Former Obama adviser David Axelrod said Saturday on CNN’s coverage of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump that he will be greeted as a “martyr” by supporters when he attends next week’s Republican National Convention.
Axelrod said, “I think this is a bracing moment for our country, and hopefully a moment for reflection where everybody kind of pulls back from the abyss so we don’t see this as a recurring event.”
Co-host Anderson Cooper said, “I mean, the convention, the Republican convention is supposed to begin on Monday unclear if this will impact that one way or for the other and I guess impossible at this point to know where the campaigns go. Does the tone and the tenor shift? Obviously, there’s going to be a lot of finger pointing, a lot of vitriol, and I’m not sure any sign that that will end.”
Axelrod said, “No. I mean, there’s so much at stake in this in any elections, certainly in this election. It’s been a pretty bitter election to start with. And I don’t know where it goes from here. Eventually, the campaign will resume. But the fact that this happened on the doorstep of a convention has to change the nature of that convention in some way. The president, assuming he is up for attending, and I assume he will be, will be greeted as a kind of martyr of this event and I think it could be angrier or could be more somber. But it’s certainly not going to be the same.”
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