Trump assassination attempt casts a cloud over what could be Rubio’s brightest moment

The brightest moment of Marco Rubio’s political career could be on the horizon, as former President Donald Trump weighs whether to name him as a running mate during the Republican National Convention this week in Milwaukee. But it would come amid a cloud cast over American politics, following Saturday’s failed attempt on Trump’s life at a political rally.

The shooting — which grazed Trump’s right ear, killed one of the former president’s supporters and wounded two others — came just hours before the start of the convention, where Trump has been expected to unveil his running mate choice as soon as Monday. Whether those plans would change was unclear Sunday afternoon, though convention organizers said the event would continue as planned. An earlier nomination, coming late Sunday, also remained a possibility.

For Rubio, a former presidential candidate who has harbored White House ambitions for the past decade, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

“If you’re Rubio, you have to realize that if you’re tapped to be the VP candidate, there’s a very good chance you’ll be the president of the United States,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist and former congressional candidate in Florida. “If you’re Rubio, you were talked about as being the future of the Republican Party, and now there’s a very real chance that you could be the present of the Republican Party.”

A spokesman for Rubio declined to comment. He referred the Miami Herald to the senator’s remarks on his account on the social media site X, saying that he was “praying” for Trump,” and that “God protected” the former president from the assassination attempt.

Prior to Saturday’s shooting, Rubio’s backers noted that he has the most experience in government out of the finalists on Trump’s vice presidential list.

“He’s got the experience,” U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a former Miami-Dade mayor, told Fox News. “If something, God forbid, happened to President Trump, he could be a great president.”

Trump has been building suspense over his running mate pick for months as he met with and vetted potential candidates and narrowed down the list to a handful of high-profile Republicans, including Rubio, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

The former president has offered no clear indications who he will pick. At a campaign rally at his golf club in Doral last week, Trump repeatedly name-dropped Rubio, feeding rumors that he could choose the Florida senator as his running mate. But he’s also offered similar hints about Burgum and Vance, and has openly raised concerns about Rubio’s Florida residency, which could raise constitutional questions should he opt to have the senator join the ticket.

For a week now, an announcement has been expected to come at any minute. Trump met with all three potential candidates at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach in recent days in a sign that he was closing in on a final decision, according to a person familiar with the meetings.

But Republicans said that the attempted assassination of the former president has both overshadowed and refocused the conversation over Trump’s vice presidential pick.

Justin Sayfie, a Florida-based Republican lobbyist who will attend the Republican convention this week, said the running-mate announcement isn’t likely to get the wall-to-wall media coverage it would receive in ordinary circumstances. Still, he said, the events of Saturday evening could make Trump’s decision more important than ever.

“It diminishes the publicity that it would have received otherwise because the focus is going to be on the aftermath of the assassination attempt and the investigation into the failure of the Secret Service to protect our democracy and to protect a major party candidate for the presidency,” Sayfie said.

“On the other hand, it’s still going to be an important news event but will also be part of this larger story of how democracy was almost shattered by a single bullet,” he added.

Trump was rushed out of his rally on Saturday by Secret Service agents after a shooter outside of the event perimeter fired several shots at the former president, who later said that a bullet had pierced the upper part of his right ear. One rally attendee was killed in the shooting and two others were taken to a local hospital in critical condition.

The shooter — identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks — was killed by Secret Service agents. Law enforcement agents haven’t yet indicated that they have a motive for the shooting.

In a statement issued after the shooting, Trump’s campaign said that the former president was “fine” and had been taken to a local medical facility for examination. Two of his top campaign advisers, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, later insisted that the shooting wouldn’t disrupt the Republican National Convention or the former president’s plans.

Still, for many, the assassination attempt was the latest — and gravest — reminder of the volatility of the current political climate and the presidential contest. That fact makes Trump’s running mate choice all the more urgent, O’Connell said.

“Obviously, with what has transpired in this race, it’s more important than ever that Donald Trump has a running mate as soon as possible,” O’Connell said. “We just don’t know what the next four months are going to bring.”