Politics
Trump survives shooting, but the politically charged blame game never fades
The assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Pennsylvania was a chilling and frightening moment in the history of a country that has seen too many such shootings.
We are all grateful, of course, that the former president was not wounded more seriously and for the Secret Service agents who protected him.
I am especially grateful that President Biden, who called Trump Saturday night, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and many other Democrats have united in declaring that political violence is absolutely unacceptable, in wishing Trump well, in praying for him, and in immediately putting partisanship aside.
Trump having the instinct to pump his fist several times in efforts to reassure his supporters that he was all right despite the blood on his face – an image that may have changed the campaign – is naturally part of the story.
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON TRUMP AT PENNSYLVANIA RALLY LEAVES 2 HURT, 2 DEAD, INCLUDING SHOOTER
The image of a defiant former President Trump, pumping his fist as he’s escorted offstage with blood streaming across his face, is one capable of reframing an entire campaign. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
But some ugliness also emerged in the wake of the bullets fired by the 20-year-old, who was killed, and that needs to be forcefully called out as well.
We have had enough of the cynical attempts to blame horrific shootings on the left or right, or on public figures who had nothing to do with it, by exploiting a tragedy to score cheap political points.
While Trump was fortunate to have only his ear grazed by a bullet, spared by perhaps an inch, one person in the Pittsburgh-area crowd was killed.
Those who peddle the mean-spirited “blood on his hands” theories, especially on places like X, should just be ignored. The media shouldn’t take the bait, even if it generates clicks and ratings. The blame game is corrosive and irrelevant.
Even those who can’t stand Trump decried the attempt to kill him, and I hope that brief interlude of honesty and humanity would be the same if the target was Biden or Vice President Harris.
PRESIDENT BIDEN DELIVERS REMARKS DAY AFTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON FORMER PRESIDENT TRUMP
Whether it’s a mass shooting or a targeted one, the only person to blame is the one who pulled the trigger. Our country has lost four presidents to assassins: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley and JFK. Two other presidents have been injured by would-be assassins, Teddy Roosevelt and, more than four decades ago, Ronald Reagan.
The connective tissue here is that the murderers and would-be murderers are crazy. You have to be insane to risk death or life imprisonment by firing upon innocent people, or heavily protected leaders. Unless there is evidence of a wider conspiracy, these nutjobs acted alone.
And I don’t really care, in the inevitable profiles, how angry or disaffected they are. That’s why, as in this case, I long ago stopped using their names, so as not to inspire others to seek such infamy.
Former Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump each survived shootings by would-be assassins, in 1912, 1981 and 2024, respectively. (Getty Images)
The killer, who also had explosives in his car, was a registered Republican, but also donated $15 to a progressive group, leaving the question of motive a muddle.
Trump said after the shooting that we must “stand united” and “remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness.” Biden called the violence “sick” and said “we cannot condone this,” adding yesterday: “It’s not America.” Speaker Mike Johnson said “we’ve got to turn the temperature down in this country.”
Those are welcome words, but such pleas didn’t stop Rep. Lauren Boebert and Sen. J.D. Vance from blaming the shooting on Biden’s rhetoric.
JOHNSON ASKS PARTIES TO TURN DOWN RHETORIC AFTER TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
If the president had wanted to capitalize on the shooting, he could have noted that hours earlier he had called for gun control, while accusing Trump of doing the bidding of the NRA. Some Trump supporters, though, ripped Biden for saying he would put Trump in a “bullseye,” though he was obviously using a political metaphor.
Trump himself has often been accused of fomenting violence with some of his harsher language at rallies, so it’s ironic that he came close to being a victim.
Yet it’s also true that Trump has been pounded by the press for nine long years, particularly after Jan. 6, and castigated as an aspiring dictator and danger to democracy, even going so far as morphing his face into that of Hitler on a recent The New Republic cover.
Irresponsible depictions of former President Trump as an insurgent fascist and looming threat to democracy seemed to be fodder for any would-be assassin. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Such demonization could easily convince a mentally unbalanced person that the world would be better off without him.
The left has certainly employed the tactic. After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton, who had used his presidential pulpit to criticize Rush Limbaugh, denounced “reckless speech” and said the airwaves are too often used “to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other.” As part of my front-page story, I reported that the radio talk show host was accusing liberals of trying to whip up a “national hysteria” against the conservative movement.
The 1981 shooting of Reagan was done outside the Washington Hilton by a maniac who wanted to impress Jodie Foster. (I had to knock on doors to find a phone after racing to the hospital, and later reported from paramedics that Reagan had lost far more blood than the White House had acknowledged.)
TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT STIRS MEMORIES OF SIMILAR ATTACK ON REAGAN
The 2011 shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords in Tucson sparked an irrational attack blaming Sarah Palin because her campaign had released a political map with crosshairs marking the Democratic districts being targeted.
I wrote a piece calling this ludicrous, and critical colleagues eventually concluded I was right, as the lunatic who wounded the then-congressswoman and killed six others had never seen the map before the massacre. Palin unsuccessfully sued the New York Times after a sloppy editorial revived the smear.
Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by Secret Service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. (Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images)
And in Virginia in 2017, a gunman opened fire on a Republican baseball practice, nearly killing House GOP Whip Steve Scalise. Since the shooter was an unabashed liberal and Rachel Maddow fan, the right went on offense and the left said ideology had nothing to do with the tragedy.
As for the motivations of mass shooters – in Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, Buffalo, Uvalde and others too numerous to recount – think of the utter remorselessness and detachment from reality required to kill large numbers of strangers, including children, in a ballroom or classroom.
The miraculous survival of Donald Trump, while electrifying this week’s Republican convention, is a stark reminder that real human beings are engaged in what we euphemistically call political warfare.
Though, if history is any guide, the finger-pointing and gun-control debating will quickly resume as so many of us wonder why political violence in our society seems like an unfixable problem.
Politics
Israel shares intelligence warning Iran plotted new assassination attempt against Trump: report
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Israel recently shared intelligence with the United States indicating Iran had developed a fresh plan to assassinate President Donald Trump, according to a Wall Street Journal report Thursday citing people familiar with the matter.
The reported intelligence would mark an escalation in the longstanding threats against Trump, who Iran has repeatedly vowed to retaliate against over the 2020 U.S. strike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
The White House referred Fox News Digital to Trump’s remarks Wednesday when asked about the report.
TRUMP FACES UNPRECEDENTED THIRD ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, July 8, 2026. Trump addressed threats against his life after a report said Israel shared intelligence with the United States about an alleged new Iranian assassination plot. (Kerem Uzel/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“They want to take out the U.S. leader — me. I’m on whatever list. I saw this morning I’m on every single one of their lists,” Trump said. “And, so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long. These are evil, sick people. And we have to root out that cancer. That cancer. You know what you do? You’ve got to cut out cancer early. And that’s the way I feel.”
Fox News Digital has also reached out to Israel’s Embassy in Washington and Iran’s Mission to the United Nations for comment.
The Journal reported the intelligence surfaced as Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have diverged in recent weeks over how to proceed after last month’s conflict with Iran. Netanyahu has advocated for continuing military pressure on Tehran, while Trump has sought to preserve a fragile ceasefire after U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
NETANYAHU REJECTS REPORTS OF A RIFT WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP, SAYS THE TWO REMAIN ALIGNED ON IRAN
President Donald Trump, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House March 25, 2019. The leaders spoke Thursday after The Wall Street Journal reported Israel had shared intelligence with the United States about an alleged new Iranian plot targeting Trump. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Trump and Netanyahu spoke Thursday and agreed to continue coordination between the two countries, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office, which said Trump also updated the Israeli leader on recent U.S. activity in the Gulf.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)
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Iranian mourners at the funeral for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei chanted for Trump’s death and displayed a banner that said, “We Will Kill Trump,” according to the Journal.
Iran has publicly vowed for years to retaliate against Trump over the U.S. operation that killed Soleimani, the former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, in Baghdad in January 2020.
Politics
Iran ceasefire is ‘over,’ Trump says, and orders additional strikes
WASHINGTON — A tentative armistice between the United States and Iran reached less than a month ago appeared all but dead Wednesday after the two sides traded fresh military strikes, and as President Trump directed further attacks on the Islamic Republic.
The escalation marked a dramatic turn after the Trump administration spent weeks selling a diplomatic breakthrough with Tehran that proved controversial across the political aisle, lifting oil sanctions and a naval blockade on Iran in exchange for the promise of talks over the status of the Strait of Hormuz and its decades-old nuclear program.
Now, speaking to reporters at the NATO summit in Turkey, Trump said he believed the truce — which diplomats describe as a memorandum of understanding — was “over” and that it was a “waste of time” dealing with Iranian leadership.
“They’re scum. They’re sick people,” Trump said of Iranian leaders, whom he had characterized last month as “very rational people” and “very nice to deal with.”
The president’s dim views of the ceasefire agreement’s fate were shared by Iran’s foreign ministry, which issued a statement on Wednesday saying the American attacks, the reinstatement of a U.S. naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel’s continuing attacks in Lebanon rendered “important and fundamental” parts of the deal “ineffective.”
The truce’s unraveling was underscored by Trump ordering the U.S. military to launch a series of strikes against Iran on Wednesday afternoon to “further degrade their ability to threaten” the commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
“The United States is holding Iran accountable for recent unjustified aggression against commercial shipping and civilian crews freely navigating a vital international waterway,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement on social media.
Earlier in the day, Trump signaled that the United States planned to “hit them hard” and floated the possibility of taking over Kharg Island, which is vital to Iran’s economy. His remarks quickly prompted oil prices to rise and global stock markets to fall, a worry that Trump acknowledged but which did not seem to sway his decision-making in relation to Iran.
“If we hit Iran, oil goes up a little bit, it is all right,” Trump said. He later added that the United States may “do some other thing that could lift it a little bit, but I don’t think it’s gonna lift it a lot at all.”
As Trump signals the continuation of fighting, his administration has been seeking more than $67 billion in funding to cover expenses related to the Iran war, a request that Congress has not yet approved as lawmakers have been split over the president’s handling of the conflict.
“The American people are paying the price for Trump’s total failure in Iran,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Wednesday. “Our troops are back in harm’s way and high gas costs are continuing to punish working families.”
The president’s stance on the war marked the latest setback to a fragile truce that has barely held since the 14-page agreement was signed June 17, as the U.S. and Iran engaged over the last few weeks in cycles of attacks and counterattacks.
Trump was noticeably angrier at Iran on Wednesday as he cast doubt over the deal. Last month, Trump had complimented Iranian leadership for trying to reach a peace deal and celebrated the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial shipping route for the world’s oil and gas. But based on his remarks, it was clear he was out of patience.
“I am not happy with them,” Trump said. “They’re cuckoo. There’s something wrong with these people. For 47 years, they’ve been the bully of the Middle East and they are not the bully anymore. They are not the bully anymore.”
Trump expressed frustration with Iran’s negotiators and their resistance to abiding by U.S. demands to reopen the strait. When asked if he intended to send troops to Iran, the president dismissed the idea.
“Why would I go in now?” Trump said. “I’d go in when they’re completely eliminated or an agreement is made.”
Still, the president kept the door open for negotiations, saying that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner “want to negotiate.”
“They’re good people, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, but they have to come back to me,” Trump said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with [the Iranians]. They’re liars.”
The latest breakdown to the ceasefire followed a now-familiar chain reaction of tit-for-tat attacks, starting with a series of strikes on three oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, including a Qatari vessel carrying natural gas, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center.
The Qatari tanker was off the coast of Oman when it was hit and caught fire, the maritime monitor said, in what experts say was a move to thwart ships attempting to use an alternate transit route to the one Iran specified. Iran did not claim responsibility, but a report on Iranian state television said the Qatari tanker came under attack after ignoring warnings to turn back.
The two other vessels were damaged but were able to continue to their destination, according to the U.K. group.
Qatar, which has played a vital role in facilitating negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, condemned the attack on its tanker as “unacceptable.”
The U.S. responded with a wave of strikes against more than 80 Iranian targets aimed at “impos[ing] heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway,” according to a statement from U.S. Central Command. That tally included roughly 60 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps small boats in the strait.
Iranian state media said U.S. strikes targeted Sirik, Qeshm Island and Bushehr and Bandar Abbas, while a U.S. drone strike on the port city of Mahshahr killed one Revolutionary Guard member.
Ahead of the strikes, the White House revoked the 60-day temporary license given to Tehran to sell and deliver oil during the truce.
Iran’s military countered with its own strikes on 85 U.S. military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait; it also shot down an MQ-9 drone, according to a statement on Wednesday.
Kuwait said its military intercepted two ballistic missiles and 13 drones, but that none had resulted in material damage or casualties.
Global oil prices surged 6% on news of Trump’s reversal on the deal, rising to more than $78 a barrel, down from the peak during the war but still above prewar levels.
The renewed violence appeared to have little effect on the funeral for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Feb. 28, in the war’s opening hours.
The funeral, a days-long period of mourning, is set to end on Thursday, when Khamenei’s body will return from Iraq to be buried in the city of Mashhad, his birthplace. Negotiations were to begin once more.
In his remarks Wednesday, Trump said Iranian leaders had asked for a “timeout” to attend the funeral, and that he had promised not to kill them.
“And I said give it to them, and they start shooting missiles,” Trump said.
Whether those talks — which were meant to deal with the thorniest issues between the two countries, including the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program — will go ahead remains unclear. Iran, for its part, maintained a defiant attitude.
“The era of bullying and extortion is over,” wrote Mohammad Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker. “It leads nowhere. We don’t fold.”
Ali Akbar Velayati, a senior advisor to the supreme leader, posted on X that Trump’s policy had “driven the region towards fire.”
“We had previously warned that the region is not a place for the political gambling of small countries, and we have repeatedly proven that adventures are met with an immediate response,” he wrote.
He added that the Axis of Resistance — a reference to Iran’s network of allied groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen — would not be “silent against humiliation and adventurism” and has “its finger on the trigger.”
Bulos reported from Beirut and Ceballos from Washington.
Politics
Omar’s disclosures erased millions, leaving her with potential negative net worth. She won’t explain why.
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Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., refused to address her revised financial disclosures that could imply she has a negative net worth after the progressive lawmaker dramatically reducing the reported value of assets tied to her husband’s business ventures.
“Can you tell us if your husband still has the consulting business and the wine business?” Fox News Digital asked Omar.
The congresswoman stayed silent as she was repeatedly questioned, after previously telling Fox News Digital that the original filing — showing Omar’s reported assets reducing by as much as $29.9 million — was inaccurate and “incomplete” information.
ILHAN OMAR’S OFFICE SAYS SHE’S ‘NOT A MILLIONAIRE’ AFTER $30M FILING REVISED DOWN TO UNDER $100K: REPORT
US Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, speaks during a press conference with family members of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as members of Congress call for US investigations into Israel’s actions and reintroduce the Justice for Shireen Act, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, May 18, 2023. The Al Jazeera journalist, who was a dual US citizen, was killed on May 11, 2022. The Israeli army later admitted one of its soldiers likely shot the reporter. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The controversy surrounding Omar’s finances began when a 2024 financial report estimated that Omar and her husband possessed between $6 million and $30 million in assets, all while the Minnesota fraud scandal within the Somali community was beginning to come to fruition.
A more recent 2025 financial disclosure report shows Omar’s revised value of shared assets between her and husband to sit at a maximum of $125,000 — a multi-million-dollar drop from the year prior. The lower estimate of their assets, $20,000, compared to the low and high debt estimates, $30,000 and $100,000, would imply the Minnesota Democrat could have a negative net worth.
Both her and her husband have separate debts, each ranging somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000 — from her own student loans and her husband’s credit card debt, according to the disclosures.
WATCH: OMAR SILENT WHEN CONFRONTED ON ALLEGED TIES TO MASSIVE MINNESOTA FRAUD SCANDAL
RICHFIELD, MN – AUGUST 08: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) (C) campaigns with her husband Tim Mynett (R) at the Richfield Farmers Market on August 8, 2020 in Richfield, Minnesota. Omar is hoping to retain her seat as the representative for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in next week’s primary election. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
The biggest change in the documents involved Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett. His reported ownership interests in both his winery and venture capital advisory firm, which were previously valued in the millions of dollars, are listed with no value now.
In Omar’s 2024 financial disclosure records, Mynett’s share in his winery was valued between $1 million and $5 million, and his share at the venture capital advisory firm was valued between $5 million and $25 million. Now, his equity interests are both listed at $0.
Omar’s office previously told Fox News Digital that Mynett has partners in both businesses and said the earlier disclosure mistakenly reflected the businesses’ total equity rather than his ownership interest. The office also said the original filing listed assets without accounting for liabilities.
VANCE REFERS TIM WALZ, MINNESOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL TO DOJ FOR CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OVER STATE’S ALLEGED FRAUD
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has publicly voiced his interest in the Ethics Committee opening an investigation into Omar’s personal finances after the 2025 financial reports came out showing the possibility of a $29 million drop in her net worth.
Vice President JD Vance also has previously said the U.S. Department of Justice will be opening a probe into her alleged fraud as part of the administration’s anti-fraud taskforce that he spearheads, though no formal investigations have been shared with the public at this time.
Omar has been reluctant to answer Fox News Digital’s questions about her financial fallout and potential probes to be opened against her.
The Minnesota lawmaker similarly dodged answering any of Fox News Digital’s questions just last month about the revised disclosures.
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“There’s also the possibility that it might rain on this sunny day,” Omar replied without responding directly to the content of the question.
Fox News Digital’s Robert Schmad contributed to this report.
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