Three aspects Who benefits from the attempted assassination of Donald Trump?

Donald Trump is combatively trying to use the failed attempt on his life for his cause. Kamala Harris must turn the case into an opportunity. And Vladimir Putin? He's rubbing his hands together.

Since Thomas Matthew Crooks unsuccessfully tried to shoot Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, the Secret Service has tightened the reins. That's why the agents are now one hole ahead of the 78-year-old as he plays golf with friends on his course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on September 15.

An agent spies a gun barrel in the bushes. Ryan Wesley Routh has been waiting there for hours. He has an assault rifle with a scope with him - and a GoPro camera with which he is filming himself. He has also thought about food. When the Secret Service fires, the 58-year-old flees, Sheriff Rik Bradshaw later reports.

Routh is soon arrested on the highway because an eyewitness follows him and photographs his license plate. He is arrested and initially charged with weapons offenses: On the one hand, he is found to have possessed an assault rifle without permission as a previous offender and, on the other, to have made the serial number unrecognizable.

Who is the alleged perpetrator?

Trump was his candidate in the 2016 election, Routh wrote on X on June 10, 2020. "The world hoped that President Trump would be different and better, but we've all been very disappointed and it seems you're getting worse." The post ends with the sentence, "I'll be glad when you're gone."

The suspected assassin is fond of weapons: in 2002, Routh allegedly took part in a car chase in North Carolina while in possession of a weapon of mass destruction. The weapon in question was a fully automatic machine gun. Other offenses include carrying concealed weapons without a permit and resisting law enforcement, as well as hit-and-run and driving after revocation of identification.

"I saw the guns," says a neighbor from Greensboro, North Carolina. "They had a lot of guns and stuff over there. A lot of people used to be scared of him." But the attempted crime still surprises her: "I didn't think he would go that far. I know he was a bit crazy - but killing the president? He'll be in jail for a long time."

Donald Trump's campaign reacted to the attempted assassination with lightning speed: shortly after the incident, mass "Alert from Trump" emails were sent out in which the Republican announced that he was fine and would never give up - combined with an appeal for donations.

Trump himself evidently sees the attempted murder as an opportunity to attack his opponents. On Truth Social, he identifies "a whole new level of hatred, abuse and mistrust" in US politics. The culprits are "rhetoric, lies and all the ridiculous complaints", which explicitly includes the "false statements by Comrade Kamala Harris".

On "Fox News", Trump adds: "[The alleged perpetrator] believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris and acted on it. Their rhetoric caused me to be shot at."

The still-president and surrogate would call him a "threat to democracy" and portray themselves as the unifiers, Trump continued. "They are the opposite. They're the people who want to destroy our country. Man calls it 'the enemy within.' They are the real threat."

That is strong stuff. The Democrats could now recall how Trump publicly mocked the fact that Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul was attacked at home in October 2022. The perpetrator broke his skull with a hammer.

Or they could point out that Trump intimate Elon Musk just deleted a tweet asking why no one is actually attempting a hit on Harris and her vice-designate Tim Walz, which in turn makes the Secret Service nervous. They might cry out that terms like "enemy within," "bloodbath" or "vermin" contribute little to the political culture.

But Harris' campaign will be wary of attacking Trump in this regard after what is now his second assassination attempt. As he has said himself, the Democrat is trying to present herself as a candidate who can bring the country together. Harris is now trying to live up to her declared image.

One beneficiary of the situation is Vladimir Putin. The reason: Ryan Routh hates the head of the Kremlin. "We won't stop until Putin is dead and Moscow is a pile of rubble," he writes on X in 2022 , according to NBC News. The reason is the invasion of Ukraine, whose cause Routh champions from then on.

He even travels to Kiev and applies to the International Legion there, even though he has never been in the military - and is rejected. " According to ABC News , he also failed because of his mental health. No wonder that Volodymyr Zelensky promptly distances himself from the man with whom his country does not want to be associated.

But the political child has already fallen into the propaganda well. When asked what he thought about the case, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a Reuters reporter: "It's not us who should be thinking about it. It is the US secret services who should be thinking. Be that as it may, playing with fire has consequences."

Vladimir Putin's chain dog is less subtle: "I wonder what will happen if it turns out," asks Dmitry Medvedev on X, "that the thwarted Trump assassin Routh, who recruited mercenaries for the Ukrainian army, was hired by the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev for the attempted attack?"

In fact, Routh tried to bring fighters from Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Ukrainian front - and even gave an interview to the New York Times about it. In view of the fact that Russia has recently been repeatedly proven to be manipulating Western public opinion, this case is certainly just the right one for Putin's propaganda army for the war on the Internet.

For CNN, the whole thing is "a propaganda victory for Moscow at a very difficult time for Kiev". "Let's be honest: it puts Ukraine in a very bad light," admits YouTuber Denis Davidov, who was born in Crimea and fled to Germany. "Imagine if he had been successful ... I'm really glad [Trump] is alive."