European and Western leaders overwhelmingly condemned the attempted assassination on former U.S. President Donald Trump, with most politicians wishing him a speedy recovery.
The mainstream European media, generally critical of President Trump, begrudgingly acknowledged his fighting spirit despite an assassin’s bullet piercing his ear. Trump’s raised fist in the face of death could doom President Joe Biden’s already faltering campaign, European news outlets fear.
The newly-elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was “appalled” by the attack and sent his “best wishes” to President Trump and his family.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the attack on former U.S. president “despicable.”
“The attack on US presidential candidate Donald Trump is despicable. I wish him a speedy recovery. My thoughts are also with those who were affected by the attack. Such acts of violence threaten democracy,” Scholz wrote on Twitter.
Germany’s state-run DW TV posted the reaction of leading German politicians:
French President Emmanuel Macron shared those sentiments and wished President Trump a ‘speedy recovery.’
“France shares the shock and indignation of the American people,” he declared.
President of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen condemned “political violence,” while wishing “a speedy recovery” to President Trump and offering “condolences to the family of the innocent victim” of the Butler rally shooting.
One attendee was killed and two were critically injured in the shooting. Their names had not yet been released.
Words of support and encouragement also came from conservative and patriotic European leaders, who are more aligned with President Trump’s America First policy. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban and prominent Dutch politician Geert Wilders condemned the assassination attempt.
Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK party made a debut in the recent British election, promised to see his longtime ‘friend’ Trump at the upcoming Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
German weekly, Der Spiegel, usually highly critical of President Trump, gave him a backhanded compliment by calling him as “politician with instinct” for raising his fist in the air after just “75 seconds of being shot” a gesture that “captured the profound sense of the moment.”
“The image of the raised fist is a masterpiece in political communication. This is not his first,” the most-read German weekly noted.
German newspaper Die Süddeutsche Zeitung cynically warned that President Trump could “take advantage” of the fallout from the attack. “The assassination attempt on Donald Trump is symbolic: the country is becoming radicalized and the threats of an armed conflict is growing,” the newspaper claimed.
“The former [U.S.] president knows how to take advantage of the heightened mood,” the German daily alleged.
The left-wing British newspaper Guardian, no friends of the former U.S. president, pointed at the “stunning lapse in security at the rally,” and questioned how “a single gunman [could] repeatedly shoot at Trump from the roof of a building near to the stage from which he was speaking.”
“The Pennsylvania shooting likely marks the Secret Service’s biggest security crisis since former president Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981, by a stalker of the actor Jodie Foster,” the newspaper concluded.
The leading French newspaper Le Monde contrasted President Trump’s defiant fist raise to President Biden, who “gives off an image of great fragility.” The incident could doom the Democratic campaign, the French daily feared.
Biden’s campaign will be forced to abandon the tactic of demonising Trump, the newspaper lamented. Left-wing media talking heads, who made their careers spewing hatred against the former president, will have to tone down “the language that can now be used against Trump,” the daily said.
Le Monde’s Washington correspondent Gilles Paris wrote:
Before the attempted assassination in Pennsylvania, the Democratic camp was prey to unprecedented divisions over the retention of Biden. A change of candidate was being called for by a growing minority of elected representatives, with all the risks that such an operation, unprecedented in the recent history of American presidential elections, entails. The images of Trump in the seconds after the shots were fired at him can only reinforce the contrast with an outgoing president who gives off an image of great fragility.But what happened on July 13 further complicates the Democrats’ task. It’s no longer just a question of Biden’s state of health, but also of the language that can now be used against Trump, given his new status as the miracle survivor of political violence that had been associated since January 6 with far-right militias.
In yet another case for bizarre victim blaming, Spain’s El Mundo newspaper blamed President Trump for the attempt on his life. The Spanish daily claimed “polarization and hostility generated by Trump since his entry into politics in the 2016 campaign” led to the attack.
“The incident certainly elevates Donald Trump on the altars of his devotees, and bolsters his candidacy,” the newspaper claimed.
[Excerpts from European media reports translated by the author]
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