from WNYC studios. I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Monday, July 15th.

And we begin this week, of course, with the country in grief and horror over Saturday night's apparent assassination

attempt on former President Donald Trump, the life of a Trump rally goer that the gunman's

bullet did take, and the two other people said to be critically wounded, and all their families.

Politically, the story of this year's presidential election is transformed yet again.

Just 16 days after the debate that threw President Biden's very candidacy into question

comes the apparent attempt to assassinate his challenger, and I only say apparent because

officially the motive is still under investigation, but of course it appears to everyone to be an assassination attempt.

And the Republican Convention is beginning today. Thankfully, Trump is well enough to be there

in Milwaukee. He has arrived. President Biden has addressed the nation three times calling on Americans

to, quote, lower the temperature in our politics. On the Today Show yesterday,

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson used basically the same phrase. We've got to turn the temperature

down in this country. We need leaders of all parties on both sides to call that out and make sure

that happens so that we can go forward and maintain our free society that we all are blessed to have.

So Biden and Johnson, both calling for lowering the temperature. Trump himself,

lucky to be alive, posted a call for unity, similar but different.

And as the convention begins and under these circumstances,

former Republican Party chair Michael Michael Steele,

asked on NBC special coverage last night, will Trump stand up at his convention now and say

political violence is unacceptable? There are so many examples of Trump encouraging or winking at violence

when it favors him. David Frum, the former speechwriter

for President George W. Bush, had a piece in the Atlantic yesterday with the lead line,

...