and that two other spectators have been critically injured. There's not too much else we know at this stage about the person who died or the identity of those who were injured.
Okay, So Trump gets transported immediately to a hospital in the area. You know, with the motorcade, it was a big line of cars streaming towards there. He gets into the hospital and pretty soon after he actually releases a statement. What did that say.
Yeah, he released a statement in just a couple of hours after it all happened. In that statement, he thanked the Secret Service, and he sent his condolences to the family of the spectator who was killed and to those who were injured. But he also detailed exactly what happened in that moment from his perspective. So I'll read out a bit of what he said. He said quote, I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part
of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound shots and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place. So I realized then what was happening, and he ended that statement with God bless America.
Which is how he ends most of his statements. So that statement came out and we immediately kind of understood that this was not a life threatening injury to the former president. And from that point we started to hear from other really senior political leaders in the US, including the president. What was the response in a few hours after this assassination attempt.
Yeah, the current US President, Joe Biden, he held a press conference shortly after the incident, and he was very clear in condemning violence and saying this never should have happened.
Look, there's no place in America for this kind of violence. It's sick. It's sick. It's one of the reason where we have to unite this country. We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.
And all previous US presidents who are still alive have also put out a statement, and they were all pretty similar in their sentiment. They all said that they are glad that Trump is safe and that he is alive, and all of their statements also condemned violence in politics. And Vice President Kamala Harris put out a similar statement
and called it quote a senseless shooting. We also heard yesterday from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanizi, who showed similar concern for the former president, and notably he used the opportunity to continue his calls for a general lowering of the temperature in politics, and he actually said that we should be expecting a global increase of election related violence in the coming months and years, including he said possibly here in Australia.
Yeah, it was quite interesting his comments yesterday. He coupled that with an appreciation for the fact that he can go to the supermarket and still buy dog food. That was the example he used, and that the US president can't do that, and he was using that to highlight the difference in safety in Australia versus the US. But if we zoom out of all of this, how do you think yesterday's events will actually change the campaign?
I think that's the key question because there has been a lot of rhetoric about if this will soften the heat, and you know the extreme anger that is so present in the attacks between Biden and Trump, but also between Democrats and Republicans more broadly, and the question is will this be a watershed moment to dial down just how he did this lead up to the election in the US?
Is we know that in the immediate aftermath, Biden's campaign is pulling down its television ads temporarily and suspending any campaign events. And the thinking there is that these moments in politics is, you know, not the time for usual political point scoring. So any ad criticizing Trump's presidential campaign is they think inappropriate at the moment. And there are definitely a lot of Republicans as well who are calling
for calm right now. For example, Senior Republican Mitch McConnell I think it's worth noting that there are some Republicans who have used it to continue attacks on Biden. For example, one Republican congressman said Biden was actually responsible for quote inciting an assassination. Some very strong language there, but mostly, you know, the rhetoric is definitely wanting to dial down the heat of politics in the US at the moment and wanting to prevent any further attacks.
And Bill you mentioned at the start of this podcast, this is the first time in forty years that a president of the United States has been injured by an assassination attempt. There surely haven't been that many presidents who have been killed in an assassination. I know we probably all know jfk in the sixties, but what's the history of assassinations and assassination attempts in the US.
Yeah, I think this is interesting because in the US there are shootings all the time in public, but even those shootings are relatively common. That doesn't take away from just how historic this is for presidents and presidential nominees, who, like we have said, are surrounded by extreme security twenty four seven. So the last president injured from an assassination attempt was Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty one. He survived that attack. But there have been four US presidents who
have been assassinated. So they are Abraham Lincoln in eighteen sixty five, James Garfield in eighteen eighty one, William McKinley in nineteen oh one, and also John F. Kennedy, who I'm sure we've all seen the footage of that in nineteen sixty three. And then as well as Reagan, there was Theodore Roosevelt who was injured from an assassination attempt in nineteen twelve, and as well, on top of all of that, there have also been several other plots that have been foiled.
Almost one for every president, to be honest.
Yeah, but I think what is historic about this is that it's one of the few times that the bullet has actually hit the president of presidential nominee.
Well, most of these plans get foiled at kind of the planning stage, so they'll discover documents on someone's computer or something.
Yes, and knowing that these kind of things can happen, the US law does actually mandate that all former presidents receive Secret Service protection for the rest of their lives.
And that's when you see even you know, former US President Barack Obama coming to Australia last year surrounded by as much security as if he was the president. Because this is such a historic trend, Billy, before we go, I want to go back to the commentary around that photo. And it's a photo that you can see on our Instagram. You probably have seen it everywhere by now. Trump's fist in the air just after an assassination attempt, and if you listen carefully to the audio, you can hear him
say wait and take that as a moment. Tell me about your observations of what that moment will mean.
Yeah, the commentary around this has been extremely interesting because it's the fact that even in an assassination attempt, Trump had that state of mind to not want the photos of him holding his ear and being hurried off. But he won to that image, like we talked about earlier, to be one of defiance, and he wanted to show strength in this moment where he had just been shot. And that image of him pumping the air is being used by his supporters to show just how what they're saying,
how strong he is. For example, his son posted the photo with the caption quote, this is the fighter America needs. The New York Times also commented about this in an op ed. They said, quote the moment epitomized his visceral connection with his supporters and his mastery of the modern
media age. And I think it was interesting that in our comments on the Daily Ohs, like you said, we posted the photo Sam, and there were a lot of comments about which photos they thought that we should use, and whether we should have showed that one of defiant strength, or whether we should have just showed the one of him being hurried off. And it just speaks to how political every single decision is, not only that Trump and Biden do, but also as a media company, which photo
do you choose to show your audience really interesting? And I'm not sure I know what the right answer to that is.
Well, I think it's really symbolic of where we're at with politics that the structure of a photo that's used can hold so much meaning so quickly after an event happens. It's almost unprecedented.
Sam, I know you also are absolutely obsessed with US politics. What are your observations about this moment?
Well, when something like this happens and I hear the words unprecedented and historic and unforgettable moment being thrown around, my first gut instinct is always to try and find
historical parallels. So when as something like this happened, and you took us through other times where US presidents have had assassination attempts, either successful or unsuccessful, and I went back and had a look at what happened after the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt in nineteen eighty one, and the big lesson that historians have taken from that is just how popular he was after that attempt. He had almost a twenty two percent jump in approval polls when he
had gone through an assassination attempts. Come out the other side and that message of defiant and you know, we're bringing back strong rule to America. It really resonated with Americans. In fact, there's some Democrats who voted against Reagan who then expressed their support for him after that assassination attempt. So it does funny things to the political cycle. There was also this year in nineteen sixty eight where both Martin Luther King Junior and Robert F. Kennedy, So John F.
Kennedy's brother, we're both assassinated. They were both killed, and that was seen to really give birth to the platform that Nixon used to win the presidency and his message there was we need to bring law and order back to America. And I think what you'll see in the coming months is Trump used this event as a way to frame the lawlessness of America and the need for
a strong leader to be in the White House. I'm not sure how Biden is going to use this, probably to call for carm as we've heard from the statements from Democrats today, It's going to be really interesting.
It's interesting though saying that Trump will use this as a mobile meant to stop lawlessness in the country when Trump is more pro guns than Biden is.
Well, I think that's a really interesting point. But the key argument that Republicans will use now is that the thing that protected their presidential nominee was another person with a gun, and that's a typical line used by gun lobby in the US. I mean, this just keeps getting more dramatic and almost more American by the week.
A historic moment for US politics. There is a lot to digest there. As we have mentioned, there is a Republican convention coming up this week, so we are expecting for Trump to announce who his vice presidential pick will be. A lot to keep our eyes on. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Daily os. We will be back again tomorrow.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Dunda Bunjelung cargotten woman from Gadighl Country.
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