Today marks the one-year anniversary of the failed assassination attempt against President Donald Trump, a transcendent event in our nation’s politics and history that demands reflection. However, the anniversary of the shooting was mostly met with indifference on the legacy media’s Sunday political talk shows. 

NBC’s Meet the Press didn’t touch Butler until close to the end of the show, as a subject matter for a panel discussion segment. What is striking about the discussion is that it was centered on the politics of the day and the state of the campaigns- as opposed to a reflection on political violence. Consider the opening of that segment:

KRISTEN WELKER: This does mark the one year anniversary since the horrific assassination attempt against then-candidate Trump who is now serving his second term. Tyler, you write about the moment in your book in extraordinary terms in the sense that it was a pivotal moment in the campaign. What did you determine? What did you learn?

TYLER PAGER: Yeah, I think even Donald Trump would say that it was a pivotal moment in his campaign. In an interview with us, he said, “I think I would've won, but maybe it would've been a little bit closer.” I think one of the biggest parts of that assassination attempt was what it did for some of the supporters for Donald Trump- particularly Elon Musk. Elon Musk was a reluctant supporter of the president, and then after that assassination attempt went full throttle and gave him more than $250 million to affiliated efforts. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg came out to praise him, so really it coalesced this movement behind Donald Trump. Also, another remarkable about that day is that Joe Biden- this was the day that Joe Biden met with Chuck Schumer and Chuck Schumer basically said, “you have to drop out”, he met with lawmakers who were also putting pressure on him. So this split screen of what was happening on that day a year ago is quite extraordinary.

NBC would have you believe that the truest, purest victim of that day was the electoral aspirations of President Joe Biden and not the unmentioned Corey Comperatore, who gave his life in order to protect his wife and daughter from the assassin’s bullets- or, for that matter, the other two gentlemen who were wounded on that day. These three didn’t warrant so much as a mention on the NBC panel, which instead focused on that day.

The exchange between Margaret Brennan and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on CBS’s Face the Nation was more substantive, as it focused on the Secret Service’s failings on that day (click “expand” to view transcript):

MARGARET BRENNAN: Today is the one-year mark since then-candidate Trump was shot at in Butler, Pennsylvania. You have released an Accountability Report, we've had a look at it, and it details that assets were requested by the Secret Service, including requests made over the phone, and they were denied. You also say that the former Secret Service director made false claims under oath when Kimberly Cheadle said there were no denials. Was she misled, or are you accusing her of lying?

RAND PAUL: She did not tell the truth. She said that there were no assets that were requested in advance. We found at least four occasions, actually, maybe five occasions, where requests were made. The primary request that was made by both Trump's Secret Service detail, as well as his campaign was for counter-snipers. Counter-snipers were denied until Butler. So, thank God, on that day in Butler County, Pennsylvania, that was the first time he was allowed counter-snipers. If he had not had counter-snipers, that assassin would have popped up again- he did pop up again to continue firing, and that's when he was taken out. But, thank God we had the counter-snipers there. But why were they denied for months and months? When they finally did ask for them, they mysteriously, magically appeared. They found them where they needed them. They just weren't trying hard enough. So, it was a cascade of errors. It was just one error after another. When we talked to the people in charge of security, everybody pointed a finger at someone else. We said, who was responsible for that roof, the roof where the assassin lay with a direct sight line. Nobody wanted responsibility. Everybody said it was somebody else. There was plenty of time to take him off the stage. The suspicious person with the range finder who became the shooter, many times he was spotted by police with suspicion. That should have been enough to take the president off the stage. Even with him on the roof, there was about a three-minute period when he could have been taken from the stage. And yet, no one was fired. Some of these people could be in charge of security for another presidential candidate. And, really, that's a danger that someone- one of the people that were in charge at Butler, could be in charge again. That's not right. 

BRENNAN: Well, the President United States has said he is satisfied with the answers he's received in regard to what went wrong. But, back on the point about not telling the truth to Congress: The report found that there were 10 occasions where resources were requested and denied or not filled. And, in fact, when it came to Butler, the counter-surveillance drone request was made over the phone. So, when you say someone is not telling the truth, is it that there was no record of requests and denials? Was this knowingly misleading Congress? Or was this like a culture of cover-up within the agency?

PAUL  I think it was a cultural cover-up for the agency. They did not want to assess blame. They did not want to look internally. And they wanted to discount any of their actions that might have led to this. This was a cover your ass sort of moment, and I do believe that they did know. There's no way that the Director of Secret Service, that she did not know that these requests had been made. And, so, yes, it was a huge failure. And, if you talk to the current head of the Secret Service, who was Trump's lead detail, and Trump has a great deal of confidence in, he'll admit that these failures existed. But even the disciplinary action that they finally took. They only took because I subpoenaed. I wanted to know who was disciplined. We weren't going to release the names, but I wanted to know who was disciplined and what the discipline was. They refused for a year to tell me that. They told me that a week ago, you saw the news reports, but some of the people were just disciplined two weeks ago, so they weren't going to discipline anybody until I subpoenaed and asked them what they had done. But, in the end, no one was fired. The supervisor who heard about the person on the roof, who did not tell the detail immediately to take the president off the stage, there was a several-minute delay there. He stayed in his job. He did retire recently, but stayed in his job. So, no, I think even the investigation by the Secret Service was inadequate. But that's why we need to have congressional oversight.

BRENNAN: Are you going to request that all, all requests for assets be made in writing and not over the phone, so people can deny that they were ever asked for help?

PAUL: Yeah, I think they were made in writing as well, and I think some were made by phone, but I think the ones that made by phone were following up on things they made in writing. Somebody was just begging for assets. And think about it, President Trump has had extraordinary rallies, no matter what political perspective you come from, he has extraordinary rallies which have extraordinary risk, much better, much greater risk than having, you know, 200 people in an auditorium where everybody's thoroughly screened and the location is secure. These things really take a lot of detail. But we asked the Secret Service who was in charge of that roof? How could you walk through it three o'clock in the afternoon and see that roof? Nobody walked through. Nobody was in charge. Everybody said, oh, she was in charge of the roof or he was in charge of the roof. No one would actually admit to be in charge of security for Butler.

BRENNAN: So there, the Big, Beautiful Bill that the president asked for gives $1.2 billion to the Secret Service. Does money fix that? And what do you say to the family member of the gentleman killed that day? Are we ever going to know the motive of the shooter?

PAUL: You know, I think we aren't going to know the motive, and I take that at face value. I know a lot of times when we don't get something and we suspect something, we think government's lying to us. And look, I have my doubts about government on many levels, but I think on this level, they've tried their best and I don't think there's a secret answer that they're not revealing to us. I think they just don't know. What we do know is the failures in security, and that the Corey Comperatore could have possibly been saved by having better security that day. And this boy was seen four hours before the shooting. He was seen again 45 minutes before. Three minutes before the shooting the crowd is chanting, man on a roof, man on a roof. 45 seconds to go as he's assembling his gun. 45 seconds is a long time. Nobody told them to take the president off the stage. Inexcusable, terrible security, but whoever is in charge should have been fired, and really should never be in charge of this type of, or have this type of responsibility again.

Sen. Paul who is himself no stranger to political violence, goes into detail regarding the scope and magnitude of the Secret Service’s failings on that day, the actions taken, and the lengths to which the agency went in order to avoid accountability. Alas, there is no discussion about the day itself. There was sufficient time for Brennan and Paul to have, perhaps, an exchange on the shooting itself and what might have been but for the grace of God and a providential head turn. But Brennan chose to use the shooting as a vehicle from which to pivot to advocacy for PBS and NPR.

CBS and NBC’s entries constitute the totality of discussion on the shooting on the legacy media’s Sunday public affairs shows. There was no discussion of Butler on This Week or State of the Union. Both of those shows filled their time with other matters such as the kerfuffle over the Epstein Files, and the ICE raid at a California weed farm. There was no discussion whatsoever, on any of these shows, of how history might have changed (for the worse) had the assassin succeeded in his efforts. 

And it is important to contrast this anniversary with other can’t miss events that the legacies never fail to observe. Two riots come to mind: January 6th and Stonewall. Additionally, there’s Roe v. Wade, and an anniversary of recent mint: the Dobbs opinion, which of course ended Roe. The media will ALWAYS set aside some time to observe these dates- primarily by lecturing their audience. Butler, however, seems (D)ifferent.