Donald Trump will hit the campaign trail for re-election on Tuesday, traveling to Michigan, two days after an alleged assassination attempt against him at his golf course in Florida was foiled.
His Democratic rival Kamala Harris will also be campaigning as she heads to the crucial election state of Pennsylvania for an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).
That event, and another interview with Hispanic media, recorded Monday and set to air Tuesday, will be the first opportunity Harris will have to personally respond to the apparent attempt on Trump’s life.
The Republican nominee and former president was escorted away by the Secret Service after a gunman was found on his golf course in Florida on Sunday, the second such close encounter for Trump in the past as many months.
While security officials said they believed the suspect acted alone, Trump blamed Harris and President Joe Biden for the incident and said their statements threatened democracy.
Trump’s politicization of the event — while he has been painting Harris during his campaign as an “evil” radical who is turning the US into a “failed state” — has further fueled tensions ahead of the presidential election in seven weeks.
Both Biden and Harris have issued statements condemning the apparent assassination attempt, with Harris saying that “violence has no place in America.”
But Trump has claimed that Biden and Harris’ rhetoric is “causing people to shoot at me, when I’m the guy that’s going to save the country.”
‘It turned black’
This visit of Trump in Michigan and Harris in Pennsylvania is taking place at a time when both the candidates are focusing on the half-dozen states most important for victory in the country’s Electoral College system.
A new poll from Suffolk University and USA Today shows Harris has a slight edge over Trump in Pennsylvania — 49 percent vs. 46 percent — largely due to the overwhelming support of female voters.
Still, his lead in that poll remains within the margin of error — and the election overall remains close.
This year’s particularly acrimonious presidential campaign saw not only two assassination attempts against Trump, but also bomb threats against an Ohio city’s immigrant community and a call by a fringe group to kill Harris.
Trump previously narrowly escaped a would-be assassin when he was attacked and slightly injured during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July.
However, another Trump-related moment is likely to unfold when Harris arrives for her interview with NABJ.
When Trump spoke to a business association in July, he said Harris, whose mother is Indian and father is Jamaican, “happened to be black” by accident, claiming she chose to highlight one of her dual racial identities for political gain.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
