This Will Be The Political Impact Of The Assassination Attempt Against Trump: Eurasia Group Director

[Music] hi everybody I'm Brittney Lewis with Forbes breaking news joining me now is your agent group us director Clayton Allen Clayton thank you so much for joining me thank you for having me we are less than two days out of a horrific horrific weekend this weekend we saw president Trump survive an assassination attempt against him at a political rally in Pennsylvania what is your reaction to the events and how it unfolded sure I think that there are two ways to look at this the first is from sort of a macro view what does this mean for us politics what does this suggest about polarization and Division in our country and then there's also the more immediate question of mechanically what does this mean for the presidential race I think the answer from a macro sense is negative in every sense of the word this is the symptom or a symptom of the polarization which has gripped our country over the last 10 years and a signal that that polarization is only deepening it's only getting worse this is the first assassination attempt against the president for a presidential candidate since 1981 former president I should say since 1981 and that alone I think puts into perspective exactly how extraordinary and how negative this weekend's events really were mechanically this strengthens president Trump's position in the race his base of support is now very solid it's hard to see how President Biden can make up lost ground against him easily uh it's hard to see how president Trump's base of support can erode significantly from here absent some other major change in the race President Biden also is more secure this is overshadowed calls on him to drop out from other Democrats it means that those calls are probably going to lead to nothing we expect that Biden does indeed stay in the race after this event Clayton to your point it's really no secret that temperatures politically in this country are really at a boiling point in this election season as you mentioned this was the first uh assassination attempt of a presidential candidate since 1981 so how did this happen how did we get here so we got here largely because we've seen in this country each side move to its own partisan core and we don't know the motivation of the shooter we don't know what his intention was beyond harming president Trump but I think it's not uh out of the Rong possibility to say that this was politically motivated at a basic level the increasing polarization in our country and the sort of omnipresent nature of politicians means that they're targets for attacks that could be motivated by any number of factors so I think there's a multitude of reasons why this event occurred uh political polarization and the increasingly divisive way that most people in the US view politicians and po politics in general certainly contributed to it I want to talk a little bit about the response both sides called on Unity called to Tamp down temperatures but some Republicans blamed Democrats and their call that President Trump is a threat to democracy um as a type of rhetoric pointing that this is to blame also the new Republic's cover earlier this month the magazine cover showed Donald Trump as Hitler do you think that this type of rhetoric is to blame for the assassination attempt I think that this is certainly indicative of the way that people can take very extreme rhetoric into account when they shape their view of politicians I wouldn't ascribe blame to one side or the other for exacerbating extreme rhetoric in this case certainly uh one thing that we can expect is that you're likely to see Democrats skew away from a message of trump as a threat to democracy that's been largely nullified by the events of this weekend certainly Republicans and Donald Trump have a very direct counter to that that it was him who faced the largest risk here he was the one who was attacked and therefore he is not a threat to democracy or at least the threats to democracy come from multiple directions um I think that one thing that you you have seen in the response to this attack is that yes there were bipartisan calls to Unity House speaker Mike Johnson President Biden both espousing the same the same general message this is a time to come together a rejection of political violence in all forms and motivations you also saw responses that really Fred the US versus them Dynamic most notably from Senators JD Vance and Tim Scott two of The Front Runners to be Trump's vice president those were not responses that exists in a vacuum I think it's reasonable to say that they were at least run by or or you know at least checked with the larger campaign apparatus and so I think that's more indicative of the direction to travel in terms of where we're headed people are going to be forced to their own partisan Corners this is not a time that the country is likely to come together if anything I think this exacerbates underlying divisions they campaign for President Biden as well as Democrats as a whole has been largely Donald Trump is a threat to democracy is this a point is this a talking point they continue in the wake of this shooting I would be surprised if they continue to hammer that point in the way that they have in the past uh it's been largely focused on Trump as an individual to date I think that there will still be an element highlighting Trump's role in January 6th his efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election overturn them in some in some instances uh I don't think that's going away I think the framing of that shifts drastically and it would have to for Democrats to maintain any sort of viability in the race you can no longer say with without any sort of criticism that Trump is the only threat to democracy he is the individual who's trying to undo Democratic process this assassination attempt shows at a very least that there are threats to all politicians so I would certainly expect democrat's message to change pretty substantially in the coming days and you mentioned in the top of the conversation from the presidential debate on there have been a steady drum beat of calls from Republicans Independence democrats for President Biden to step down from this race since the assassination attempt those have been largely muted so how does this reshape the rest of the election season from now till November so I think that the calls on Biden to to drop have been largely muted and I expect that Dynamic to continue over the next several weeks I doubt that we hear he a tremendous amount more uh it seems like if Biden can get through this week the RNC without getting without another major Gap we're we're likely to see those calls largely drop away uh I think that the way that this has impacted the race is that it's created a new issue for the Biden campaign that they're now contending not just with President Trump and with Republicans but also with addressing internal Democratic divisions which threaten the co which threat in their base Coalition what do you think this event signals Lar ly to the rest of the world I mean does it show just How Deeply divided America is right now I think that the signal this sins is a negative one uh look the US is the only large major democracy that cannot hold an election that's trusted by an overwhelming majority of its voters uh no matter who wins in November there's going to be a large contingent of Americans who view the results of this election as illegitimate that Dynamic was on full display this weekend this exacerbates perceptions that America is increasingly Riven by partisan division this is also an opportunity for America's adversaries to take advantage of that division to try and Advance their own malign aims Russia North Korea others who engage in election interference certainly look at this as an opportunity to sew additional seeds of distrust to try and pull Americans away from each other and further undermine trust in our Democratic institutions and system uh all said this was a negative event not just for America internally but also for Global perceptions of its democracy since this was obviously such a Negative such a horrific event and you don't anticipate you know the country really unifying in a meaningful positive way what are you specifically looking at for next as right now the RNC is underway the DNC will be next month there is an election in less than four months absolutely I think the thing to watch this week is the RNC there are some indications that Trump will pursue more of a message highlighting Unity I think that that is certainly going to feature into his addresses however the Baseline uh approach that his party is taking I think is certainly imp sort of captured by the statements of JD Vance and Tim Scott that's going to also be a feature in this narrative uh the balance between those two narratives I think is what to watch during the RNC as well as the response from other politicians are there protests are there other activities that happen alongside the RNC does that feed into greater protest activity around the DNC as well uh those are the things that I would watch and I think that at a basic level our expectation here at EUR Asia group is that political violence in this cycle whether it's small scale whether it's high-profile like the event of this weekend is a risk that we would definitely highlight when our clients are asking us about what to look forward to both this year and next I know that President Trump is saying that he wants to show a message of unity he said that he ripped up his past RNC speech is now going to have one that's has more of a unifying message but when JD Vance tweets something like this the central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs that rhetoric led directly to president Trump's attempted assassination how does the GOP Square those two messages I think it's going to be challenging to be very blunt uh I think that Trump statement that he's ripped up as RNC speech that he's going to pursue a statement of increasing Unity uh that's very emblematic of Trump's skill as a politician he is ultimately adaptable we've seen that time and time again from 2015 until today ripping up his RNC speech whether or not that actually occurred as a rhetorical device is a very powerful one it suggests that Trump is looking at this through the lens of Statesmen I I don't know that he'll necessarily be able to pull that off um certainly one of the things that we're watching is the Trump's individual demeanor his individual demeanor sets the stage sets the tone for the rest of the party Vance's comment I think is reflective of what you're going to hear from a lot of down ballot Republicans a lot of people who are pushing sort of the traditional Trump campaign message and I do expect that that's going to continue to feature very heavily in the overall Republican message this week Clayton Allan thank you so much for your insights today you're welcome back anytime thank you very much for having me

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Length: 10min 18sec (618 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 15 2024