Jay Weber Show transcript 7-14-25
It’s been a year since President Trump was nearly assassinated at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The anniversary of that incident was yesterday- July 13th.
A year later, President Trump tells people that he believes God spared him that day -for a reason. He says he believes his purpose is to save and restore this country ...and he’s trying every day to do that.
And so, if the near-death experience gave Donald Trump a personal motivation and a more divine sense of purpose...that would be one way that the events of a year ago changed history.
It isn’t hard to imagine America on a very different path if Trump had been assassinated a year ago. It would have virtually guaranteed that the ‘next republican up’ would have won. It’s not like assassinating the republican’s candidate was going to make Kamala Harris and the democrats look any better...or help her in any way.
The republican would have won, anyway. And even if it was a JD Vance or a Ron DeSantis- i cannot imagine that their regimes would be doing anything-close-to the sorts of things trump’s team is doing. Trump and his advisors had four years to stew, and plot, and plan, and figure out how they were going to dismantle the deep state and do this flurry of relentless executive winning they’ve been doing.
A JD Vance or Ron DeSantis – new to the job- would have had to settle in and figure out ‘how’ the presidency worked and what sort of powers it really gave them.
Trump already had it figured out-and was primed for a second term. So- the fates really were with president trump and the United States of America, that day.
To mark the anniversary, a report that had been completed by the general accountability office was released. It had been ‘ordered done’ by senator chuck Grassley following the assassination attempt-
So, it’s completed now- and it shows numerous mistakes and miscommunications led to the secret service allowing a gunman to get within shooting distance of trump...and nearly pull it off.
This report also proves that the Biden’s decision to give one of Jill’s friends the top job there....and then have her focus more on DEI efforts and adding more female agents...instead of focusing on the jobs they were all supposed to be doing.... genuinely has led to a degraded secret service agency.
I don’t think that’s being emphasized enough as the news outlets now report on this report and what’s in it.
The report doesn’t specifically blast Joe and Jill Biden for using the top job at ‘secret service’ as some political appointment that they can put anyone into- like Jill’s hairdresser- or who-ever that was- then have her focus on DEI and ‘female empowerment’ instead of protecting our lawmakers.
That, too, is unforgivable, and should go down on the long list of ways the Bidens failed this country.
Even before this Gao report was released-you might have heard that six secret service agents were suspended and put on leave...as part of the fallout of the report’s findings.
This had me immediately wondering if that chubby female agent who looked all panicked and couldn’t get her gun-out of- nor back into-her holster was one of those fired.
Remember? The one everyone was calling Chris Farley’s sister. Or Paula Blart?
I wondered if she was one of the useless agents suspended. The answer is ‘no’.
The suspended six weren’t named.... but their names got out, anyway.
Apparently five of them weren’t actually ‘on site’ that day in butler, but screwed up in the planning during the run-up to the event...etc.
And the one who-was- on scene that day and was suspended was a different female agent who had been responsible for on-sight coordination.
And i only mention her sex-because she’s apparently trying to use it, now, as she reacts to the suspension. As in: men who screwed up like this never get suspended...etc.
Meanwhile, many in the security and intelligence communities are saying the length of the suspensions is a joke: somewhere between ten and 42 days-depending on the offense.
That’s nothing...for screwing up on the job and nearly getting a man killed.
Those light punishments also come at a time when the Iranian mullahs just put a 40-million-dollar price tag on Donald Trump’s head!
This story also broke this weekend:
That is the heck of an incentive for religious zealots and nutjobs...and it means our secret service needs to be on its ‘top game’ now-and into the future.
Also-a year later-we still have no information on the assassin himself, and whether there was anyone else involved in the planning...etc.
The name ‘Thomas Crooks is already being lost to time. And it’s only been a year.
That has our own Ron Johnson demanding more.
The immediate investigations afterward showed that-if president trump hadn’t have turned his head at precisely the right time, he very likely would have been assassinated that day.
They also found that it took ‘too long’ in general, for the snipers on the neighboring roof to find crooks and shoot him dead.
There are also unanswered questions that remain related to how quickly the secret service removed Crook’s body and hosed down the metal roof he’d been laying on.
It’s still bizarre-to this day- that that’s the way the investigators and powers-that-be chose to treat that crime scene.
In today’s age- even a routine homicide without a famous victim- is going to lead to the scene being cordoned off and preserved for weeks or months.
Someone tries to kill a former president- is killed in return- and sheriff’s deputies are hosing off the roof just few hours later...like they would have cleaned up after a shooting at a saloon in the 1850s?
Wow.
That was bizarre...and we’ve never gotten an adequate answer to that- nor for any of the incredible secrecy surrounding the investigation into Thomas Crooks.
Senator Johnson is right: the American people deserve those answers, too.
If nothing else, the secret service and national security agencies should want those answers so they can address failures and ‘do better’ next time.
And- before we leave the topic- we should note how this moment changed history.
No doubt about it: that attempt on trump’s life and the ensuing photos of him standing, with blood steaked down his face, pumping his fist and saying ‘fight, fight, fight’....is an indelible part of American history now.
We tend not to put as much value on the historical nature of events that -we- ourselves- experience or are around to see-
But- this is the sort of moment that ensures a president, and his administration are not- largely forgotten to history’.
20 or 30 years from now, there will have been nothing distinctive about Obama or Biden eras...that helps make them ‘long remembered’ presidents. It’s easy to say ‘everything’s distinctive’ about trump...
But that photo and video...and then the second term presidency that it led to...already ensures he’s got a distinctive and lasting place in u-s history.
That’s really got to be irksome to the Bidens...who were both obsessed with building a legacy...and obsessed with how they’d be remembered. It won’t be for any ‘greatness’ that was achieved. Biden didn’t have a single ‘stand out’ presidential moment...save one: his disastrous dementia debate....
And that’s going to be his legacy.
Trump’s legacy will be very different. And the story of his second term - will start in history books- with July 13th of 2024- when he was nearly assassinated in butler, Pennsylvania.
Trump’s brush with death-and how he handled it- jarred all sorts of Americans awake-and had all sorts of others dropping their hesitancy to support him. It was a galvanizing event on the right-and across larger mainstream America- that no one person or campaign could have choreographed.
photo credit: Getty Images
audio version of the segment here > It's been a year