US Election Diary: Another assassination attempt and a police DJ

New York-based Correspondent Logan Church with the latest from the election campaign in the US.

Happy Saturday everyone. I write this week’s US election update sitting in a bar about a hundred metres from where Captain Sully landed his plane in the Hudson River in 2009. Poignant? Perhaps. In any case, welcome to this week’s US election diary.

It’s hard to get your head around the fact there have been not one, but two assassination attempts on the life of former President Trump. I can’t think of a time in modern US history where we have been in this position.

As a result of this, the most famous protection agency on earth – the Secret Service – has been under intense scrutiny. And we got a rare admission from their acting boss, that they need help.

So much so that Acting Secret Service director Ronald Rowe has asked Congress for more resourcing.

After the assassination attempt at Trump’s golf course, he specified things like extra training (particularly for sniper units) and extra officers, saying his staff were exhausted.

Whether Rowe will get that extra help or not is up for debate. House Speaker Mike Johnson said: “We’re looking at that. I think it’s a matter of manpower allocation and we don’t just want to throw more money at a broken system.”

And if you are wondering why Rowe is the “acting” director of the Secret Service, well the last one resigned after the last assassination attempt in Butler.

A lot is at stake.

Meanwhile, the race for the White House continues, with fewer than 50 days until election day. On Friday NZT time, arguably the most famous woman in America (Oprah) hosted arguably the second most famous woman in America (Kamala Harris) for a star-studded rally called “Unite for America”.

Perhaps it’s a sign of close this race is considering how many celebrities they had joined in over video call for the event, which was broadcast from the crucial swing state of Michigan. There, to name a few, were Julia Roberts, Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Jennifer Lopez and Meryl Streep.

The Democrats are pulling out all the stops to try to beat the political juggernaut that is Donald Trump – who was at another event at the same time.

The MVP awards of the event though go to the two Secret Service agents in the front of the camera shot when Harris walked in. I'm assuming they were told to blend in... and they, well, didn’t.

North Carolina is one of the seven states in America that could go either way this election – even if it has gone with Trump in the past. But Republicans there have been rocked by a scandal around the Lieutenant-Governor (the second highest ranking official in the state).

CNN has reported that Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson posted disturbing and inflammatory statements on a porn site a decade ago.

They allegedly included Robinson calling himself a “black Nazi”, a “perv” and supporting the reinstatement of slavery. CNN published screenshots of what they say was Robinson’s account.

A controversial figure but well known conservative, Robinson flat out denied the allegations, calling them “salacious tabloid lies”.

If Trump didn’t have enough to worry about this week, US investigators revealed they had evidence Iran had passed information to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign (obviously when he still had one!) about the former President, in the hope of interfering with the upcoming election.

“This malicious cyber activity is the latest example of Iran’s multipronged approach to stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process,” a number of US security agencies said in a joint statement.

“Foreign actors are increasing their election influence activities as we approach November. In particular, Russia, Iran and China are trying by some measure to exacerbate divisions in US society for their own benefit and see election periods as moments of vulnerability.”

Iran, for its part, has always denied involvement in influencing the US election process.

This is not at all election related, but in the middle of the madness, I couldn’t help but smile this week at this armed NYPD officer spinning decks at an event in Times Square. It was such a nice juxtaposition to the madness happening everywhere else.

The officer, gun on his hip, looked like he was having a good time too.

As a serious, award-winning journalist I of course asked the question that everyone (no one) has been asking – do the New Zealand Police have an in-house DJ?

Turns out, they do.

Check out Constable Flaws in Taupo in 2019.

The NYPD have a more iconic location, but the NZ Police have better stage lights.

Have a good weekend everyone.