Trump returns to campaign trail after weekend assassination scare

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at Harrah's Cherokee Center in Asheville, North Carolina, on August 14, 2024. [AFP]

Donald Trump hits the campaign trail again on Tuesday, traveling to Michigan two days after an apparent assassination attempt against him was foiled at his golf course in Florida.

His Democratic rival Kamala Harris will also be campaigning, as she heads to the key battleground state of Pennsylvania for an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).

That event and another interview with Hispanic media, recorded Monday and set to air Tuesday, will be the first time Harris will have an opportunity to react in-person to the apparent bid on Trump's life.

The Republican nominee and ex-president was whisked away by the Secret Service after a gunman was discovered on his golf course in Florida on Sunday, in the second such close call for Trump in as many months.

As security officials said they believed the suspect acted alone, Trump sought to blame Harris and President Joe Biden for the scare, citing what he called their rhetoric about him endangering democracy.

Trump's politicization of the incident -- even as he, on the campaign trail, paints Harris as an "evil" radical turning America into a "failing nation" -- has further stoked tensions ahead of the presidential election in seven weeks.

Both Biden and Harris have issued statements denouncing the apparent assassination bid, with Harris saying "violence has no place in America."

But Trump has claimed that rhetoric from Biden and Harris "is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country."

The dueling visits of Trump in Michigan and Harris in Pennsylvania come as both candidates focus on the half-dozen swing states most important to win in the country's Electoral College system.

A new poll from Suffolk University and USA Today shows Harris with a slight edge over Trump in Pennsylvania -- 49 percent to 46 percent -- thanks in large part to major support from women voters.

Still, her advantage in that poll remains within the margin of error -- and the election at-large remains close.

This year's particularly bitter presidential campaign has seen not just the two assassination attempts against Trump but also bomb threats against an Ohio town's immigrant community and a fringe party urging Harris's murder.

Trump previously had a close call with a would-be assassin when he was slightly wounded in an attack during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July.

When Harris arrives for her interview with the NABJ, however, another Trump moment is also likely to come up.

It was when Trump spoke with the professional association in July that he said Harris, who has an Indian mother and Jamaican father, "happened to turn Black," in remarks claiming that she opted to highlight one of her dual racial identities for political gain.