Trump Says He’s in Danger. So Why Did He Seek Out the Embrace of 100,000 Fans?

After two assassination attempts, the former president seems to be relishing the dangers of his job. Some at the Georgia-Alabama football game wondered if his appearance was wise.

Chicken tenders and cynicism were flying through the air.

It was Saturday night in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and former President Donald J. Trump was in the bowels of Bryant-Denny Stadium at the University of Alabama, surrounded by screaming football fans. He began hurling boxes of chicken at them. His aides filmed his every movement, uploading the footage to social media.

One popular pro-Trump influencer reposted a video of Mr. Trump traipsing through the concourse, writing: “There have been two assassination attempts on this man in the past three months and he walks into a stadium full of 100,000 people like a boss. Next week he’s returning to the site where he was shot. Total badass.”

It was a perfect encapsulation of the ways in which Mr. Trump and those around him have plied the plots against his life for political benefit.

The shooting in Butler, Pa., which left two men dead, including the gunman, was a terrifying event that was rewatched endlessly in the era of social media streaming. And it was shocking how close a second would-be assassin got to the former president weeks later at his golf club in Florida. These near misses have rattled the country and stirred memories of dark chapters in American political history.

Mr. Trump plans to return to Butler for a rally on Oct. 5, and he relives these attempts on his life at nearly every campaign stop. Lately he has taken to saying that he has one of the most dangerous professions in the world, more dangerous than racecar driving or bull riding. He has bragged about the mortal danger in which he finds himself (“they only go after consequential presidents”); used it as evidence of divine intervention (“God has now spared my life — it must have been God, thank you — not once, but twice”) and as inspiration for set design (he decorated the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee with images of his bloodied face).

There has been a new assassination threat against him from Iran, as retaliation for ordering the killing of the Iranian general Qassim Suleimani in early 2020, and some recent campaign events have been scaled back, modified or canceled altogether. “I am surrounded by more men, guns, and weapons than I have ever seen before,” he wrote on Truth Social last week.

Are his supporters, his rivals, the press and the public to treat his every appearance from here on out as an act of death-defying bravery, as he and his boosters suggest? And if he really is the most marked man in the world, why was he wandering around a football stadium in the Deep South in a state he does not need to campaign in, tossing out poultry and posing for selfies?

While many at the Alabama-Georgia game were thrilled by his presence, there were plenty of others who found his appearance needless, and somewhat irritating.

“I don’t think it’s a smart move for him to come,” said one grounds and facilities worker for the university. “I would say about half the people are probably annoyed.” Security was tight, traffic was gridlocked, bomb-sniffing dogs prowled the grounds and a hundred thousand people were told to arrive early to pass through magnetometers in time for kickoff.

Others were rolling their eyes at the melodrama of it all.

“He’s as safe as in his mother’s arms here — 95 percent of the folks here think he is the second coming,” said Thomas Radney, a 53-year-old lawyer from Alexander City, Ala., and a rare Democrat among the red-wearing, red-voting masses there that day. He was drinking a Michelob Ultra and standing in front of the gates to the Sigma Nu fraternity house. Behind him, young men wearing Trump stickers and khaki shorts were standing on a lawn littered with crushed beer cans and discarded vapes.

Mr. Radney was with one of his closest buddies, a lawyer from Montgomery, Ala., named Ben Wilson, who had a round sticker slapped on his chest that read “Roll, Trump, Roll.”

“I’m for him, but I would have preferred he just stayed away today,” said Mr. Wilson, “for logistical reasons.”

Mr. Radney suggested a motive for Mr. Trump’s insistence in coming. “Alabama is going to vote for him by huge numbers,” he said, “so the fact that he is here just proves what he wants is accolades and people waving, that’s his whole deal. I want people to cheer for me.”

Mr. Wilson smiled and nodded. “It’s no coincidence he chose this game,” he said.

Inside the stadium, Mr. Trump sat behind glass, in a V.I.P. box, with an entourage that included Kid Rock, Herschel Walker and Alabama’s two senators, Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt. Mr. Trump had been invited to the game by Ric Mayers, a 39-year-old Tuscaloosa petroleum executive who had met the former president at Mar-a-Lago and donated to his campaign. Reached after the game, Mr. Mayers said that Mr. Trump was “so energetic, so happy, it was shocking just how much energy that he had” and that he “didn’t tell anybody no to pictures, didn’t tell anybody no to autographs, he was ecstatic to be there.”

So none of the dangers of the job or plots against his life seemed to be weighing on his mind? “I can’t answer that,” Mr. Mayers said. “I can’t speculate about how he felt or anything.”

As the game kicked off, a Goodyear blimp hovered overhead while regional advertisements crawled their way around the arena’s screens (“It’s not a tailgate without Bojangles” … “Full Moon Bar-B-Que ‘Best Little Pork House in Alabama’…”). Shortly before 8 p.m., the screens flashed to Mr. Trump’s box. He stood up and pumped his fist. The crowd roared for about three seconds. And then it was back to the game.

Mr. Trump’s aides promptly posted photos and videos of the moment to social media. “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!” one wrote.

And then the former president left, just after halftime, long before the game ended.