Coffee House Shots
Isabel Hardman's Sunday Roundup - 14/07/2024
[Music] Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shops, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Isabelle Hardman and this is the Sunday Roundup. The world has woken up to the news that Donald Trump narrowly escaped with his life after an attempted assassination at his rally in Pennsylvania. Dramatic images of the aftermath show have defined Trump being escorted away with a bloody deer as one spectator was killed and two others are in a critical condition. Secret service agents shot and killed the gunman, whom the FBI has identified as a 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. On Sky News this morning, journalist Tom Newton Dunn, who was present at the rally, gave his account to Trevor Phillips. It was about five minutes into Trump's speech, he was late, he's always late these sorts of things, he should have been on stage at 5pm, he came on just at five minutes past six. The crowd didn't mind at all, they were very pleased to see him, there were a lot of "thank you Trump" chants as he came on stage and there was the usual routine. He started getting into it, we've heard his speeches before, he went into immigration first and he was just making a point on immigration, leaning forward on the lectern, which is potentially how he managed to save his own life. Quite extraordinary as Marcus just described to you. And just he was making that point, four or five, maybe six sort of cracks we heard. It was a small pause and then another three or four more cracks. And it was that cracks, that was the gunfire. Now when you hear gunfire, gunfire never sounds like gunfire, it could be anything, it could have been firecrackers and you don't know if you're at this sort of event, you don't expect this to happen. So I think a lot of us thought, is this a stunt, is this a prank by someone? And it took a few seconds really of quietness, the eerie quietness really for it to dawn on all of us, that this was indeed high velocity rounds, winging through over thousands of people's heads and hitting people, almost hitting the former president and hitting people behind him. And that's really when the terror struck in. People shouted immediately, "Get down, get down." So we all jumped the ground, got up on our knees of 20, 30 seconds later. I think we all want to see what had happened to Donald Trump. Eventually he rose again and I was looking for any signs of blood on his white shirt that there was none and he gave that fisted salute, you just saw there. So he was okay, but pandemonium then broke loose. The Secret Service tried to clear us out very quickly, it was a lot of shouting, a lot of women were in tears, a lot of men quite angry, getting very, very angry, blaming Joe Biden, blaming CNN, some really quite strong and, dare I say, preposterous things. But they were furious and they thought it was the other side that did it and events like this are going to make people angry and hopefully it's just in the initial stages of the event. They're saying things which I really hope they don't mean. On the BBC, leader of the House of Commons, Lucy Powell said the UK government condemned the horrific incident and we must start then with your reaction to what has happened in America. Well these are appalling scenes, this is a horrific incident which we condemn completely and fulsomely and thankfully the President Trump was not injured more seriously, the consequences of that are unthinkable. But the thoughts of the whole British government, I'm sure the whole country of Britain are with the American people and President Trump's family and those affected today. We don't know the most of this one individual, we don't know about the absolute circumstances behind this attack, but as our panel was just discussing, you do see a real polarization in American politics. As a government, do you worry about that? Well we have seen a rise in polarization, we have seen a rise in political intimidation, political hate, obviously you've already been discussing, we've seen the murder of two of my colleagues, my good friend Joe Cox and David Amos, a wonderful MP as well. So we have to take these issues incredibly seriously, we've seen necessary improvements to the security of MPs and to those seeking office as elected candidates. Thankfully this election didn't have any serious incidents involved in it, although we have seen incidents of intimidation and deep fake and news and disinformation and misinformation being spread online about people. But we have to uphold the essence of our democracy as well and as constituency MPs, as a constituency based democracy, having contact with our constituents, the public is a core part of our democracy and we have to be able to uphold that. And we have seen some of the best of our democracy in the last few weeks as well. People took to the ballot box to vote for change and boy have they got change and we're an incoming government who recognises that we need to govern in the interests of the whole country and really deliver on that mandate of change that people have given us. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage told Laura Koon spoke that the narrative of mainstream media encourages political violence. What did you think when you heard the news first of all? Well I'm upset, I'm still upset, I'm obviously pleased that my friend Donald's got away with it, only just but he's got away with it but one person is dead, two more are fighting for the lives in hospital so it's an absolutely horrendous incident and yet somehow I'm not shocked by it. The narrative that is put out there about Trump by these liberals that oppose him is so nasty, is so unpleasant that I think it almost encourages this type of behaviour. Are you suggesting that the political environment is to blame for this? Well you can always pick out quotes, I mean just a few weeks ago that Joe Biden said Trump must be put in the bull's eye and you know we talked earlier on on this programme about social media, that's quite right, there are some things that are said on social media that aren't acceptable. But there is also a mainstream media narrative, I mean I'm afraid it's very very one-sided, like the BBC is a part of this, it's happening in this country and I face continual attacks for over a decade now because it's me, no one cares, in fact it's even funny you know who I mean one of the times, one of the many times that I had a drink thrown at me, you know a comedian so-called comedian on a BBC show says well why not battery acid? I mean I just find the fact that that individual Joe Brand is still on BBC programmes, I find that really pretty appalling, we've got Mr Aronovich who does programmes on Radio 4 who recently said that the best way for the democrats to do with Trump is to have him shut, now he says now that was a joke but so I do think mainstream media, I do think liberal intolerance is increasingly a part of this problem. Pulse to Frank Luntz argued that the assassination attempt could prove decisive in the US election. What do you think the effect will be on this race? I think it's going to cause people to reach the conclusion that we talked about on News 9 a few weeks ago that the democracy that Americans sometimes take for granted is really under significant threat that people are willing to take matters into their own hands, that's the civility and decency and respect that we expect and demand from our politicians is lacking and it's causing real damage. Specifically on the vote this is going to have an impact not on who people support but on their likelihood of getting out and actually participating. I think you're going to see a one or two percent addition to Donald Trump's vote particularly in the state that this happened Pennsylvania which is a critical swing state because every Trump voter in Pennsylvania is going to participate the intensity of that vote. We've probably never seen anything like it and that in itself could make a difference in November. So you really think this could play in significantly to the race for the White House? I think it's going to have a significant impact but I'm not truly looking for the next election although November is important obviously. I'm thinking about the next generation. We haven't had this kind of violence since 1981 when Reagan was shot and it does not bode well for the country. I know that you've experienced this in the UK as well at a certain point these politicians have to stand up and say enough just put your hands up and say we're not going to do this anymore because the the consequence of this is so significant not just in our participation but in our faith and confidence that democracy actually works that our voices heard and that we matter as individuals. And finally former Tory advisor Sam Yokosumu said the US needed to have serious conversations about gun control. You look at these events. What does it make you consider? Yeah I think yes they're shocking events but we have to be honest about the fact that America has an absolutely bonkers situation when it comes to guns you know. I think it was said earlier there were free guns for every citizen. If you go in Oklahoma, Alabama or Texas today you can go to a supermarket and buy bullets for a vending machine and there are people who fiercely defend of course the Second Amendment right to bear arms. And so I struggle with somebody who has family members in the states to see how they get through this in a way that makes sense. You know I think they've had four presidents assassinated. They're so far down at the road in terms of how they are dealing with the question of folks having arms and they need to have some serious conversations which I have to say I'm not hopeful they will have despite the events of last night. That's all for this week. I'm Isabel Hardman and this podcast was produced by Joe Biddell-Brell. 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