Scott Gurvey's Public Offerings

More than a month ago I wrote about the poor performance of President Joe Biden in his June 27th 2024 debate with Donald Trump. Then I put politics aside, frankly, having had enough for a while.

Did I miss anything?

Seriously. If Aaron Sorkin wrote a script describing the events of the last few weeks, nobody would believe it.

First, we had the reaction to the debate. Three weeks of pure water torture with a growing crescendo of Democrats and pundits calling for Biden to quit his race for a second term. More ominously, political polls showed a steady erosion of support for Biden, with several states shifting away from the incumbent. Democrats were in full panic.

With that as a backdrop, someone apparently took several shots at Trump as he spoke before a July 13th rally crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania. I say “apparently” because as this is being written, three weeks after the event, little has been revealed from official sources.

As best we know a twenty-year-old man, Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, fired eight rounds from an AR-15-style rifle in Trump’s direction. Crooks was on the roof of a building 400 feet from the stage. Crooks killed one audience member and critically injured two others. He was subsequently killed by a Secret Service counter sniper.

Trump grabbed for his ear and fell to the ground. When he was next seen, about one minute later, he was surrounded by secret service agents and there were red streaks on his cheek. Photojournalist Evan Vucci of the Associated Press captured images of a bloodied Trump pumping his fist in the air and mouthing the word “fight” as agents escorted him off-stage. Later the New York Times published a picture taken by one of its photographers appearing to show a bullet heading in Trump’s direction. But whether Trump was wounded by a bullet, a bullet fragment, or another piece of shrapnel remains unknown. CBS News broadcast an interview with a man claiming to be an emergency doctor who worked on Trump. He reported that no stiches were required. Trump’s son Eric later confirmed that no stiches were used.

None of this would be for a minute interesting except that, in the absence of reliable information, social media had a field day. The right claimed that Biden was responsible at least for refusing to provide Trump with adequate protection and at worst for actually ordering an assassination. There were Republican elected officials who joined in echoing this garbage. As for the left, they speculated that the entire incident was a fraud designed to distract the media from the recent publication of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein‘s list on which Trump’s name appears.

Trump later claimed that his ear had been half blown off. He also said the doctors were amazed by his recuperative powers. The next time Trump was seen he had a large white bandage covering his ear. After a few days that had been replaced with a small flesh colored bandage. Two weeks after the event he appeared without any bandage, his ear appearing to be intact.

The ear notwithstanding, Trump was anointed by the Republican nominating convention, as was his pick for Vice President, Senator JD Vance of Ohio. A one-time never Trumper, Vance has been one of the Donald’s most loyal supporters in recent years. He is worth his own blog, so we’ll put him aside for now.

Meanwhile, back on the Democratic side of this saga, on July 21st, Biden announced he would not seek reelection and endorsed Vice President Kamela Harris for the nomination of the Democratic party. The last time a president decided not to run for reelection was Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Johnson gave the Democratic party plenty of time to sort out the consequences. Harris has just 100 days to face the Democratic convention, select a running mate, and stage a campaign.

Democrats expressed relief and praised Biden’s heroic act, putting country (and party) before himself. Republicans called foul and threatened legal action, although there does not seem to be any ground for a legal challenge. The task of selecting a candidate is strictly a party affair and each sets its rules. The Democratic nominee is not set until the delegates vote, and that is still to come.

While Trump and Vance have responded with personal attacks on Harris and her husband, it would appear that they are in disarray and unsure what to do. And with good reason. A new national survey by the conservative Wall Street Journal found 49 percent of registered voters said they supported Trump and 47 percent backed Harris, within the margin of error, compared to Trump leading Biden by six percentage points in the same poll before Biden dropped out. New Fox News polls in battleground states found the candidates statistically tied in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris led by 6 points in Minnesota.

Harris is already running a new commercial touting her work as a prosecutor, state attorney general and vice president. The super PAC Future Forward said it would spend $50 million boosting Harris ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August. Another group, American Bridge 21st Century, is resuming Trump attack ads in battleground states.

While Trump has been questioning Harris’s racial identify, her mother was born in India and her father was born in Jamaca, Harris has been stressing her record. “I will proudly put my record against his any day,” Harris said at a fundraiser in Pittsfield, Mass. “Some folks would suggest that the measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you beat down … The true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who you lift up.”

The soap opera is well under way.

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