Who Wants Donald Trump Dead?

The discussion over the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, now the officially nominated Republican nominee in the coming presidential election, is generally centered around the shooter Thomas Mathew Crooks; his political leanings, motive and more. There is no doubt that heads must roll in the secret service and those assigned to protect Trump, looking at the shooter(s) in plain sight on a rooftop, as also the ladder placed on the side of the house for climbing to the roof.

But this is America where one can expect inquiries with multiple theories, as also reopening and closing of inquiries, going around in circles. This is akin to the follow up in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F Kennedy, with America’s ‘deep state’ and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) smiling away.

Who wants Trump dead? There of course is the pitiful performance of the POTUS Joe Biden during the first presidential debate leading to calls within Democrats for him to step down. Five days before the attempted assassination of Trump, X also has a clip of Biden saying it is time to put Trump in the “BullsEye”.

Essentially, the tussle in the Biden-led Rogue-Based Order in the West is about continuing the war against Russia. In addition, while White House sheds tears about four children killed in a strike on a hospital in Kiev, the United States continues to arm Israel, including sending 500 kg bombs when over Palestinian 1,400 children have been killed already, and 2,100 are missing in Gaza.

Who dislikes Trump? As the POTUS, he wanted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to pay more which raised hackles. In recent times he has been saying that he would stop the war in Ukraine by weighing down on both Ukraine and Russia.

The crux of the issue is whether the US-NATO should continue waging war on Russia using Ukraine as the proxy, or stop the war. The war in Ukraine has helped America’s arms and oil lobbies to rake in billions of dollars. Moreover, it has helped emasculate Europe and in keeping European leaders on a tighter leash; tethered to Washington.

It is public knowledge that in 1990 the US Secretary of State James Baker gave America’s written commitment to Mikhail Gorbachev, Chairman of the Soviet Union, that there will be “no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east of a unified Germany.”

Biden played a major role in waging war against Russia even as the Vice President, when he said in 1997 that the only thing that could provoke a "vigorous and hostile" Russian response would be if NATO expanded to the Baltic States.

The fear of Trump winning the presidential race, especially after the first presidential debate, led to the US-sponsored NATO summit where the NATO Secretary General proposed the allies make a big multi-year financial pledge of military aid to Ukraine.

The US has invaded 84 out of the 194 countries recognised by the United Nations. America’s pooch Britain has never invaded “only” 22 of these 194 countries.

Yet, the Biden Administration has convinced European countries that Russia wants to gobble them up, even to the extent that France being a nuclear power continues to wag its tail to Joe Biden; although this may also be because the US helped Emanuel Macron from an electoral rout.

Trump has now chosen Senator J. D. Vance, the Ohio Republican, as his VP pick, running mate in the November elections. Vance has repeatedly argued for negotiating an end to the conflict between Kiev and Moscow and lambasted Washington’s open-end commitment to fund Kiev.

Speaking at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in May 2023, Vance said, “I certainly admire the Ukrainians who are fighting against Russia, but I do not think that it is in America’s interest to continue to fund an effectively never-ending war in Ukraine.”

Prior to the Senate vote in April 2024, Vance wrote in the ‘New York Times’ that President Joe Biden “failed to articulate even basic facts” about the reality on the ground and the Biden administration “has no viable plan for the Ukrainians to win this war.”

He further wrote, the US insistence on not negotiating with Russia is “absurd” and Vladimir Zelensky’s goal of restoring Ukraine’s 1991 borders is fantastical, and added “The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because it’s been good for American business is grotesque. We can and should rebuild our industrial base without shipping its products to a foreign conflict.”

In April 2024, when the US Senate approved a $61 billion package of new military aid to Ukraine, Vance invoked his experience in the military to rebuke his colleagues, saying on the Senate floor, “I served my country honorably, and I saw when I went to Iraq that I had been lied to; the promises of the foreign policy establishment of this country were a complete joke.”

Trump’s choice of Vance as VP is giving goose bumps to Biden, who has called Vance a “Trump Clone”. It goes without saying that Biden would be dreading the next presidential debate, no matter how much drugs are pumped into him.

In the above backdrop, more assassination attempts on Trump can hardly be ruled out, of which shooting may only be just one method to be ado[ted.

Lt General Prakash Katoch is an Indian Army veteran. Views expressed here are the writer’s own.