America's Talking - 2024 Year in Review: Trump's Comeback, Wars Abroad, & More

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

The Center Square's 2024 Year in Review including the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, his ensuing political comeback, wars abroad, & more. Keep up with all of the national news in 2025 at The Center Square: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. The New Year is almost upon us, which gives us a chance to look back on 2024 and all that was. From a national news standpoint, the year was dominated by presidential politics. Despite four separate criminal indictments against him, former President Donald Trump swept the Republican primaries early in 2024 to once again become the GOP nominee. He survived two attempted assassinations and a last-minute flip of Democrat presidential candidates from President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race, to Vice President Kamala Harris. And now, former President Trump is President

elect Donald Trump. Joining me to discuss this today is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, it's been a surreal year to say the least. What stands out to you about it? Yeah, I mean, Dan, what a year. This is surreal as one word. Chaotic is another word. There's a lot going on. I say that, you know, the attempted assassination of President Trump, not once but twice,

is historic in a way that it's going to be in history books. It's going to go beyond the new cycle, beyond this podcast, beyond this election cycle even. I think that it had the potential to be an affliction point in the history of the country. I mean, Trump is leading a podcast. political movement that this America First movement has been very controversial, but it's totally remade the Republican Party in his image. The country's not going to be the same after. And potentially, you know, J.D. Vance is his successor who has many of the same ideas and could run after Trump and carry this America First legacy. And if he's able to do that, then Trump will have pretty

much single-handedly transition the Republican Party to a totally different ideology, a totally different way of operating. And a pretty, I mean, it reminds you of something like Teddy Roosevelt. I mean, the way he just operated outside the lines and was this big, larger than life figure that changed American politics forever. If Trump's able to do that, for all the criticisms and controversy, he stirred up, there's no doubt that he's made a huge impact on the country. So this assassination, you know, his reelection, also, of course, which is many called

the biggest political comeback in American history, that's a big, a big, a big, phrase, but it was definitely a huge, huge comeback. He was able to unseat Kamala. So of course, that has to come top of mind for me. I think another one, Dan, is we saw this war with Iran, Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas. The Middle East is in a level of chaos right now that we haven't seen in a long time, Dan. And of course, so is Ukraine and Russia. So I think a lot of people came into this year, maybe hoping that we would have resolved the Ukraine-Russia war by now. or at the very or at the very least, you know, be making progress towards that. And right now it seems like we haven't made any progress.

In fact, it's being escalated by, you know, for instance, Ukraine assassinating Russian nuclear, you know, affiliated generals. And now we have another war. And so this has been a lot of ways the year of war building up to possibly more war in 2025. I think that if something big doesn't change, we could see even more regional escalation in 2025. So kind of the Trump, the Trump phenom at home and the broader wars abroad, which I think are poised to even increase, Dan, have got to be two of the biggest stories of the year.

Yeah, I want to, I want to touch on, go back to Trump and touch on one thing in particular. July 13th, 2024 is a date that will be ingrained in my mind, and I'm sure plenty of Americans across the country. That's the day Donald Trump held a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, because of massive secret service failings that we've learned about since that day. One man, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was able to get on a roof nearby the Trump rally, get off several shots, Gray's Trump in the year, kill an innocent bystander who was an attendee of the rally, injure others before he was shot and killed himself. That was a Saturday. It was about 6.15 p.m. Eastern Time time. I'm in the central time zone.

I remember this clearly. I got a text from one of the Center Squares managing editors, Alan Wooten, and the text was just this, Trump shot question mark. I was stunned, immediately went to my TV, turned it on, got online, called other Center Square staffers in, saying, hey, this is an all hands-on-deck type of moment. We worked through the night. We ended up writing 27 stories in a 24-hour period on it. And then the image of Trump, getting back up after being shot in the air, fight, fight, fight.

That might be the enduring image of 2024, what say you. Yeah, I think it has to be. I mean, it really is probably what won in the election also, but by the way, because, you know, Elon Musk, for instance, a billionaire owner of X, Tesla, SpaceX, boring company. He said when he saw that moment, that's when he decided to support Donald Trump. And, you know, he quickly endorsed Trump after that. That was before Biden even dropped out of the race. And I think that Musk's endorsement is, was pivotal for Trump. I mean, it helped him get Joe Rogan, which is pivotal. It helped him get a lot of men. And of course, if you look at demographics, young men or really help swing this election. And so it had that image. That

image, though, you're right, is so powerful. It's summed up the kind of machismo fighting spirit of Trump that, you know, is defiant in the face of criticism that's defiant against, you know, what he calls the deep state against the establishment to stand up and throw your fist in the air. In that moment of attack, I think really put his whole ethos into one image that was really compelling for a lot of people. And it also, you know, Trump was under a lot of different accusations at that time regarding his, you know, his legal troubles. Dan, I mean, that seems like an old story now. But, you know, he was really under, you know, under a lot of pressure because of the indictments and convictions and all that. But I think that shooting kind of ended those stories

because it allowed Trump to say, I took a bullet for this country. And you're worried about if I, you know, signed the right documents on some thing years ago. This is a witch hunt against me. And so when he is almost killed, it just plays into the argument that he is being persecuted, right? He can say, they tried to get me with lawfare and it didn't work. And now they, of course, is always vague. But now they tried to kill me, right? And so I think that that shooting is kind of what killed the legal persecution or the prosecution against Trump. I mean, we had some big, just to throw in their day. We had some major Supreme Court decisions this year, for instance. the overturning of Chevron deference is a huge one, which basically is giving, is paving the way for this Doge effort with Vivek Ramoswamy and Elon Musk to actually just lop off huge parts of the federal government.

It gives Congress a lot more power to overturn regulations, to prevent regulations. And also, Dan, you remember the immunity for former presidents. Right. The court ruled that presidents have, you know, substantial and not all encompassing, not super broad, but they have some level of immunity for things that they did while in office for official acts, quote unquote, official acts while in office. Now, defining what's an official act and what's not, that's a whole other question. But that was a pretty monumental historic Supreme Court case as well. I agree with you there, Casey. To you or in your family,

to all of our listeners, have a happy new year. And just a reminder that listeners can keep up with all of the stories we've talked about here today and much more at the Center. square.com.