Washington:

Donald Trump said Sunday it was divine intervention that helped him survive an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, and called on Americans to unite.

“It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” the former US president and White House hopeful said on social media, urging fellow Americans to unite in “not allowing Evil to Win.”

Trump was hit in the ear in an assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally Saturday, in a chaotic and shocking incident set to supercharge political tensions ahead of the US presidential election.

The 78-year-old former president was rushed off stage with blood streaked across his face after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, while the shooter and a bystander were killed and two spectators were critically injured.

President Joe Biden, who is set to face Trump in November’s deeply polarized presidential election, said there was “no place in America for this kind of violence.”

“In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday morning, confirming that he would attend the Republican National Convention, which begins on Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

U.S. President Joe Biden claps next to U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris is engaged in a delicate balancing act, playing cheerleader for President Joe Biden while standing by as a leading contender to replace him if he ends his reelection bid.

Biden’s dismal performance in last week’s debate with Donald Trump has triggered panic in much of the Democratic Party as people question whether Biden is physically and mentally able to beat Trump and serve another four years.

Former congressman Tim Ryan, while professing his admiration for Biden, wrote in a piece for Newsweek that “the Democratic nominee in 2024 should be Kamala Harris.”

Harris herself has not said anything in public, except to express loyalty to her boss.

“Look, Joe Biden is our nominee,” she said in an interview with CBS News. “We beat Trump once, and we’re going to beat him again, period.”

She said she was proud to be on the current ticket with the president.

Minutes after the debate, Harris had rushed onto TV to defend Biden, saying he had started off slowly in the clash with Trump but finished strong.

The official schedule for Biden on Wednesday says he had lunch with Harris, which is not a regular event, though it was a weekly fixture for Biden when he was vice president under Barack Obama.

– One heartbeat –

Harris, 59, is the first woman, the first Black person and the first person of Asian origin — her mother was from India — to hold the job that puts her a heartbeat from the presidency, as Americans like to say.

Harris would become president if Biden died in office or became incapacitated.

But she would not necessarily replace Biden if he were to end his candidacy, and Biden has insisted he has no plans to do so.

“For three and half years there has always been this drumbeat that someone other than the VP should be the Democratic candidate,” said Ange-Marie Hancock, professor of political science at The Ohio State University.

Hancock said it was possible an “undercurrent of racism and sexism” was at work against Harris.

For years Harris has been less popular among Americans than other Democrats seen as possible candidates, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom or his Michigan counterpart Gretchen Whitmer.

US media have reported extensively on mistakes she made early in this administration, mainly on the diplomatic front, and on tension among her staffers.

But Hancock said things could turn in Harris’s favor, because she has spent time out visiting battleground states, in particular to promote abortion rights as it came under repeated fire from conservatives judges and governors.

Harris is sometimes criticized as disappointing as an orator. But she got a warm welcome recently when she made a tour of universities that was focused on schools with high numbers of minority students.

Polling

A CNN poll released Tuesday had Harris doing better than Biden against Trump, although not beating him.

This poll gave Harris 45 percent of voter intentions against 47 percent for Trump, while Biden scored 43 percent to 49 percent for the Republican former president in a race between the two men.

In the event Biden were to drop out, Harris, thanks to her name recognition, her ties to powerful people in the government and the prospect for brisk fundraising, would go into the Democratic convention next month in a position of strength.

But the Republicans are ready and waiting.

“Kamala Harris is very much on the GOP’s radar,” Hancock said, referring to Trump’s party.

The Trump campaign on Wednesday broadcast a video montage of Biden suffering falls and other embarrassing moments, and questioned whether he can serve another term.

It concludes with the question, “And you know who is waiting behind him, right?” and footage of Harris laughing.

Donald Trump told a group of evangelicals they “cannot afford to sit on the sidelines” of the 2024 election, imploring them at one point to “go and vote, Christians, please!”

Trump also endorsed displaying the Ten Commandments in schools and elsewhere while speaking to a group of politically influential evangelical Christians in Washington on Saturday. He drew cheers as he invoked a new law signed in Louisiana this week requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom.

“Has anyone read the ‘Thou shalt not steal’? I mean, has anybody read this incredible stuff? It’s just incredible,” Trump said at the gathering of the Faith & Freedom Coalition. “They don’t want it to go up. It’s a crazy world.’’

Trump a day earlier posted an endorsement of the new law on his social media network, saying: “I LOVE THE TEN COMMANDMENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, PRIVATE SCHOOLS, AND MANY OTHER PLACES, FOR THAT MATTER. READ IT — HOW CAN WE, AS A NATION, GO WRONG???”

The former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee backed the move as he seeks to galvanize his supporters on the religious right, which has fiercely backed him after initially being suspicious of the twice-divorced New York City tabloid celebrity when he first ran for president in 2016.

That support has continued despite his conviction in the first of four criminal cases he faces, in which a jury last month found him guilty of falsifying business records for what prosecutors said was an attempt to cover up a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Daniels claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies.

Trump’s stated opposition to signing a nationwide ban on abortion and his reluctance to detail some of his views on the issue are at odds with many members of the evangelical movement, a key part of Trump’s base that’s expected to help him turn out voters in his November rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.

But while many members of the movement would like to see him do more to restrict abortion, they cheer him as the greatest champion for the cause because of his role in appointing U.S. Supreme Court justices who overturned national abortion rights in 2022.

Trump highlighted that Saturday, saying, “We did something that was amazing,” but the issue would be left to people to decide in the states.

“Every voter has to go with your heart and do what’s right, but we also have to get elected,” he said.

While he still takes credit for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, Trump has also warned abortion can be tricky politically for Republicans. For months, he deferred questions about his position on a national ban.

Last year, when Trump addressed the Faith & Freedom Coalition, he said there was “a vital role for the federal government in protecting unborn life” but didn’t offer any details beyond that.

In April of this year, Trump said he believed the issue should now be left to the states. He later stated in an interview that he would not sign a nationwide ban on abortion if it was passed by Congress. He has still declined to detail his position on women’s access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

About two-thirds of Americans say abortion should generally be legal, according to polling last year by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Attendees at the evangelical gathering on Saturday said that while they’d like to see a national abortion ban, Trump isn’t losing any of their deep support.

“I would prefer if he would sign a national ban,” said Jerri Dickinson, a 78-year-old retired social worker and Faith & Freedom member from New Jersey. “I understand though, that as in accordance with the Constitution, that decision should be left up to the states.”

Dickinson said she can’t stand the abortion law in her state, which does not set limits on the procedure based on gestational age. But she said outside of preferring a national ban, leaving the issue to the state “is the best alternative.”

According to AP VoteCast, a wide-ranging survey of the electorate, about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters supported Trump in 2020, and nearly 4 in 10 Trump voters identified as white evangelical Christians. White evangelical Christians made up about 20% of the overall electorate that year.

Beyond just offering their own support in the general election, the Faith & Freedom Coalition plans to help get out the vote for Trump and other Republicans, aiming to use volunteers and paid workers to knock on millions of doors in battleground states.

Trump is also rallying voters in Philadelphia, where supporters were gathering to hear him speak at an arena.

Tyler Cecconi, 25, of Richmond, Virginia, said he’s glad that Trump is stepping out of his comfort zone and going to places that may not be red. At the venue, organizers hung a banner that read “Philadelphia is Trump Country.”

“He’s showing the people that regardless if you vote for him or not, or if it’s a blue county or a red county, it doesn’t matter to him,” Cecconi said. “A president is for everybody in this country.”

The GOP Senate candidate of Pennsylvania, Dave McCormick, attended the rally and appeared on stage to talk to voters about the economy and immigration.

“This economy is not working for most Pennsylvanians and it’s not working for most Americans,” McCormick said.

Earlier in Washington, Trump returned several times during his roughly 90-minute remarks to the subject of the U.S.-Mexico border and at one point, when describing migrants crossing it as “tough,” he joked that he told his friend Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to enlist them in a new version of the sport.

“‘Why don’t you set up a migrant league and have your regular league of fighters. And then you have the champion of your league, these are the greatest fighters in the world, fighting the champion of the migrants,’” Trump described saying to White. “I think the migrant guy might win, that’s how tough they are. He didn’t like that idea too much.”

His story drew laughs and claps from the crowd.

Biden’s campaign responded to Trump’s remarks by saying it was “fitting” that Trump, convicted of a felony, spent time at a religious conference making threats about immigration and “bragging about ripping away Americans’ freedoms.”

“Trump’s incoherent, unhinged tirade showed voters in his own words that he is a threat to our freedoms and is too dangerous to be let anywhere near the White House again,” campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.

___

Alexander reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writers Tom Strong and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux contributed to this report.