Politics
Trump says that ‘only consequential presidents get shot at’ during Michigan event
FLINT, Michigan – Former President Donald Trump argued that it is “consequential” presidents who face the threats he has over the last few months at a town hall event in Flint, Michigan, the former president’s first since surviving an assassination attempt Sunday.
“You wonder why I got shot at right. You know, only consequential presidents get shot at right,” Trump said during the town hall at Flint’s Dort Financial Center.
The event marked Trump’s first official campaign stop since the latest attempt on his life Sunday, when a lone gunman was spotted by U.S. Secret Service agents while Trump was playing a round of golf at Trump International Golf Club in Florida.
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Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a town hall meeting moderated by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan, on September 17, 2024. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
The gunman, identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, was spotted by Secret Service agents as Trump moved between holes five and six on the course, with the agents firing at Routh after spotting his rifle and scope poking out of the brush.
Trump, who was about 300-500 yards away from the shooter at the time of the incident, escaped uninjured.
The attempt marked the second time Trump faced an assassination attempt, coming just over two months after the former president was grazed in the ear by a bullet fired at him during a rally in Butlery, Pennsylvania.
Trump reflected on the attempts on his life during the Michigan event, saying being and running for president is a “dangerous business.”
FBI investigators gather evidence from the perimeter of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Monday, September 16, 2024. (Mega for Fox News Digital)
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“It’s a dangerous business. However, being president, it’s a little bit dangerous. It’s. You know, they think race car driving is dangerous. No, they think bull riding. That’s pretty scary, right? No, this is a dangerous business, and we have to keep it safe,” Trump said.
The former president spent much of the event, which took place in a critical swing state, hitting Vice President Kamala Harris on issues such as inflation and the auto industry.
“’I’ll say this for Michigan, if I don’t win, you will have no auto industry within two to three years,” Trump said. “China is going to take over all of your business because of the electric car and because they have the material we don’t.”
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends a town hall meeting moderated by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) at the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan, on September 17, 2024. (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY / AFP) (Photo by JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
Michigan figures to play a key role in this year’s election. Trump won the state by less than one percentage point in 2016, but lost it to President Biden in 2020 by less than three percentage points.
Polls show a close race brewing in the state again, with Harris holding a less than one percentage point lead as of Tuesday, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average.
Politics
Commentary: Trump’s World Cup meddling only made matters worse for rattled U.S. squad
SEATTLE — Is everybody happy now? You good, Mr. President?
Put our boys in a blender, President Trump did, with those phone calls to FIFA President Gianni Infantino. Messed with their mojo by politicking to get American striker Folarin Balogun’s red card rescinded.
We’ll have to check VAR, but it might be the first time Trump succeeded at having a decision overturned.
Probably because this time what he sought to overturn — discipline stemming from Balogun’s accidental contact in the United States’ victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina — actually was unjust. Balogun should not have received a red card.
The problem is, having our President butt in here was a joke. Unfunny and out of bounds, offsides, an own goal — all of the things.
It put the U.S. team at the center of a geopolitical maelstrom, which is exactly what they did not need in the hours before the biggest match of their lives and the biggest match in the history of the U.S. men’s soccer program.
Some 40 or 50 million viewers were expected to tune in; how many of them watched for the first time? And what sort of impression did Monday’s 4-1 blunder-filled meltdown against Belgium make? That we stink at soccer — still?
If you were one of them, please, believe your soccer-fan friends when they tell you the Americans played much better in previous matches.
But so much for a magical run. On their home turf, the Americans pulled up lame before the finish line (aka, for the U.S. team’s purposes, its first quarterfinals since 2002).
To their credit, after the debacle, members of the U.S. team didn’t complain about anything being rigged. They didn’t use the distraction as an excuse. And they didn’t point fingers at anyone — anyone at all.
U.S. striker Folarin Balogun (20) walks to the locker room at halftime against Belgium in the World Cup on Monday at Lumen Field in Seattle.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“We’re playing on home soil,” defender Chris Richards said. “So the only pressure we put on ourselves is to perform for our country, and ultimately didn’t feel the way we wanted to today. But I don’t think the antics of the last 24 hours had anything to do with it.”
No, they said the “debate,” or “outside noise” or “political manipulation” — as Tim Ream, Alex Freeman and coach Mauricio Pochettino described what others are calling “Balogate” — were not to blame for the gut-punch that answered the question: Why not us?
Because the U.S. is not yet good enough to beat the world’s great teams. Especially not when their pregame preparation includes having to try to block out an international uproar.
To have any hope against the Belgians in the round of 16 — a matchup between FIFA’s Nos. 9- and 17-ranked sides — the Americans needed to be going full-tilt, to be focused and ferocious and probably also a little bit lucky.
Instead, they looked shook, rattled. And they got rolled.
They were the worst version of themselves at the worst time, which was so weird from a team that had been on its front foot from the first whistle against Paraguay.
Not Monday. Against Belgium, they were on their heels from the outset. Heavy touches, slow afoot, playing like they had the weight of the World Cup on their shoulders.
And all that White House maddening meddling — for what?
Balogun started and played most of the match, but it could just as well have been reserve striker Ricardo Pepi. Or you or me, Balogun was that ineffective.
His play of the day came postmatch, when he approached Belgian coach Rudi Garcia and the two had a respectful exchange. A real diplomat, that Brooklyn-born, Britain-raised American by birthright.
This loss was a real team effort, of course. Christian Pulisic came off in the 59th minute after twisting his right ankle — leaving this World Cup without a goal in the four matches he appeared.
Matt Freese, the Harvard-educated starting goalkeeper, had a brain cramp of epic proportions when he stepped outside of the box and failed to corral a ball. Belgium’s Charles De Ketelaere kicked it loose and set up Hans Vanaken, whose shot traveled behind Ream for an easy score that made it 3-1 in the 57th minute.
There was a lot of poor decision-making with this match, on and off the pitch.
In the end, Trump’s appeal to Infantino did more harm than good. But what if some good could come from it?
Hey, FIFA, what about giving teams a process to appeal cards, like our American athletes in the NBA, NFL and MLB have?
Offering a suggestion box wouldn’t be opening Pandora’s box, not if it were a transparent and regular part of the game that would, hopefully, offer increasingly fair outcomes in a tournament where every match is so monumental — as our President recognized, much too enthusiastically.
U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino waves to the crown after a 4-1 loss to Belgium at the World Cup on Monday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Politics
Preliminary Hearing for Man Accused of Killing Charlie Kirk Starts in Utah
Prosecutors on Monday began laying out their case against the man accused of murdering Charlie Kirk. It was the first day of a weeklong preliminary hearing that will determine whether or not there is enough evidence against the accused killer to stand trial.
Politics
Top Platner ally turns on him after bombshell rape allegation rocks campaign: ‘Red line’
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Support for embattled Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner is cratering among Democrats, with one of his most prominent supporters calling on him to exit the race following a harrowing rape allegation.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., rescinded his endorsement and called on Platner to suspend his campaign following a bombshell Politico report detailing a rape allegation by Maine resident Jenny Racicot, 41, who previously dated the scandal-plagued candidate.
Platner immediately denied Racicot’s account — which alleges that he barged into her home in 2021 and forced her to have unprotected sex — but has said his campaign is determining its next steps.
She also went on CNN Monday evening shortly after the report was published to tell host Jake Tapper that “by dictionary definition” Platner “raped” her.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., speaks at a town hall event on Feb. 20, 2026 in Stanford, California. The town hall focused on taxing billionaires and the future of AI. (Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images)
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“I thought, here’s a man who was drunk and who, by dictionary definition, raped me. And he’s blaming drunk women,” Racicot said. “So I just felt like that was a very odd take to have on that. And I also feel like with all of the comments that he made about women, sexual assault, rape, even, um, you know, the comments that he had made that was in The New York Times article about, you know, threatening people with rape, like, why does this person have this issue, like scattered throughout their life, throughout their commentary, like it‘s on their mind?”
“I’ve been very clear that sexual assault or violence against women is a red line,” Khanna said in a post on social media Monday evening. “These allegations are very serious and credible. Graham Platner should drop out from the race. I am withdrawing my endorsement.”
Khanna’s statement preceded Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., the head of Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, issuing a joint statement calling on Platner to “immediately” leave the race, so the party can choose a new nominee.
The pair said the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) would not invest in Maine — a top pick-up opportunity for Democrats in November’s midterm elections — if he continued to seek the battleground seat held by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.
Both Schumer and Gillibrand supported Gov. Janet Mills, D-Maine, in the contentious primary and did not endorse Platner until he won the party’s nomination.
Meanwhile, Khanna, a far-left populist with likely presidential ambitions, had embraced Platner’s insurgent Senate campaign for months amid a patchwork of controversies.
Khanna personally campaigned with the Maine Senate hopeful in June shortly before Platner became the party’s nominee. The campaign stop came just one day after Lyndsey Fifield, a former Platner girlfriend, accused Platner of abuse — an allegation first reported by The New York Times that Platner has fiercely denied.
By that point, Platner was also facing scrutiny for sending sexually explicit messages to at least half a dozen women while married, making a plethora of offensive online statements over the period of a decade and getting a Nazi-linked tattoo that he wore for most of his adult life.
Shannon Watts, a Democratic strategist and founder of the gun control group Mom Demands Action, slammed the timing of Khanna’s statement.
“You flew to Maine to campaign with him AFTER he was accused of assault against another woman,” Watts wrote on social media.
Khanna previously appeared to dismiss the severity of Fifield’s account alongside many Democratic lawmakers, who seized on her background in Republican politics. He also argued that Platner, a combat veteran who has struggled with PTSD, had overcome a dark past and was deserving of redemption.
“Here you have a case of someone who had a dark chapter in his life, was in toxic relationships, was ashamed about it, who served this country, and the Maine voters are saying, ‘Look, let’s give him some grace, and his focus is stopping these wars, and it’s getting national health insurance, and it’s taking on economic inequality,” Khanna told CBS News in an interview.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at his primary election event in Blue Hill, Maine, on June 9, 2026. (CJ Gunther/Getty Images)
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And Khanna told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum in June that he asked Platner if there were any credible allegations of sexual assault that had yet to be revealed. He said Platner denied it.
“I made it clear that, for me, is a red line,” the California lawmaker said. “And he said, no, there is not.”
“Now, obviously, he had texts that were allegedly consensual, and while he was married, And that’s a matter for him and his wife. And his wife came out and said that she forgave him. And so that is a different matter for me than abuse or assault or what people did in the Epstein class. It’s a very different matter.”
Khanna was not the only prominent Platner supporter to disavow the Senate hopeful following Monday’s rape allegation.
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., an early Platner supporter, was the first prominent Democrat to rescind his endorsement after Politico’s report broke.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., rescinded his endorsement Monday evening, but stopped short of calling on Platner to exit the race.
Gallego, a former ally of disgraced ex-Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., has faced scrutiny over his past treatment of women. The Senate Ethics Committee recently dismissed a complaint brought by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., in a bipartisan manner.
His Arizona colleague, Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., who did not endorse Platner, also called on the Senate hopeful to suspend his campaign.
“Character and accountability matter regardless of party,” Kelly wrote on social media. “It’s time for Graham Platner to drop out and allow for someone else to be nominated and give Democrats the best chance to win this seat in November.”
Far-left Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has championed socialist candidates across the country, also distanced himself from Platner on Monday.
Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., talks to reporters as he heads for a vote at the U.S. Capitol on Jun. 1, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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“This is beyond red flags. This is irredeemable,” Piker said during his livestream.
Fox News Digital reached out to Platner’s campaign for comment.
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