At Aspen conference, worries about what comes after attack on Trump

ASPEN, Colorado — Politicians and national security professionals at an annual conference in the Rockies found themselves grappling with questions about political violence in the U.S. following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

In between the more typical concerns about cybersecurity and the rise of China, attendees at the Aspen Security Forum expressed worries about security lapses that allowed the shooting, the potential for further political instability and whether the reelection of the former president would drive him to adopt more hardline positions in response to Saturday’s attack.

Some speculated that a second-term Trump could use the assassination attempt as an excuse to impose security crackdowns on groups such as Muslims and immigrants on hyped grounds that they posed a threat.

If Trump were to take such actions, “the security and civil liberties consequences could be severe,” said a Democratic lawmaker who, like others, was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Foreign officials at the Aspen Security Forum and in Washington expressed similar concerns about how Trump could react.

During his presidency, Trump cut the number of refugees to historic lows and restricted legal immigration, with measures such as restrictions on visas for people from several majority Muslim nations, in the name, at least in part, of national security.

“If you’ve been shot at, it gives you a different perspective. But we have yet to see what that perspective might be,” said Mark Esper, who served as Defense secretary under Trump until he was fired. The former president, he said, is “inclined to go to the military for tough problems — protests in the street, building a wall, Covid vaccine. I could go on and on.”

The 20-year-old man blamed for the shooting that wounded Trump and killed a bystander Saturday was a U.S. citizen, but some forum attendees said Trump may nonetheless point to the attempt on his life as further justification for curbing both illegal and legal migration. Such moves also would please many in his political base.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but calls to crack down on migration across the southern border are a regular feature of the former president’s rallies.

The lawmakers, diplomats and other national security professionals who gather at the Aspen conference each year can have significant influence on U.S. policies.

There were attendees who downplayed concerns about Trump’s possible reaction to the attempted assassination.

“If you go back and look at what Trump said versus what he did as president, his bark was always far nastier than what he did,” said John Herbst, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Many national security professionals at Aspen were pondering the same key questions as the broader public about the security lapses that allowed a shooter to fire at Trump.

“You have an elevated shooting position, a little over 100 yards away from where the [former] president of the United States is standing,” a former Republican Senate aide said. “How is nobody on that building? It’s just odd.”

Several people warned against making assumptions about what happened before reviews were complete. But some also said that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle should be pushed out. She was supposed to be a panelist here but pulled out in the wake of the shooting.

“She should definitely resign,” said Michael Allen, a former White House and congressional aide who dealt with intelligence and other national security matters. “There needs to be accountability when there’s a manifestly obvious mistake that was made.”

While many making those comments are former officials or lower level ones, it could be a harbinger of rising pressure from top players on Cheatle to step aside.

“Even though it may not have been necessarily her fault throughout the chain, she is the leader and it really gets into accountability for the institution,” a former U.S. law enforcement official said.

“It’s wild to me that she hasn’t been asked to leave yet,” one senior U.S. official back in Washington said.

But others also were thinking far beyond the investigation itself to the impact the shooting could have in the months ahead, perhaps making the political environment even more polarized and fomenting domestic unrest.

Given the increasingly bruising rhetoric partisans are throwing at each other in the United States, one attendee connected to a Washington think tank said of the shooting: “When I saw the news, I thought ‘yeah,’ that sounds about right.”

In a joint intelligence bulletin issued Monday, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned that extremists or others may attempt follow-on or retaliatory acts of violence in response to the attack on Trump.

The Aspen forum is being held this year at the same time as the Republican National Convention, so even without the shooting attack, politics would have loomed larger than usual.

Last year, many at Aspen refused to talk about Trump in particular, even though some see his isolationist views and fondness for authoritarian leaders abroad as undermining U.S. national security.

Several national security officials said it was critical that U.S. leaders, including Trump, avoid harsh rhetoric and seek to unite the American people in an effort to avoid future incidents.

Pavel Khodorkovsky, a U.S.-based son of Russian dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky, said Trump’s choice of J.D. Vance, a Republican senator who often caters to far-right elements in the GOP base, suggested that the former president wouldn’t be pursuing a message of national unity.

But he said he was open to being persuaded otherwise.

“I need to hear what he’s going to say at the convention,” Khodorkovsky said of Trump’s upcoming speech, expected Thursday.

Erin Banco contributed to this report.