COLIN CAMPBELL: Assassination attempt of Donald Trump was a stunning event on live TV on a quiet Saturday night
It was a quiet Saturday night and as it drifted towards its conclusion what better way to spend it than by tuning in to a rally being held by Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania?
Not everyone's late night cup of tea I know. But the cut and thrust of the most bitterly contested US presidential election in my lifetime has fascinated me.
I knew Trump was due to appear at 10pm on stage, 5pm US time at the venue. Virtually anything that happens anywhere is accessible these days, and I tuned in to a small US TV station called Right Side Broadcasting, via YouTube, which, with no commentary or presenters, had cameras showing it live. They panned over an enormous crowd which looked like the mass of humanity at a Hyde Park pop concert.
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But this was no pop concert. Former President Trump is a polarising figure but he’s been demonised beyond belief. He has been repeatedly and persistently compared to Hitler. To some he's the Devil incarnate. Whenever his name is mentioned - including in this country - frothing hatred is liable to prevail. So when he ambled on stage an hour later, just after 6pm US time under clear blue skies, what immediately struck me - without the benefit of hindsight - was how exposed he was.
The level of security surrounding every US president since Kennedy was shot in 1963 - a historic event I remember as a child - is legendary. They glory in their huge, steel-plated motorcades. Everyone on the planet is aware of the image of the swarthy secret service agent in dark glasses on hair-trigger alert.
But there was the tall, white-shirted figure with his MAGA cap strolling around on a stage in front of tens of thousands of people, totally exposed in the vast outdoors. Why was he left so vulnerable?
Now I wasn't there. I wasn't there any more than the people who turned out four years ago to cover the Ness Bridge with protest posters on a Sunday after the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis were there when that happened.
But close proximity to an event is not needed for it to have an astounding impact. And from the moment the shots were fired I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing. Trump went down. There were screams. Agents scrambled around him. A minute later he appeared to be upright, but this was almost a blur. Many a man has walked 10 yards after being shot and then dropped down dead.
He was carried off stage and disappeared. Calmly viewed re-runs of what happened, knowing the outcome, are very different. But amid the chaos of the moment I had no idea if I’d just witnessed live on television a shooting which would result in the death of a US president, and presidential contender, for the first time since Kennedy, an event which would have incalculable consequences for the USA and the world. Hours later it would emerge a bullet ripped his ear open. Shocking as it was, it was within an inch of being the most shocking close-up live TV ever witnessed.
There are some very rare moments when sitting in a room trying to process something truly extraordinary is not enough, and those immediately after the shooting were among them. I texted, I phoned, I emailed, all to no avail. People were either out on the town or sound asleep. Next day replies came in. One friend chided me for trying to wake him.
The consequences of what happened will stretch far ahead. Donald Trump is almost certain to be the next US president. He will be the leader of the free world for another four years, and what that will bring is unknown. Some left-wing extremists in the Labour government will try and ban him from the UK. John Swinney, or whoever is shovelled in as the next SNP First Minister, will make a puerile show of trying to snub him when he visits Scotland.
But the day when there was an attempt to kill Donald J Trump will go down in the annals of history. I'll retain those stunned and disbelieving texts and emails I sent as a personal reminder of the quiet Saturday night that was so dramatically upended, and turned into one of the most vividly unforgettable I’ve ever experienced.
