Even President Trump’s toughest critics should acknowledge his grace and courage under fire. He showed it once again in his presser Saturday night after the shooting at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.
If I can borrow from my friend Miranda Devine, he praised the Chairman of the Correspondents Association, who has been a severe Trump critic. He was magnanimous about the Secret Service, though they’re going to have to answer some tough questions in the weeks ahead. And he was self-effacing about the likelihood that the shooter was gonna go for him. He said: "it’s always shocking when something like this happens. It’s happened to me a little bit. And, that never changes the fact we’re sitting right next to each other." Mr. Trump added that "if you take presidents, it’s 5.8 percent and about 8 percent are shot at. So nobody told me this was such a dangerous profession." He concluded: "It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous stuff, whether it’s here or someplace else. No country is immune."
That’s grace under fire. Standing in his formal attire, with his bow tie in place, the president holds an extraordinary news conference. Hat tip to my friends at The New York Sun for pointing this out.
It appeared to be the third assassination attempt in two years. No president has faced that. My former boss, President Reagan was nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1981. And far as I know, there have been no other assassination attempts until Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024.
Mr. Trump had a thought on this as well. Take a listen: "Well, you know, I’ve studied assassinations, and I must tell you, the most impactful people, the people that do the most. You take a look at the people. Abraham Lincoln." Yet, he added, "the people that do the most, the people that make the biggest impact, they’re the ones that they go after."
Faith Bottum of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page notes that 8.5 percent of Presidents have died by assassination. Mr. Trump, though, has said time and again, including during his presser Saturday night, that he’s not worried about assassination and in fact wanted the dinner to continue that night before the Secret Service ruled it out. Yet that president has also said many times that he cannot let the criminal class or the political crazies shut down freedom of speech, or any political rallies for that matter. And of course he wanted a redo of the correspondents dinner in 30 days, or whenever it’s possible.
By the way, hat tip to Ms. Bottum for calling Mr. Trump brave and courageous. The Journal’s vaunted editorial page has been especially tough and critical of Mr. Trump. The president called for unity and it’s a great thought, but somehow in this period of our history it just doesn’t seem realistic.
In my lifetime I witnessed the assassination of JFK and then Martin Luther King and then Senator Robert F. Kennedy. These were great national tragedies. There was an assassination attempt against President Ford in 1975. Then the Reagan attempt in 1981 and then the multiple attempts on Mr. Trump. I don’t know what’s happened to the country that I love. I know America can do better. Let us hope that somehow it will.