A man armed with a shotgun and a fuel can was fatally shot Sunday at Mar-a-Lago after he not only trespassed onto the president’s home, but refused to comply with law enforcement when ordered to drop his weapon. You wouldn’t necessarily know that, though, if you relied on the propaganda press’ coverage of what appears to be yet another assassination attempt against President Donald Trump.
Twenty-one year-old Austin Tucker Martin of Moore County, North Carolina ignored orders to drop his weapons after being instructed by Secret Service agents and a sheriff’s deputy. Martin reportedly dropped the fuel can but raised his shotgun, prompting law enforcement to fatally shoot him. The president was not present at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the incident.
But if you happened to be scrolling on social media, perhaps X, you may have come away with the impression that a man simply wandered somewhere he shouldn’t have and paid the ultimate price for it.
The New York Times in a post on X wrote: “Breaking News: A man was fatally shot by law enforcement after he entered the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s resort in Florida, the Secret Service said.”
The fact that the man was armed — a detail that fundamentally changes the nature of hte event — was omitted from the post that reached hundreds of thousands. While the story itself notes the man was “armed,” the headline and social media post minimized the severity.
Reuters’ Jasper Ward originally published a piece entitled “US Secret Service agents killed man trying to unlawfully enter Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort,” though the piece appears to have been updated at a later time to include “armed” in the headline.
MSNow’s Erum Salam wrote on Sunday at 4:45 p.m. (hours after the incident was widely reported and that the man was indeed armed): “Secret Service says law enforcement fatally shot a man at Mar-a-Lago overnight.”
Salam did not mention in the introduction that the man was armed, instead writing that “Secret Service agents and a local law enforcement officer opened fire on him for trespassing.”
Notably, agents say they instructed Martin to drop his weapon, and when he failed to comply they fatally shot him.
It’s unsurprising the propaganda press would downplay yet another assassination attempt. It seems to be standard practice.
When Trump was within an inch of losing his life at a Butler, Pennsylvania rally in July 2024, The Washington Post — which later won a Pulitzer Prize in the breaking news category for its coverage of the attempted assassination — wrote that Trump was “taken away after loud noises at rally.”
The loud noises in question were gunshots, and the featured image of the article showed the president with blood pouring down his face.
Not everyone received an award for their propaganda. USA Today said Trump was “removed from stage by Secret Service after loud noises startle former president.”
NBC News reported “Secret Service rushes Trump off stage after popping noises heard at his Pennsylvania rally.”
The Los Angeles Times reported “Trump whisked off stage in Pennsylvania after loud noises rang through the crowd.”
Across the board, the propaganda press avoided the most basic description of what had occurred, that is, the president was the victim of an attempted assassination.
When Trump was nearly assassinated just two months after his first attempt, the propaganda press tried to excuse the political violence by linking Trump to unsubstantiated bomb threats that later turned out to be hoaxes.
When assassination attempts are constantly downplayed or reframed as isolated incidents involving “loud noises” they stop feeling shocking. And once political violence stops shocking the public, it starts to become normalized, even almost expected. Just as important, the direction of this violence is rarely acknowledged. Time and time again, it flows from left to right. Consider the larger pattern.
Charlie Kirk was assassinated this past September while speaking at a college campus in Utah. Just weeks after that attempt, leftists were out publicly calling to “Make Assassinations Great Again” during a “No Kings” protest in October.
That same month, a man who tried to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was given a slap on the wrist. Days later, a different 41-year-old man was arrested on bomb charges after he showed up to a mass that Supreme Court justices traditionally attend to mark the beginning of the term.
Weeks after that, Virginia Democrats elected Jay Jones to serve as the state’s attorney general. Jones fantasized about murdering his Republican colleague, Virginia’s then-Republican House speaker, and the deaths of his children.
In January, Elliot Forhan, a Democrat running to be Ohio’s attorney general, promised to kill Trump if he wins the November election. Forhan even posted a video on social media explaining how he would “kill Donald Trump.”
And just this past month, 26-year-old Colin Demarco showed up to the home of Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought wearing a surgical mask and gloves in an alleged attempt to murder him. The man reportedly said he feared a “fascist takeover” from the Trump administration.
None of this exists alone. But no pattern is acknowledged by the propaganda press nor the left writ large — which brings us back to Mar-a-Lago.
An armed man with deadly weapons forced his way into the secured perimeter of the sitting president’s home and refused orders to drop his weapons. Such a story should have been dominating the news cycle for at least 24 hours. Instead, it’s been largely downplayed or ignored because Americans have been conditioned to expect it.
