September 18, 2024, Epoch Times – The U.S. presidential campaign resumed on Tuesday, September 17th, with former President Donald Trump heading to Flint, Michigan and Vice President Kamala Harris participating in a forum for Black journalists in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, authorities continue to investigate a second apparent assassination attempt on Trump, causing disruptions in the campaign.
Trump is currently holding events at the City Hall in Flint, Michigan, and will be heading to New York, Washington, and North Carolina later this week. Harris will be attending a national gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. She recently missed the association’s event in Chicago, where Trump publicly questioned her racial identity, creating a stir.
In the coming days, Harris will hold rallies in Washington, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Both campaigns are focusing on the industrialized Midwest, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, battleground states where the race is expected to be close.
In an interview recorded on Monday, Harris stated that she was informed immediately after the apparent assassination attempt and expressed relief that Trump was unharmed. She reiterated her condemnation of any form of violence in a conversation with Spanish radio host, Chiquibaby.
“We must engage in civil dialogue and be able to resolve our differences through conversation, with no room for violence,” Harris said.
The Vice President also spoke about her mother, the late Shyamala Gopalan, who was born in India and immigrated to the United States.
Regarding the border crisis, Harris accused Trump of undermining a bipartisan congressional border security plan.
On domestic economy, she detailed her announced plans to incentivize first-time homeownership through tax breaks, combatting “price gouging” in groceries to help curb inflation.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that criticism from Harris and President Biden in the past months incited the recent assassination attempt on him. Democrats, on the other hand, criticize the former president for his long history of incendiary campaign rhetoric and advocate for the imprisonment or prosecution of his political opponents.
So far, Biden and Harris have avoided politicizing the attack incident, with Biden urging Congress to increase funding for the Secret Service.
Regarding the attempted assassination on Sunday, authorities reported that Ryan Wesley Routh camped outside the golf course where Trump was playing for nearly 12 hours, carrying food and a rifle. After being discovered by Secret Service agents and shot at, Routh fled without returning fire and was later arrested.
It is still unclear how the gunman, Routh, knew Trump’s whereabouts.
According to Reuters, Routh supported Trump in the 2016 election but later switched to supporting the Democratic Party, particularly the party’s radicals. In 2020, he posted on X platform, expressing support for the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, mocking Biden as “Sleepy Joe.”
Earlier this year, Routh tweeted to Biden, parodying Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again,” suggesting that Biden’s campaign should be called “Keep America Democratic And Free” and Trump’s as “Make Americans Slaves Again.”
Routh had previously posted on his social media page in response to Biden and Harris’ anti-Trump comments, saying, “Democracy is written on the ballots, we cannot lose.” He frequently posted political content and only donated to Democratic candidates.
This attack occurred less than two months after Trump was injured at a rally in Pennsylvania. In fundraising emails, he urged supporters not to be afraid. In an interview on the X platform, he recounted what happened on Sunday when he was golfing with friends and heard “about four to five” gunshots.
(Reference: Associated Press)