Utah Republicans shared emotions of fear and hope two days after a gunman tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump.
Delegates to the Republican National Convention, local candidates and experienced presidential aids expressed worry over the division that led to such an act of political violence, as well as optimism that Trump will be able to unify the party, and country, more than he has in the past.
“There’s frustration and dismay that it happened. Period,” Utah GOP chair Rob Axson told the Deseret News as he walked onto the floor of the RNC convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Monday. “I think every American that saw what was happening felt that — regardless of your political persuasion.”
But, according to Axson, there is also an added “sense of patriotism and commitment, and a sense of care and concern for our country” built on top of the anger and fear for many Americans.
As for the GOP delegates who gave Trump their unanimous nomination on Monday ahead of the Nov. 5 general election, Axson said they are “focused and devoted, to not only nominating Donald Trump this week, but also focusing on the principles that we believe in order to rescue our country’s future.”
No place in America for political violence
Former White House adviser and Salt Lake City resident Ron Fox said Saturday’s attacks confirmed his longtime worries that an individual would try and decide the 2024 election with a bullet instead of a ballot.
Over the course of 50 years, Fox worked with six Republican presidents. He was with President Gerald Ford just hours before both of the failed assassination attempts against him in 1975. Fox had friends who were with President Ronald Reagan when he was shot and wounded by a deranged attacker in 1981, he said.
“We need to be a nation that can listen to people’s viewpoints relative to differing opinions without taking violent actions,” Fox said. “We need to have dialogue that is civil and that is constructive because if we don’t have constructive, we don’t have anything.”
Don Peay, Trump’s 2016 Utah campaign manger, said shock and disgust about Trump’s near-assassination, and the killing of an audience member, reached across political boundaries and could actually contribute to Trump winning reelection to a second term in November.
“There’s an overwhelming (feeling) that there is absolutely no place in America where this action is taken against anybody,” Peay said. “That is a unified thing, even amongst people I know who hate Trump. They’re just appalled.”
A year ago, Peay was convinced that Trump was unlikely to win the 2024 general election. Now, he believes a Trump victory is all but inevitable, partially because of the fortitude Trump showed after Trump’s ear was injured in the shooting and he was tackled by Secret Service agents.
“I will make a prediction that Trump will win in a landslide because a lot of people who were sitting on the fence, or maybe don’t like his rough nature, are like, ‘This guy is a leader,’” Peay said. “This is a historic moment.”
After assassination attempt, a moment for unity
Washington City legislative affairs director Jordan Hess was a national delegate in 2016, when Utah’s delegation was staunchly pro-Ted Cruz and anti-Trump. He is currently one of 40 Utah delegates in Milwaukee where he says the feeling among Utah Republicans, including Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. John Curtis and attorney general candidate Derek Brown, couldn’t be more different than in 2016.
“This year, there’s such a strong feeling of unity and purpose, especially after the assassination attempt — that it’s a time to come together,” Hess said.
The country must first come together around the understanding that “there’s no place in America for political violence, and there should never be a place for that in our country,” Hess said. Despite the division of national politics, Hess said the GOP convention could provide Trump an opportunity to unite Americans in a way he didn’t in 2016 or 2020.
“We’re all looking forward to hearing our nominee, President Donald Trump, give unifying remarks,” Hess said. “Spirits are high here in Milwaukee among the Utah delegation.”
Republican Salt Lake County Council candidate Rachelle Morris didn’t quite share the same excitement two days after the failed attempt on Trump’s life. Morris said the news made her sit down and think about both the risks and rewards of running for elected office.
“It’s been a combination of feeling deeply disturbed that here we are, the presidential election, and we have national political violence, combined with I am running for a very down ballot, local seat,” Morris said. “President Trump was a centimeter away from dying and I’m running for office.”
Morris posted a video to X on Monday highlighting the importance of spending time with people who have opposing opinions. Face-to-face communication helps us to see each other as Americans and build something together, she said.
When asked whether she thought Trump would use his convention nomination speech as an opportunity to turn down the temperature of national rhetoric she said, “I sure hope so.”
Unanswered questions
Conservative activist Amy Lloyd was watching a live stream of Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania, rally when a series of gun shots rang out shortly before 6:15 p.m. ET. “For a brief period of time, I thought he could be dead. I wasn’t sure if he was alive or not. So I just honestly broke down crying,” Lloyd said.
As she watched Trump be taken away by Secret Service agents, blood streaming from his ear, she felt shocked, but not surprised. Lloyd said she had expected that anti-Trump vitriol would eventually lead to an assassination attempt and pointed to examples of individuals who after the attack expressed disappointment that the would-be assassin missed.
Lloyd also felt concern that Secret Service and local law enforcement had let the situation take place at all.
“It looks like they knew a couple minutes ahead of time there was a sniper on the roof within shooting range and they still did nothing. Why?,” Lloyd asked. “On top of that, how could this gunman possibly even access that roof? That’s just a complete failure to me.”
Witnesses standing outside of the Trump rally on Saturday have told reporters they saw the gunman crawling on a roof with a rifle minutes before he shot at the former president and that they attempted to alert police officers.
As someone who said they had worked with “Secret Service on events like this hundreds of times,” Fox said there was “a big lax in the issue of providing security” but defended their professionalism.
“The Secret Service are competent individuals who know what they’re doing,” Fox said. “I think this is just one of those times in which there was a failure.”
Fox didn’t want to give the Secret Service a “black eye,” saying the “hundreds and thousands” of security incidents they prevent usually go unreported.
“I’ve seen a lot of people in politics attempt to make more out of this than it is by trying to attack the agency that for the most part has done a wonderful job of protecting our nation’s leaders,” Fox said.