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Donald Trump gestures after taking the oath of office during his first inauguration in Washington, DC, in January 2017.
Was Iran trying to assassinate Donald Trump?
The Justice Department on Friday charged three men with plotting to assassinate Donald Trump on the orders of the Iranian government.
“The charges announced today expose Iran’s continued brazen attempts to target US citizens, including President-elect Donald Trump, other government leaders and dissidents who criticize the regime in Tehran,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Friday.
The alleged murder-for-hire scheme was unveiled as investigators interviewed an apparent Afghani Iranian government asset who told them that a contact in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard instructed him to create a plan to surveil and ultimately kill Trump. The plot was unsealed days after Trump prevailed in this week’s presidential election and is purportedly among other ongoing Iranian efforts to take out US government officials on American soil. Another alleged plot targeted Brooklyn-based human rights activist Masih Alinejad. (See Ian Bremmer’s interview with Alinejad in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s in-custody death in Iran from 2022 here).
Two of the three men have been arrested, but one, Farhad Shakeri, remains at large and is believed to be in Iran.
Why would Iran want to kill Trump? During the first Trump presidency, the US and Iran found themselves on the brink of war after Trump ordered a strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, one of Iran’s top generals. Trump also withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal and reimposed economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Iran likely dreads another Trump presidency, not only because the president-elect may pursue another “maximum pressure” strategy, but because he is likely to empower Israel to intensify its fight against Iranian proxies.
Bolivia's former President Evo Morales speaks during a press conference, in Cochabamba, Bolivia October 4, 2024.
Did Bolivia’s ex-president stage an assassination … on himself?
The day after former Bolivian President Evo Morales claimed to have survived an attempt on his life on Sunday, Interior Minister Eduardo de Castillo accused Morales of staging an attempt on his own life. Morales, for his part, claims the government attempted to kill him amid a massive power struggle that has divided the ruling party.
What does each side claim? Morales said in a radio interview that a convoy carrying him through Chapare — a rural bastion of both Morales voters and coca production — was stopped by masked men with weapons who shot at his car and wounded his driver before the convoy fled.
De Castillo, on the other hand, said in a news conference that Morales’ car had failed to stop at a drug checkpoint and ran over a police officer while attempting to flee, leading to a chase and small arms fire.
What’s the beef? Morales is technically from the same Movement Toward Socialism party that currently holds power in La Paz, but he and his erstwhile protegé, President Luis Arce, are in a bitter feud. Both men want to stand for election as president next year, but Morales has been found ineligible by the constitutional court (not that this will stop him).
We’re watching for more clarity about what really went down, and whether Morales still commands the populist charm that kept him in office from 2006-2013.
Ian Bremmer on Trump second assassination attempt
Now, it's not going to have much impact on the election, in part not just because so many unprecedented things get normalized these days in U.S. politics, but also because there's no video that suddenly... The last assassination attempt you had Trump literally escaping with his life less than a fraction of a second, and the blood on him and the rest. Here, the Secret Service did what they should have. They shot at the perpetrator well before Trump was in the sights of this would-be assassin. The U.S. did what it was supposed to, and he's in custody, so one assumes that we're going to learn a lot more about him as a consequence of the interrogations and the rest. Trump can and will fundraise on the back of it, but I'd be very surprised to see any movement in the polls as a consequence or any change in policy, so really not going to move the needle on the election itself.
And yet I think we have to ask ourselves, if Trump had actually been killed, can you imagine how much different the environment today would be? The political environment, the social environment, the violence, the reprisals. This is already considered to be an illegitimate election by a lot of Americans. Many, many Americans believe shouldn't be allowed to run because he's a convicted criminal. He was twice impeached, not convicted, but impeachment is broken as part of the political process. Many of Trump's supporters, a large majority, believe he should be president now, that he won the election in 2020, and that they're going to do everything possible–them, the deep state, the political opposition, the Democrats–to prevent him from becoming President again, to jail him, and even to call for violence against him. And that means that if we did have Trump assassinated, I think it would be much worse than January 6th in the U.S. It would be much worse, more saliently perhaps, than January 8th in Brazil, where you would have George Floyd-style riots, but larger and also much better armed.
A lot of people, including militias, but even Trump supporters in police forces in low-level positions in the military and National Guard that engage in protests that could easily become very violent, certainly in red states across the country. And I think that because it hasn't happened, even though it's been very close, we're not talking about it, we're not thinking about it. But the lack of resilience, the vulnerability, the frailty of U.S. political stability in this environment, I think is remarkable and deserves more focus, more attention because it would prioritize the steps that Americans need to take and political leaders need to take to rebuild that resilience, rebuild that trust, which is nowhere on the political agenda right now. I have to say, we have to give Trump and the GOP credit in the sense that they oppose all gun restrictions as a matter of policy, and that hasn't in any way changed even after both of these assassination attempts of Americans that are unhinged, that have access to these powerful weapons.
And that doesn't happen in other countries. That is a huge difference between the U.S. There's vastly more gun violence in America, not because there's so much more mental health issues, not because there's so much more economic inequality, but because there's so much less restrictions on assault-type weapons, on military-type weapons. The United States has more guns per capita than any country in the world except for Yemen, and Yemen is in the middle of a civil war. The United States is not, and yet there is no feasible capacity politically in the near term to do anything about that. No political will. Very relieved that this series of headlines does not include an actual assassination. Very relieved that former President Trump has survived this. Deeply concerned that it continues to happen. And of course, everything about U.S. politics promises you that you're going to see a lot more of it.
That's the state of play today and this election, and in the broader context that we talk about. So I hope everyone's well, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
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Law enforcement officers on the scene after reports of shots fired outside Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump's Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sept. 15, 2024.
Trump safe after possible assassination attempt
Donald Trump is safe after a gunman was apprehended near the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday. The FBI confirms that it “responded to and is investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.”
According to authorities, Trump was golfing between holes five and six when the incident occurred at approximately 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday. A member of the former president’s Secret Service detail spotted the barrel of a rifle pointing out from behind the tree line one or two holes ahead and fired at the suspect. It is not clear whether the suspect returned fire, but he fled in an SUV that was later stopped by law enforcement.
The suspect is now in custody and has been identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii. Routh reportedly voted for Trump in 2016 but in 2020 tweeted that, “I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment [sic] and it seems you are getting worse and devolving ... I will be glad when you gone.” Routh frequently posted about politics, expressing support for Republicans Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley. He is also listed as donating to Democratic candidates and causes dating back to 2019. “DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose,” he wrote in an April 22 X post.
Routh’s social media accounts also described his “self-proclaimed involvement” in the war in Ukraine, including efforts to recruit Afghan soldiers to fight in the war against Russia. Routh headed the International Volunteer Center in Ukraine, a private organization seeking to “empower volunteers” and other non-profit groups that work to “enhance the distribution of humanitarian aid throughout Ukraine,” according to the IVC's website.
Routh had also reportedly been arrested eight times for minor offenses in Greensboro, NC, where he worked in construction, and the AP reported that Routh was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction but could not provide details about the case. In 2015, he fled Greensboro police after a traffic stop and barricaded himself inside a roofing business with a fully automatic machine gun.
The suspect is now in custody, and the State Attorney reports that prosecutors are working up warrants, charges, and arrangements for pre-trial detention, none of which preclude the possibility of federal charges. The FBI recovered an AK47-style rifle with a scope, two backpacks, and a GoPro attached to a fence, possibly intended to film the scene.
According to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, Trump was approximately 300-500 yards from the shooter. “With a rifle and a scope like that, it’s not a long distance ... The Secret Service did exactly what they should have done.”
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were briefed on the incident Sunday afternoon, and Harris expressed relief that Trump was safe, stating on social media that “violence has no place in America.”
In a fundraising email sent after the incident, Trump told supporters that “there were gunshots in my vicinity,” that he was safe, and that he “will NEVER SURRENDER.”
Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump raises his fist during Day 1 of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on July 15, 2024.
Political Mo: The price of a winning streak?
Does the thrill of political momentum threaten to undermine the most important part of any campaign: the policies?
By any measure — polls, donor dollars, media attention — all the political momentum, or “mo,” in campaign 2024 has swung to Donald Trump. It started after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance — it was like a coming-out party for the erosions of old age — but hit speed records in the wake of the tragic assassination attempt. The former president’s now-iconic moment of badassery, when, blood trickling down his face, he pumped his fist and yelled, “Fight, fight, fight,” has animated Republicans. He says he even changed his convention speech to reflect the reality of political violence and polarization — and that will be one of the big things to watch for tonight. Many, like Sen. Marco Rubio, argued that Trump’s survival was proof of divine intervention (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called it a “miracle” and claimed the flag aboveDonald Trump took the form of an angel right before the gunshot), infusing the campaign with a Christian nationalism and eschatology.
Tech oligarch Elon Musk just announced that he is donating $45 million a month to Trump, joining his billionaire tech bro Peter Thiel on the MAGA train that is surprisingly making lucrative stops in Silicon Valley, once a bastion of Democratic support. Adding to the Trump “mo” is the ascension of 39-year-old Marine veteran, financier, lawyer, and “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance as the VP nominee. Vance’s biographically marbled speech at the RNC on Wednesday night highlighted his background in an Ohio devastated by globalization and the opioid crisis. It featured his mother, who has struggled with addiction, a personal story that tenderized the red meat served up earlier by Donald Trump Jr. and Peter Navarro. Navarro had just been released from a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 congressional committee — and was cheered as a hero, which was as telling about the new RNC anti-institution, radical culture as anything that has happened so far.
Vance directly appealed to working-class voters in key swing states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. At times, it sounded like an old-school pro-union, pro-tariff Democrat speech from the 1990s, and it was a starkly different pitch than the massive corporate tax cuts Trump pitches, but it’s now on-brand for the neo-Republican coalition of angry working-class males and right-wing, anti-regulatory tech, energy, and mining elites.
MAGA now has an heir but more importantly a license to think generationally as opposed to just four-year election cycles. This is no longer about just an impulsive “dictator-for-a-day” vengeance win over the Biden administration and the “wokeys.” It’s about a fundamental hard-right-wing rewiring of American politics and international relations. The battle plan is the Heritage Foundation’s Platform 2025, and the foot soldiers are the once-fringe MAGA-ites like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Donald Trump Jr., and Matt Gaetz, who will play significant roles in a Trump administration.
This is what the Trump “mo” looks like numerically: A new YouGov poll has Trump ahead in key swing states like Arizona (+7 points), Georgia, (+4), Michigan (+2), North Carolina (+4), Wisconsin (+5), and Pennsylvania (+3). In other words, Trump and his MAGA-ites are out-polling, out-rolling, and out-trolling Democrats on all levels.
Meanwhile, it’s chaos in Bidenlandia, where the president is collecting bad news like a wool sock gathers burrs in the forest. On Wednesday, he revealed he has COVID as he was desperately trying to reset his campaign and get over his stilted, confused, mistake-riddled performances. He’s now picking up viruses faster than endorsements, and the odds that he will not make it to the convention as the nominee are rising.
A new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed that most Democrats want Biden to step down, a sentiment buttressed by a stunning call from high-ranking Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, who is running for the Senate in California. “I believe it is time for him to pass the torch,” Schiff said. Late Wednesday, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer reportedly joined the calls for Biden to leave, but he did so privately. Et tu, Chuck?
The thing about political momentum is that it’s often generated by factors that have nothing to do with the core reason elections exist: policy. Who has the best ideas to govern the country? That is the core question, not who looks best in an ad. This is an election to run a country, not an audition for a modeling agency, but it’s hard to tell the difference anymore. How much does an assassination attempt or a bad debate performance have to do with who is best to deal with a rogue Russia, an aggressive China, or a war in the Middle East? Who can tackle inflation, productivity issues, and climate change? Who will handle AI regulation or protect the rights of minorities? Who will handle the border crisis? Who will actually create jobs? Do tariffs help the economy, or drive up costs? Who will stand for a peaceful transition of power or an independent judiciary? Who should pick the seats on the Supreme Court?
On all these matters, there are real, consequential policy debates – on some, Republicans are stronger, and on others, Democrats are stronger. This is the battlefield on which Biden would like to fight because he believes Trump — with his 34 felonies and his readiness to throw Ukraine to Russia, Taiwan to China, and most judicial and governing checks and balances out the window — is vulnerable. But he can’t. The political momentum is against Biden, and when that happens, you lose the most important aspect of campaigning: setting the agenda.
Biden is totally reactive now, and even as he pitches policies to get on his front foot — on Wednesday he was courting Latinos with the promise that undocumented spouses of US citizens could avoid getting deported — they evaporate like a puddle in Death Valley. When he gets to a stage to talk about policy, he can barely articulate the words without stumbling, faltering, and losing his train of thought. For post-debate Biden, the mistakes are the message. That’s what happens when you lose the political mo.
Things can change, of course. Events happen, like the horrible shooting or the debate, and suddenly the big mo shifts, but it’s getting late and harder to see that happening. For now, the biggest story of the campaign is not policy, it’s momentum, and while that makes for dramatic storylines, it tells voters less about potential Gulf wars and more about fabricated golf scores. Political mo matters and is essential to winning, but it can be used to introduce policy ideas or to avoid them and focus only on attacks and slogans.
There is another consequence: Political mo speeds everything up and floods the zone with stories about snap polls and hot takes on winners and losers. But the whole point of campaigns is to debate the opposition, to pause from the pace of governing, and slow things down for a considered reset. Campaigns are meant for people to ask questions. Check facts. Read the details. Holds folks accountable. And make a considered decision.
That’s not political mo — it’s policy mo. Political mo and policy mo should be intimately linked, but with the dramatic events these past months — felony convictions, age-related floundering, shootings — the coverage is over-indexing on the politics and under-indexing on policy. When each candidate has such a radically different view of America, a little policy mo is badly needed. Sadly, it’s turning out that examining ideas closely and factually is a political loser.
Donald Trump supporters in Huntington Beach, Calif., on July 14, 2024.
Iran reportedly plotted to kill Trump
While Day Two of the RNC focused on “Making America Safer Once Again,” reports surfaced Tuesday that US authorities had received intelligence in recent weeks about an Iranian plot to kill former President Donald Trump.
The warning reportedly led to increased security for Trump, raising even more alarm and questions over the security breach by would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks last Saturday. Officials said no link has been found between Crooks and a foreign plot.
The Trump campaign would not comment on what it knew before Saturday. But the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN had plenty to say: It denied the allegations, noting that while Trump is a criminal in Tehran’s mind “and must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Soleimani,” Iran is pursuing only legal recourse.
NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watsonsaid the US has “been tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years, dating back to the last administration.” She said the threats emanate from Tehran’s desire for revenge over the US drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, who was Iran’s top general, which Trump ordered in January 2020.
Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump is assisted by the Secret Service after gunfire rang out during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, PA, on July 13, 2024.
Electoral violence comes out of the shadows
The brazen assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump this weekend has pulled from the shadows an inevitable implication of the country’s polarization: the risk of political violence. In this consequential US election year, with questions of institutional legitimacy hanging in the air, misinformation flooding social media, and worries about the fitness of at least one of the candidates, we have now been alerted to how real the threat of violence is for the months ahead.
Elections offer voters an opportunity to express something fundamental about what they expect from their government. This is at least the theoretical underpinning for conducting elections. But in each election, losers also have a responsibility. At its core, democracy is a system in which groups lose elections. Votes are held, results are counted and respected, and turnovers take place. Losers consent to being losers in any given election cycle because they believe they will have the opportunity to be winners in the future.
If, however, the institutional framework does not allow losers to become winners later, the system’s legitimacy erodes. Losers may withdraw their consent and pursue alternative strategies to access power. Sometimes this leads to boycotting elections, but sometimes the strategy is the use of force.
When winners repeatedly win and losers repeatedly lose, or if winners are perceived to repeatedly win and losers to lose, ballots may be replaced by bullets. In fact, according to data from the National Elections Across Democracy and Autocracy Dataset, in more than 4,000 global elections between 1945 and 2020, just under 19% of them involved significant violence. Nearly one in five elections over the past 75 years turned violent. Already in this pivotal election year, we have seen violence in the run-up to elections in Senegal, Pakistan, South Africa, Mexico (at historic rates), and France.
In the US, grievances that have been stoked around the legitimacy of the system and how well it is serving voters, travel through the existing fault lines in American politics – particularly political party identification – activating them further. It is now a near-truism that there is little common ground between the two political sides, and the gap is widening.Survey data from 2022 and 2023 has repeatedly found that a wide swath of the US population believes the system is rigged, and as much as a quarter of those polled agreed that it may soon be time to take up arms against the government. In 2021, these realities culminated in the Jan. 6 storming of the US Capitol. In 2024, this blueprint heightens the likelihood of civil unrest and violence across the US in the lead-up to and, depending on the outcome, after the election.
The name Thomas Matthew Crooks will now go down in the annals of US history alongside John Hinckley Jr. and Lee Harvey Oswald. While very little is currently known about what motivated Crooks’ attempt, lone-offender terrorism has become all too common. It speaks to a broader thread of radicalization that has emerged from US polarization – as political parties no longer speak to the same set of facts and individuals find themselves moving towards the extremes.
“Lone actors are difficult to detect and disrupt because of their lack of affiliation,” according to the2024 US Intelligence Community’s Annual Threat Assessment. “While these violent extremists tend to leverage simple attack methods, they can have devastating, outsized consequences.”
Yet it would be a mistake to focus too narrowly on Crooks’ character or political affiliation in attempting to make sense of the current US political climate. The polarization, the movement to the poles, the rising radicalization – are not just left (including ecological or animal-rights extremism, anarchists) or right (including racially or ethnically motivated extremism) problems. They are brewing on both sides of the aisle, especially as the center has become hollowed out.
When Trump was reported to have shouted “Fight” after being pierced by a bullet on Saturday, he was being heard. His message resonated with those who want to see him be returned to the White House in November, and those who just as desperately want to see him lose.
Security will be stepped up at rallies, this week’s Republican National Convention, August’s Democratic National Convention, and across all campaign stops. But as grievances grow, as fight talk and candidate fitness persist, so too will the shadow of political violence.
Lindsay Newman is the practice head of Global Macro, Geopolitics for Eurasia Group and is based in London. She writes the Views on America column for GZERO.
Slovkia's Prime Minister Robert Fico is in serious condition after being severely wounded in an assassination attempt.
Slovakia "on the brink" after PM shot
Robert Fico, the outspoken, nationalistic prime minister of Slovakia, was severely wounded in an assassination attempt on Wednesday.
Fico was shot while greeting a crowd in a small town in central Slovakia. Police arrested the shooter, whom local media have identified as a 71-year-old disaffected writer and security guard. Slovakia’s interior minister said the shooting was “clearly” politically motivated but would not release info on the suspect.
As of this writing, Fico was in stable but serious condition after undergoing a lengthy surgery.
Slovakia is extremely polarized. Last fall, Fico won a bitterly contested election against the Progressive Slovakia party, running on a platform of halting military aid to Ukraine, rejecting refugees, and defending traditional values.
He’s long been a controversial figure — he last served as PM between 2013 and 2018, when he was ousted amid mass protests over his government’s alleged involvement in the murder of two investigative journalists.
Slovakia is now bracing for more conflict. The interior minister has warned that with tensions high, the country stands on the brink of “civil war.” Members of Fico’s party angrily blamed “progressive media” and the opposition, raising the prospect of violent street-level reprisals. Any moves by the government to exert pressure on the media could quickly stoke tensions with Brussels over EU rules.
More: How and why did Czechoslovakia manage to split up peacefully in 1993? Read our explainerhere.