The Stream

The Brew: A Huge Night for Trump, Huge New Questions for the Secret Service

Meanwhile, hours after saying he'd consider dropping out if doctors told him he had a "medical condition," Joe Biden tests positive for COVID.

By Al Perrotta Published on July 18, 2024 •

Al Perrotta

Happy Thursday!

Another busy day for The Brew, so let’s get to it.

Trump’s Big Moment

There’s a big day ahead as former President Donald Trump will formally accept the GOP nomination for president tonight. The speech that he had described as “a humdinger” was put aside after Saturday’s assassination attempt, in favor, he says, of a more unifying one.

Given what happened to Trump Saturday, just showing up may be more powerful than anything he says. What he said with his actions Saturday doesn’t even need a translator.

Check out this video from Uganda of children re-enacting the assassination attempt — and most crucially, Trump’s incredible fist pump. That’s inspirational in any language.

Once again, we have to marvel and praise God for what can only be seen as a divine intervention. If Trump didn’t make what for him was an unusual move to look at a screen at just the right time, it would have been lights out.

Former President Trump acknowledged the hand of God in a brief address to an RNC event yesterday. “I got lucky,” he said. “God was with me.”

Last night, running mate J.D. Vance gave his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. We will have those details later today on Al’s Afternoon Tea.

Meanwhile, the crack reporting team at CNN reveals that if elected, Vance would become the first vice president with facial hair since Charles Curtis in 1933.

arbitrarily deep nesting · Issue #50 · dbt-labs/dbt-core ...

 

The Other Victims of the Attempt on Trump’s Life

Trump paid a call Tuesday to the widow of firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was killed while protecting his family from Thomas Crooks’s bullets. “He was very kind and said he would continue to call me in the days and weeks ahead,” Helen Companatore posted on social media of Trump. She told him her husband “left the world a hero, and God welcomed him in.”

The New York Post reports that Trump will attend Comperatore’s funeral on Friday.

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Meanwhile, 74-year-old Jim Copenhaver of Moon Township, Penn., who was critically wounded in the shooting, continues to fight for his life. Family spokesman Joseph Feldman says Copenhaver remains in critical condition, but is stable. “He’s a tough guy.”

ABC News reports 57-year-old former Marine David Dutch of New Kensington, also critically wounded, is no longer in a medically induced coma and his condition is listed as stable.

Update on the Screw-Up: Shooter’s Parents Called Cops, Worried About Him

Thomas Crooks’s parents were so concerned about not being able to locate their son last Saturday that they called the police before the shooting, Fox News reported. It’s not known what they told police. However, something must have had them concerned to be calling 911 over a 20-year-old who was gone a mere few hours.

Meanwhile, CNN reports that three hours before the shooting, at a security checkpoint, the Secret Service found Crooks had a range-finder. That got him marked as a suspicious person. They might as well have named him a Keebler Elf for all the good that did.

It looks like Congress is going to have to squeeze hard to get some answers about how the security team let Crooks slip past. Katie Pavlich reports that Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas is blocking Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle from talking to Congress. This is consistent with Dan Bongino’s reports; he says his contacts tell him Mayorkas is telling Cheatle to keep her mouth shut if she wants to keep her job.

But Cheatle may have no choice. She’s just been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee and ordered to appear on Monday, July 22.

Bongino also says his “unimpeachable source” told him someone was supposed to be on that rooftop, but “didn’t show up.”

Listening to Tom Knights, manager of Butler Township, describe the actions of his police officers, it is getting harder to accept incompetence by the Secret Service as the sole explanation for the lapse.

Kanekoa the Great asks the obvious question: “After two police officers radioed in that there was a guy on the roof with a gun, why wasn’t President Trump immediately evacuated?

Plus, The Washington Post reports that local police told the Secret Service they didn’t have the resources to cover the building.

Elon Musk pushed this meme yesterday.

Hysterical, but no American wins if our Secret Service is a punch line to a joke.

Biden Opens the Door to Leaving … If “Medical Condition” Requires It. Immediately Tests Positive for COVID-19.

Remember when Joe Biden said he’d consider dropping out of the presidential race only if the Lord Almighty came down and told him to? Seems he may have gotten a sign all but etched in stone. Just hours after an interview clip was released yesterday of Biden saying he’s open to quitting the race if he’s diagnosed with a “medical condition,” the president tested positive for COVID. The White House says he is suffering from mild symptoms, and Biden told reporters he’s “feeling good.” However, he was seen struggling to get up the stairs of Air Force One. Biden canceled a planned speech in Nevada and flew back home to Delaware.

The president had told BET in an interview taped Tuesday, “If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, ‘You got this problem and that problem …’” he might be willing to step down.

Strange timing in already strange times.

We do pray for the president’s quick recovery.

Biden Watch: 61% Blame His Rhetoric for Shooting, While 65% of Democrats Want Him Out of Office

Blame it on Biden. According to a new Rasmussen poll, fully 61% of likely voters agree with the statement that the Biden campaign’s constant efforts to frame Trump as “an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs” directly led to Saturday’s assassination attempt.

Another poll spelling bad news for Biden: Democratic voters want Joe to go home to Rehoboth Beach, and stay there. The latest AP-NORC poll released Wednesday shows 65% of Democrats want Biden to “withdraw and allow his party to select a different candidate.”

It’s not just the voters, either.

Cable news fave Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has called on Biden to “pass the torch” and step down from the ticket. He becomes the 21st House member and the most prominent Democrat to do so yet. Schiff cited “serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November.” Not the fact that Biden can’t get through a sentence without messing up even when reading from a teleprompter.

Schiff is locked in a tight Senate battle against L.A. Dodger great Steve Garvey, so he’s looking to save his own very skinny neck.

Meanwhile, news broke Wednesday evening that Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Biden on Saturday that it’d be better for the country if he dropped out of the race.

Along the Stream

Dr. Michael Brown is back with “Great Is the Mercy of God.”

Also, a very timely new episode from the “Conversations with Christians Engaged” podcast. “Carrying a Nation in Prayer with Dave and Kris Kubal of Intercessors for America.”

 

Al Perrotta is The Stream’s Washington bureau chief, coauthor with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration, and coauthor of the counterterrorism memoir Hostile Intent: Protecting Yourself Against Terrorism.

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