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Okay, I'd really like TheMotte to talk me down from crazy-town and conspiracy-ville.
Exhibit A: Secret Service was warned of an Iranian (or Iran-backed) assassination threat against Trump (Source)
Which means that the Saturday shooting represents a high-water mark in Trump's security detail.
Exhibit B: Secret Service snipers spotted Thomas Crooks in position on the roof 20 minutes before the assassination attempt. (Source) Per the article's timeline:
Which means the Secret Service knew there was an active threat, 10 minutes before they allowed Trump to take the stage. This is separate from the 2-minute 'crowd pointing at guy with gun on roof' warning where the Secret Service failed to move Trump off the stage.
Exhibit C: Secret Service has stated that 'local police' were supposed to be responsible for covering the American Glass Research (AGR) building. However, both the county (Source) and city police (Source) have denied that they were so assigned.
Apparently, there were local police -- including snipers -- inside an adjacent or conjoined building in the complex (Source), but no one's been identified as responsible for the building itself or the roof itself. I've heard unsourced rumors that a SWAT team was supposed to be assigned to the specific roof the shooter used, but instead congregated within the building due to the heat (Source) but there's been no confirmation.
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I know my Hanlon's Razor:
However, at this point I'm gaining an appreciation for Grey's Law:
If the wildest conspiracy theories and worst nightmares were true, if US Secret Service did deliberately set out to create a hole in Trump's security to allow him to be assassinated... what would they have done differently? How much more could the USSS have f***ed up their protection before we'd be comfortable drawing a line between 'smoke' and 'fire'?
And if Hanlon's Razor does bears out and it was in fact merely incompetence... then we apparently live in a world where this is the best the US Secret Service can do while on high alert, actively preparing to defend their protectee against an Iranian-backed assassination attempt. Which leads me to wonder, how vulnerable are the rest of US leadership to enemy agents?
If there are this many layers of "they dropped you on your head as a baby, didn't they?" when the Secret Service has direct warning of a major threat, what the hell kind of protection does the President have, or the Vice-President, or any of the other notable names with a USSS detail?
If the US Secret Service was 'security theater' in the same vein as the TSA, what happens when the curtain is pulled back and everyone sees that the Wizard of Oz is just a sad little man in a booth? Should we expect to see more -- and more successful -- assassination attempts with actual muscle behind them in the near future?
And why in the name of all that is holy does Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle still have a job?!
It's somewhat noteworthy that CNN happened to be livestreaming the thing, which apparently is not their normal practice for Trump rallys (probably because there are a lot of them); one would want to check what percentage they have been doing lately.
Also... intriguing is that the NYT sent a multiple-Pulitzer photographer (Doug Mills) who seems to 'get the shot' no matter what (including the 'Bush informed of WTC being hit by jets' one, which is itself the result of a pretty low-percentage assignment) to cover this podunk rally -- now he gets another Pulitzer for capturing a bullet whizzing past Trump's head, but I'd imagine the alternative-timeline photo would have been quite the career capstone as well.
I mean, this rally seemed unusually high profile before the shooting. I knew Trump was going to be speaking in some town in western PA that afternoon.
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Eh, that's where conspiratorial thinking starts to assign malign meaning to everything. What would be the theory here, that CNN and the NYT somehow were tipped off beforehand that someone was going to take a shot at Trump, and the photographer even knew where and when to point his camera?
Honestly, I am kind of surprised the photographer hasn't been dragged yet. That photo he took of bloody Trump raising his fist is the sort of iconic image that defines an era and has already hugely boosted Trump's image. If we assume the photographer is not a Trump fan, this was certainly not an effect he intended when he took the shot.
(Now, I think it's more likely that the photographer would have taken the shot anyway because he probably cares more about getting a Pulitzer-winning photo than he does about maybe helping a political candidate he doesn't like. But I'll bet he gets some flack for "helping Trump.")
I've seen a bit of this. Some cable news commentator saying it was so irresponsible for him to not destroy that photo. Doesn't he know this helps Trump?
Time removed the photo from their cover. But that's so little so late.
https://imgur.com/a/z5f85ig
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https://x.com/peterjhasson/status/1813292381640249693
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I mean yeah -- to be clear I'm not endorsing the conspiracy here, but if we are hypothesizing that somebody knew enough to short Truth Social in advance it doesn't seem like much of a further stretch that CNN/NYT were tipped off that this would be a good rally to cover.
I think he did some self-dragging along those lines in an article where (as I recall) he kind of said "well if you look at the rest of my photos he looks kind of drained, not so heroic at all!"
The photo is too good to pass up though, regardless of how helpful it is for Trump.
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Last rally before the RNC might have been reason enough to send a high-profile photographer
Particularly since it was entirely possibly that Trump would spring a surprise veep announcement or that the veep candidate would even accompany him on stage.
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