Trump's martyr moment: Assassination attempt transforms campaign

• Republicans couldn't ask for more of a contrast, with President Biden spending the last two weeks in a standoff with Democrats who fear he is too feeble to campaign effectively.
• Trump, who said on Truth Social that he felt the bullet "ripping through" his skin, will be welcomed in Milwaukee on Monday as a hero, a fighter — even a messiah to elements of his evangelical base.

Zoom in: The images from the shooting, plastered on front pages around the world Sunday morning, became iconic in real time.

• With blood dripping down from his right ear, Trump was captured by photographers pumping a defiant fist to shell-shocked supporters as he was swarmed by Secret Service agents.
• "Fight...fight...fight!" the indignant former president appeared to shout as he was shuttled away from the crime scene, where two people, including the shooter, were left dead.

Zoom out: Trump, who spoke with Biden by phone late Saturday after receiving medical attention, remained apolitical in his first statement after the attack. His allies did not.

• Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a frontrunner to be named Trump's running mate this week, tweeted that the Biden campaign's rhetoric about the threat Trump poses to democracy "led directly" to the attempted assassination.
• Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) called on the Republican district attorney in Butler County, Pa., to "immediately file charges" against Biden for "inciting an assassination."
• Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita tweeted — then deleted —a post tying the shooting to Trump's prosecutions and past Democratic attempts to remove him from state ballots.

The big picture: Despite swift condemnation by Biden and other top Democrats, the assassination attempt will turbocharge the persecution narrative Trump has placed at the center of his campaign.

• "In the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you — and I'm just standing in their way," Trump told supporters after his first federal indictment last summer.
• Trump's campaign already has cast this election as existential, and the assassination attempt undoubtedly will lead to a surge in donations — especially with the massive spotlight on the RNC this week.
• Trump "will be greeted as a kind of martyr of this event, and I think it could be angrier or it could be more somber," former Obama strategist David Axelrod said on CNN. "But it's certainly not going to be the same."

Between the lines: Some Democrats have been quick to point out that Trump has used extreme rhetoric and downplayed political violence for years, including the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the attack on Paul Pelosi, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband.

• Both Trump and Biden will now face pressure to dial down the temperature ahead of an election that has transformed the country into a tinderbox.

What to watch: The biggest electoral impact from Saturday's stunning events could come courtesy of low-information and politically disengaged Americans, who are expected to make up a decisive voting bloc.

• The attempted assassination was so shocking that it immediately cut through a wide range of cultural and digital bubbles, drawing mostly sympathetic reactions from influencers, athletes and CEOs.
• Elon Musk, for example, immediately endorsed Trump in a post that racked up more than 80 million views on X.
• YouTuber Jake Paul, who has legions of young followers, tweeted: "If it isn't apparent enough who God wants to win. When you try and kill God's angels and saviors of the world it just makes them bigger."