Trump’s close shave with death touches raw nerve

Washington: Political  soothsayers and analysts have been dissecting every possible angle in the Donald Trump assassination attempt. While Trump in his own admission says that he took the shot for his own country, the popular opinion is that this could very well alter the way the U.S. elections pan out in due course of time.

In a piece for the BBC, Sara Smith writes - The extraordinary picture of former President Donald Trump coming down from the stage with blood on his face, fist waving in the air and with the help of Secret Service officers can not only create history but it can also change the direction of the November presidential election.

When Trump was addressing a rally in Pennsylvania, USA, firing took place. During this rally, the sound of bullets was heard several times.

After the sound of bullets, the officials of the US Secret Service Agents took Trump under security cover and immediately took him down from the stage and took him to the car.

During this, Donald Trump was also seen encouraging his supporters by clenching his fist. While leaving the place of the incident, Donald Trump was keeping one hand on his right ear, from where blood was flowing.

In fact, the bullet had passed touching the upper part of his right ear.

Agents of the American intelligence service have shot the suspected person who attacked Trump and killed him on the spot.

A picture of injured Trump waving his fist in the air was immediately posted on social media by his son Eric Trump. He wrote, "This is the fighter America needs."

Condemning the act, President Joe Biden came on TV and said that there is no place for such political violence in America.

He expressed concern for his rival Republican.

Joe Biden's election campaign team has stopped all political statements for the time being and is removing their television advertisements as soon as possible.

He clearly believes that it would be wrong to make a political attack on Donald Trump at this time. Instead, they are focusing on condemning Saturday's incident.

Leaders of all political parties in America, who may not agree on anything else, are currently saying together that there is no place for violence in democracy.

Former US Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter immediately condemned the violence and said they were relieved that Trump was not seriously injured.

Some of Donald Trump's closest allies and supporters are blaming President Biden for the violence.

A Republican Party leader has accused President Biden of "inciting murder" in a post on social media X.

Donald Trump is the thirteenth US President, former President or presidential candidate who has been attacked. In the history of America, there have been four such Presidents who have been shot dead. While there have been five such Presidents who have been attacked with bullets. Apart from this, before Trump, three other presidential candidates have also been attacked.

Presidents who survived these attacks include:

Gerald R. Ford (attacked twice in 1975)

Ronald W. Reagan (near-fatal shooting in 1981)

Bill Clinton (when the White House was shot at in 1994)

George W. Bush (when an attacker threw a grenade at him and the president of Georgia during an event in Tbilisi in 2005, which did not explode)

Franklin D. Roosevelt was also attacked as president-elect in 1933. Theodore Roosevelt, Robert F. Kennedy and George C. Wallace were also directly attacked in 1912.

Abraham Lincoln

The murder of American Presidents started on 14 April 1865. Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of America at that time. At that time, Lincoln was watching the play Our American Cousin at the Ford Theater in Washington. He was sitting in the balcony and coincidentally his security guard John Parker was not with him then. He had left the theater during the interval. Meanwhile, at 10:15 pm, the attacker John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln in the head from behind. Lincoln was immediately taken to the hospital, but the next day the doctors declared him dead.

The murderer Booth was a professional theater artist. He was killed by American soldiers in an encounter ten days later.

James Abraham Garfield

James A. Garfield was the second President of America to be assassinated. On 2 July 1881, he was attacked in Washington DC. He had been in the President's chair for only 4 months. He was at Balmoral station and had to catch a train going to New England. Where he was going to introduce himself at Williams College, but a man named Charles Guiteau shot him at the station itself.

Doctors tried to remove the bullet from his chest for several days, but were unsuccessful and he died two and a half months later on 19 September 1881. Guiteau was involved in politics, but was not very successful. He used to distribute his speeches by printing them on pamphlets. But when Garfield won the election, he felt that he had won the election by reading the speech written by him. After this, he started thinking of himself as deserving of an award and started trying to become a diplomat. But when he failed in this, he shot Garfield. Guiteau was hanged a year later.

William McKinley

William McKinley, the 25th President of America, was also assassinated. He was attacked in Buffalo, America on 6 September 1901. He was preparing to go to an event. His secretary was afraid that he might be attacked, but McKinley did not want much security. When he was meeting people after the event, a man named Leon Zolgosz came close to him and shot him twice from close range.

Zolgosz had lost his job due to the economic recession. Finally, on 29 October 1901, he was sentenced to death by sitting on an electric chair.

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy was the fourth President of America to be assassinated. On 22 November 1963, Kennedy, while being the President, was again busy preparing for the presidential election. There was a huge crowd of his supporters in Dallas. On reaching Dallas, he got down from the Air Force One plane and sat in the car with his wife. But suddenly two bullets fired from the crowd took his life. One bullet hit his head and the other hit his neck. A former soldier Oswald was arrested on the charge of Kennedy's murder. Later a Kennedy supporter killed the accused Oswald.