Fifty days until Election Day – and the race for the White House is rocked once again.

Two months after former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in western Pennsylvania, the Secret Service opened fire while Trump was playing golf at one of his courses in southern Florida to prevent what appeared to be a second assassination attempt against the former president.

After decades without an assassination attempt against a sitting president or major party presidential nominee, for the second time this summer, the nation has narrowly avoided a tragedy of gigantic proportions that would only further deepen the nation’s already firmly cemented polarization.

‘Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!’ the former president vowed in a fundraising email to supporters on Sunday, following the incident.

A top Trump ally, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, argued in a statement that ‘as Americans we must unite behind him in November to protect our republic and bring peace back to the world.’

It is way too early to gauge whether the latest incident will impact the race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris to succeed President Biden. 

The only thing that is certain is that the time left in the 2024 campaign is fleeting.

Harris emphasized that the ‘clock is ticking,’ as she called on supporters at a fundraiser on Saturday to volunteer and mobilize their friends to vote.

‘Please join our teams in our battleground states and help register folks to vote. … And talk with your neighbors and your friends about the stakes,’ she urged.

With the first and potentially only debate between the Democratic and Republican Party presidential nominees now in the rearview mirror, and early voting and absentee balloting starting to get underway, the showdown between Harris and Trump remains a margin-of-error race in the seven crucial battleground states that determined the outcome of Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump and will likely determine the winner of the 2024 election.

The latest Fox News Power Rankings currently rates six of the seven states as toss-ups.

Those states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada – have seen the bulk of the campaign traffic from the Democratic and GOP tickets and are the battlefields in the ad wars between the two sides. 

‘I think this is going to be a turnout exercise. Whoever does a better job of turning out their voters in those seven states will win,’ veteran Republican strategist Nicole Schlinger told Fox News.

Harris’ campaign, touting an ‘historic, 24-hour haul,’ last week showcased their fundraising prowess by hauling in $47 million in the immediate aftermath of the debate.

The money raked in by the Harris campaign was the latest sign of the vice president’s surge in fundraising in the nearly two months since she replaced Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 national ticket.

‘Fifty-days is a lifetime in politics, but today I’d much rather be Kamala Harris than Donald Trump,’ longtime Democratic strategist Joe Caizzzo, a veteran of multiple presidential campaigns, said. ‘I think the enthusiasm remains overwhelmingly with the Democrats but there’s still a lot of work to be done.’

The Harris campaign highlights that it is investing much of its fundraising dollars into its grassroots outreach and get-out-the vote efforts, noting that it is ‘putting its resources into reaching the voters who will decide the election.’

The large ground game operation, originally constructed when Biden was the nominee, according to the campaign, includes over 312 offices and more than 2,000 staff in the key battlegrounds coordinated between the presidential campaign, the DNC and state Democratic parties.

In a straight Harris campaign and the DNC comparison to the Trump campaign and the RNC, the Democrats enjoy a sizable ground game advantage. However, Trump is relying on a handful of aligned outside groups to help run turnout operations that are traditionally performed by a presidential campaign. 

Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley took issue with the suggestion that the Democrats enjoyed a stronger get-out-the-vote operation.

‘No, they don’t have a stronger ground game. I feel very, very comfortable about the ground game we’re putting in place through Trump Force 47,’ the RNC chair emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview last week.

Whatley pledged that ‘we absolutely have the resources that we need to get our message out to all the voters that we’re talking to and feel very comfortable that we’re going to be able to see this campaign through, and we’re going to win on November 5.’

Additionally, Schlinger, a veteran of numerous Republican presidential campaigns, says on the key issue, Trump has the advantage.

‘Voters whose number one issue is the economy believe the economy is headed in the wrong direction and believe Donald Trump will do a better job fixing that,’ she emphasized. ‘Harris, I think, has an uphill climb explaining how she’ll do anything different than Joe Biden on that.’

Schlinger added for undecided voters, familiarity with the GOP nominee could give Trump an edge.

‘Nearly a third of voters have said they need to know more about Kamala Harris. With President Trump you know what you get, and I think that’s an advantage for Republicans,’ she argued.

GOP Sen. Josh Hawley released a wide-ranging report Monday morning detailing the failures of the Secret Service in connection with the first assassination attempt against former President Trump in July, including new whistleblower allegations that are ‘highly damaging to the credibility’ of the agency. 

Hawley, R-Mo., shared his report with the House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump to supplement their investigation. 

Hawley found a ‘compounding pattern of negligence, sloppiness, and gross incompetence that goes back years, all of which culminated in an assassination attempt that came inches from succeeding.’ 

‘On July 13, 2024, former President Donald J. Trump was nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet while hosting a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and the U.S. Secret Service failed to prevent it,’ the Hawley report states. ‘It was the most stunning breakdown in presidential security since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.’ 

Hawley said the Secret Service, FBI and Department of Homeland Security ‘have all tried to evade real accountability.’ 

‘These agencies and their leaders have slow-walked congressional investigations, misled the American people, and shirked responsibility,’ the report states. 

After the first of two assassination attempts against Trump in just over two months, Hawley visited the Butler rally site to interview whistleblowers and opened up a whistleblower tip line, encouraging those with relevant information to share with officials. 

‘The resulting findings are highly damaging to the credibility of the Secret Service and DHS,’ the report states. ‘They reveal a compounding pattern of negligence, sloppiness, and gross incompetence that goes back years, all of which culminated in an assassination attempt that came inches from succeeding.’ 

Whistleblowers provided valuable information to Hawley, including that the Secret Service’s Counter Surveillance Division, which performs threat assessments of event sites, did not perform a typical evaluation of the Butler site and was not present on the day of the rally. 

Hawley also learned that Secret Service personnel ‘declined multiple offers from a local law enforcement partner to deploy drone technology, despite the fact that the would-be assassin used a drone to survey the rally site mere hours before the attempted assassination.’ 

Hawley also learned that the Secret Service’s Office of Protective Operations-Manpower told agents in charge of security for the rally ‘not to request additional security resources because they would be denied.’ 

The report also outlines other whistleblower allegations, including that law enforcement personnel ‘abandoned’ the rooftop where would-be assassin Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate Trump ‘because of hot weather.’

The report also said the Secret Service agent with the responsibility of the security of the site, including ‘line-of-site concerns,’ was allegedly ‘known to be incompetent.’ 

‘That incompetence led to the placement of items like flags around the Butler stage and catwalk, impairing visibility,’ the report states. 

Whistleblowers also told Hawley that supplemental DHS personnel were used to fill in shortages of Secret Service personnel on the day of the rally. Some of those agents were allegedly pulled off of child exploitation cases. Whistleblowers said their training was ‘merely a poor-quality, two-hour webinar.’ 

Meanwhile, Hawley revealed in the report that the lead agent responsible for the Butler rally ‘failed a key examination during their federal law enforcement training to become a Secret Service agent.’ 

Hawley also was told that Secret Service intelligence units – or teams of Secret Service agents paired with state and local law enforcement to handle reports of suspicious persons – were allegedly absent from the Butler rally.

Whistleblowers also told Hawley that the hospital site where Trump received treatment after the shooting was ‘poorly secured, and the hospital site agent could not answer basic questions about site security.’ 

Kimberly Cheatle, who was the director of the Secret Service at the time of the rally, resigned from her post amid mounting pressure from congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle after the massive security failure. 

The Secret Service’s assistant director, Michael Plati, is also retiring. 

At least five Secret Service agents have been placed on leave since the assassination attempt in July. 

Trump was shot with Crooks’ bullet, which pierced the upper part of his right ear. As Secret Service agents led him away, with blood dripping down his cheek and his right ear, the former president raised his arm defiantly. 

Trump, just a day later, traveled to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the 2024 Republican National Convention. He attended events each night of the convention, and on the final night, formally accepted the GOP presidential nomination. 

Hawley released his report just a day after the second assassination attempt against Trump. 

Trump was golfing at his course at Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida, Sunday when Secret Service agents spotted and began shooting at another would-be assassin – Ryan Wesley Routh – who allegedly had an AK-47 pointed at the former president on the green. 

Routh was arrested. Routh laughed and smiled ahead of his first court appearance in Florida on Monday, Fox News confirmed. 

He was charged with possession of firearm by convicted felon and possession of firearm with obliterated serial number. 

The first offense carried a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and supervised release. The second offense carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and supervised release. Routh responded ‘yes’ when asked if he understood the penalties. 

Fox News is told additional federal charges are possible. The initial charges announced Monday will keep Routh in custody.

The detention hearing is scheduled for Sept. 23, and the probable cause hearing is set for Sept. 30.

Routh has had at least 100 run-ins with law enforcement before his most recent arrest. 

In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump said the rhetoric of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris is causing him to be ‘shot at,’ following the second assassination attempt against him since July, while telling Fox News Digital that the suspected gunman ‘acted’ on ‘highly inflammatory language’ of Democrats.  

‘He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,’ Trump said of the gunman in an interview with Fox News Digital. ‘Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country – both from the inside and out.’ 

Trump pointed to Biden and Harris’ past comments casting Trump as a ‘threat to democracy,’ while telling Americans they are ‘unity’ leaders. 

‘They are the opposite,’ Trump said. ‘These are people that want to destroy our country.’ 

He added: ‘It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat.’

Following revelations of private memoranda and conversations between Supreme Court justices published in the New York Times, legal experts are warning that such sensitive leaks are ‘destructive’ to the high court. 

The New York Times reported that internal memos and deliberations that they claimed showed Chief Justice Thomas as having ‘molded’ the outcomes of three major cases the court considered dealing with Jan. 6 rioters, and granting former President Donald Trump certain immunity for presidential acts. 

Roberts wrote the majority in the decisions, and the report claims that he ‘provided crucial support for hearing the historic [immunity],’ and made last minute and unexplained changes to authorship of the politically charged opinions. 

The leak follows the unprecedented leaked draft of the Dobbs opinion which overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, and a concerted effort by Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration to make sweeping changes to the court and ethics enforcement. 

Republican lawmakers, such as Senators Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. and John Kennedy, R-La., claim those efforts are politically motivated to delegitimize one the court now sits with a majority of Republican-appointed justices.

Some legal experts say this latest leak is part of that effort to undermine the Supreme Court. 

‘I think it’s enormously destructive to the court when people inside the court disclose to the press confidential memoranda, confidential emails and what appears to even be remarks made at the justices’ conference,’ James Burnham of King Street Legal and former senior Justice Department official told Fox News Digital. 

‘It’s destructive because the justices can’t be candid with each other if they think that anything they say could end up in the New York Times. And that means they’re going to speak less to each other. It means they’re not going to be able to deliberate with the same openness that they historically have, and it ultimately undermines the court’s decision making,’ he added. 

‘It reads to me like somebody is trying to cast a negative light on the Chief Justice and the other justices in the majority for what I think was a plainly correct and brave decision,’ he said.

Carrie Seveino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, said that ‘if there is someone on the Court who deserves censure for being overly political in this case, it’s the individual who leaked’ the ‘highly confidential internal’ documents.

She added that the incident ‘is of a piece with the continued left-wing PR campaign against the Court.’

‘It’s an attempt to smear the Court as an institution, and as part of that, some justices have been targeted more than others,’ she said. 

John Shu, a constitutional attorney who served in both Bush administrations, Shu says he believes the leaks are politically motivated, and are most likely designed to keep Roberts anchored in the center or perhaps push him towards center-left in the upcoming term, especially if Trump is elected this November.

‘Because he is the Chief Justice, he gets to assign opinions when he’s in the majority, which is much of the time, and he has administrative power that the other justices do not have,’ said Shu. ‘And much like the President is the embodiment of Article 2, the Chief Justice is the embodiment of Article 3.’

‘It’s really scary that yet another norm has been shattered, violating the sacred confidentiality of deliberations and the opinion drafting process,’Shu said.

A conservative watchdog group sued the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) seeking documents relating to the situation that has left two U.S. astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS) for several more months.

The Oversight Project’s executive director told Fox News Digital on Monday he and his group have legally sought emails between NASA political appointees and the White House, including the office of Vice President Harris, who also holds the title of chair of the National Space Council.

The filing by Mike Howell, head of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, also demands outgoing emails to Harris’ presidential campaign. Just as Harris was tasked with assuaging the root causes of illegal immigration as the so-called border czar, her role as vice president makes her essentially the lead adviser on space policy in that regard.

‘This looks like to me and other experts that Kamala Harris, the space czar, chose politics over our astronauts,’ Howell said, inferring that there may have been a political calculation against bringing astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams home as planned.

‘It’s very bizarre that the mainstream media seems not to care about this massive scandal. We’re going to continue to investigate this and get Americans the answers they deserve.’

The National Space Council (NSpC) had originally been organized in a slightly different manner under former President George H.W. Bush before it was disbanded and reorganized under former President Trump.

Trump himself unveiled the first new branch of the military in decades, the U.S. Space Force, at a 2018 NSpC meeting.

In its filing, the Oversight Project seeks to compel NASA to share correspondence from agency chief of staff Bale Dalton III, Associate Administrator James Free and five other senior officials. It also seeks communications between NASA and officials in the commercial crew program at Boeing, the company that manufactured the Starliner capsule that took Wilmore and Williams to the ISS this summer.

A source close to the matter pointed to the stipulated responsibilities of the NSpC chair, as outlined by Trump in his 2021 executive order establishing the council.

‘The Chair shall serve as the President’s principal advisor on national space policy and strategy …’ the first stipulation reads.

The chair of the NSpC, therefore, has substantive advisory authority over NASA’s decision-making, the source said.

In an August press briefing, a NASA official said there was a ‘little disagreement in terms of the level of risk’ between the agency and Boeing after the capsule suffered propulsion issues and elemental leaks. Ultimately, the Starliner craft safely returned to Earth unmanned on Sept. 7.

A few weeks prior, Boeing officials said in a statement they remained confident in Starliner’s ability to return safely with crew aboard: ‘We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities. Our confidence is based on this abundance of valuable testing from Boeing and NASA.’

‘The data also supports root cause assessments for the helium and thruster issues and flight rationale for Starliner and its crew’s return to Earth,’ the statement reads.

On X, formerly Twitter, Howell listed the curriculum vitae of a handful of NASA hires made while Harris has led the NSpC, including a veteran of New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, another from the Jacksonville Symphony and an individual whose ‘scientific’ major was ‘political science.’

‘Space is serious business. Kamala Harris obviously has no business running the National Space Council… They’re lost in space right now. Part of the reason they’re lost in space is that our NASA has been turned into another woke-DEI, dismal excuse for a government agency,’ he said.

Howell also shared a copy of a document showing ‘strategic objectives’ of the ‘NASA DEIA Strategic Plan.’ 

‘The fact is that Vice President Kamala Harris’ record as Border Czar is as awful as her record as Space Czar,’ Howell said Monday.

Howell said it is important that the public see any such correspondence of a political nature between NASA, the vice president’s camp and/or Boeing because other nations like China are watching for such ‘sign[s] of weakness.’

‘It seems that Harris signaled a willingness to cede America’s space superiority in the name of an effort to ‘save democracy,’’ he said, suggesting the DEIA priority may jeopardize national security. ‘When is enough, enough?’

The astronauts, however, took their extended trip in stride.

‘I love being in space. This is my happy place,’ Williams said.

Wilmore will miss his daughter’s final year of high school but notably requested his absentee ballot Friday so that he would be able to vote from orbit.

Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ governmental office and the Harris campaign but did not receive a response. 

In a response to Fox News Digital regarding the FOIA, a NASA spokesperson stated that Harris and NSpC staff ‘received frequent updates on the Starliner Crewed Flight Test.’

‘While the National Space Council works closely with civil, national security, commercial, and international partners to advance the nation’s space priorities, it does not make operational spaceflight safety recommendations or decisions,’ the spokesperson wrote.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.