On Sunday, 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin of North Carolina was shot and killed after breaking into the secure perimeter of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate with a shotgun and a gas can after a confrontation with Secret Service and a Palm Beach County deputy. No officers were injured, and Trump was at the White House at the time. The White House made clear the significance of what happened — and who they hold responsible.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt didn't hold back. “In the middle of the night while most Americans were asleep, the United States Secret Service acted quickly and decisively to neutralize a crazy person, armed with a gun and a gas canister, who intruded President Trump's home," she wrote. "It's shameful and reckless that Democrats have chosen to shut down their Department."
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller agreed. “Democrats voted to defund Secret Service, Homeland Security Investigations (who partner with Secret Service) and all the intelligence and law enforcement functions that support Secret Service,” he said. “Never before in history has federal law enforcement been purposefully defunded.”
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Florida Congressman Brian Mast went on Fox News Sunday and said he "absolutely" believes this was a third assassination attempt on Trump, and it’s impossible to argue otherwise. "If somebody is coming to the president's home with a firearm, with a gas can, with something incendiary or something explosive, you have to believe they have an intent to conduct an attack against the president of the United States of America, or his family, or his friends," Mast said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures and named what Republicans have been saying out loud for over a year. "Two would-be assassins dead, one in jail for life…this [is] venom coming from the other side," Bessent said.
After Butler, Democrats were asked to cool the temperature. They didn't. They continued to compare Trump to Hitler. They continued to call him a fascist. Heck, they even tried to remove his Secret Service protection. And now they shut down the department responsible for keeping him alive. In September 2024, after the second assassination attempt on Trump, I wrote, “If you call someone Hitler enough times, someone will feel morally obligated to stop him. It’s not just hyperbole — it’s a narrative designed to incite action. Over the years, elected Democrats and media figures have painted Trump not as a political opponent but as an existential threat. That’s how we got to this point — two assassination attempts within the span of nine weeks.”
Well, now we’re at three. Do you think Democrats will learn? I don’t think so. Either they have no idea their words are radicalizing their supporters, or they know exactly what they're doing.
And both possibilities are terrifying.
