CV NEWS FEED // A would-be assassin shot and injured former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania Saturday evening.
Secret Service agents rushed the stage after several shots rang out. Trump stopped speaking mid-sentence and put his hand to his right ear before dropping momentarily to the ground. Seconds later, the former president firmly resisted his security team as they were about to whisk him from the stage. “Wait, wait,” Trump said, and, turning to the audience, he defiantly raised his fist and mouthed the word “Fight” several times.
Trump’s face was visibly streaked with blood after a bullet from the shooter’s gun grazed his ear.
Shortly after the incident, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung stated that the 45th president “is fine and is being checked out at a local medical facility.”
“President Trump thanks law enforcement and first responders for their quick action during this heinous act,” Cheung added.
At least one person – an attendee at Trump’s rally – was confirmed dead as a result of the attempt on the former president’s life. On Sunday, the deceased Pennsylvania man was identified as former volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore.
At least two other attendees were critically wounded, according to the Secret Service.
The gunman was reportedly killed by a Secret Service sniper. He was identified the following morning as 20-year-old Pennsylvania man Thomas Matthew Crooks.
On Saturday night, after surviving the assassination attempt, Trump took to TRUTH social and stated: “I want to thank The United States Secret Service, and all of Law Enforcement, for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler, Pennsylvania.”
“Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the Rally who was killed, and also to the family of another person that was badly injured,” he continued:
It is incredible that such an act can take place in our Country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear. I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!
The following morning, Trump released an updated statement on TRUTH Social, announcing his belief that it was divine intervention that saved his life.
“Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” Trump wrote.
“We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness,” he continued:
Our love goes out to the other victims and their families. We pray for the recovery of those who were wounded, and hold in our hearts the memory of the citizen who was so horribly killed. In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win. I truly love our Country, and love you all.
Trump added that he “look[s] forward to speaking to our Great Nation this week from Wisconsin” at the upcoming Republican National Convention.
Nearly two hours after Trump was shot, President Joe Biden’s X (formerly Twitter) account stated:
I have been briefed on the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania. I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well. I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information. Jill and I are grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to safety. There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.
Biden told reporters Saturday evening: “I tried to get ahold of Donald, he’s with his doctors. Apparently he’s doing well. I plan on talking to him shortly. I hope, when I get back to the telephone.”
“There’s no place in America [for] this kind of violence,” he stated. “It’s sick.”
A reporter then asked Biden: “Mr. President, do you think this was an assassination attempt?”
“I don’t know enough,” the president replied. “I have an opinion but I don’t have the facts. So, I want to make sure I have the facts before I make some comment.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, and former U.S. National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien issued a statement calling for the many controversial charges against Trump to be dropped in response to the incident.
“We’ve got to take the political temperature down, as evidenced by what happened in Pennsylvania today,” Lee and O’Brien wrote:
We call on President Biden to immediately order that all federal criminal charges against President Trump be dropped, and to ask the governors of New York and Georgia to do the same.
Such a gesture would help heal wounds and allow all Americans to take a deep breath and reflect on how we got here.
Our prayers are with the victims of the shooting, President Trump and our country.
Other observers stated that the apparent increase of anti-Trump vitriol and leftist activism over the past few years is to blame for the attempt on a former president’s life. Some have even suggested that Biden himself bears some of the blame.
CatholicVote wrote on X: “Maybe Biden should start with an apology for calling Trump and his supporters an existential threat to the country.”
CatholicVote President Brian Burch added: “People will say it’s too early or reckless to say this, but left-wing ideologies and political movements are inexorably connected to violence. Always.”
Columnist Joe Concha pointed to a comment Biden made on Monday. “We’re done talking about the debate,” Biden had said, “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
“Defend that. Go ahead,” Concha pressed Biden. “Try to defend that rhetoric after what we all just witnessed with Trump coming with a centimeter of being assassinated.”
Conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck wrote on X: “Joe Biden and the Democrats don’t get to wiggle out of this with half hearted statements.”
“They framed Trump as a modern Hitler,” he noted:
They framed him as a danger to society.
They lied about his policies to incite fear.
They framed his supporters as terrorists.
They own this.
Popular X account End Wokeness pointed to a post Biden’s account issued just two weeks before the attempt to assassinate Trump.
“Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation,” the post stated. “He’s a threat to our freedom. He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for.”
End Wokeness noted: “This post could be a page straight out of an assassin’s political manifesto.”
Catholic political commentator Liz Wheeler wrote on X: “No leftist is ever allowed to mention Jan 6th ever, ever again.”
Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-HI, argued that Saturday’s attempted assassination was the logical conclusion of years of hateful rhetoric directed at Trump and his supporters from many on the left.
“The assassination attempt on President Trump is a logical consequence of repeatedly comparing him to Adolf Hitler,” she wrote. “After all, if Trump truly was another Hitler, wouldn’t it be their moral duty to assassinate him?”
Gabbard left the Democratic Party and became an independent in 2022.
In a lengthy Sunday morning X post, conservative scholar Victor Davis Hanson referred to what he called “Assassination Porn and the Sickness on the Left.”
“We have witnessed for years blatant exceptions to the once common custom that we don’t normalize the imagined killing of any president or presidential candidate and thus lower the bar of violence,” Hanson wrote. “But the Left constantly makes Trump an exception. Now, it as if the imagined killing of Trump had been mainstreamed and become acceptable in a way inconceivable of other presidents.”
Other observers commended Trump and his rallygoers’ reactions to the assassination attempt.
Far-left political commentator Cenk Uygur wrote: “One more credit to Trump and his fans today – and only today – Trump sticking the hand up and saying, ‘Fight, fight, fight!’ while the crowd chanted ‘USA, USA, USA!’ was bad ass.”
American Principles Project (APP) President Terry Schilling thanked Uygur for his post, writing: “You’re one of the only people on the Left that’s not tweeting terrible things right now.”
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk posted an image of the cover of The New York Post’s Sunday issue. The cover featured the already iconic image of Trump with his fist outstretched and the headline “Bloodied but unbowed, ex-president survives assassination bid.”
“This image will now define his entire campaign,” Kirk wrote.
Barstool Sports founder and owner Dave Portnoy also posted the image of Trump to X. Portnoy, widely considered to be a political moderate and social liberal, simply wrote above the picture: “The election is over.”
On the night of the assassination attempt, Trump was leading Biden by comfortable margins in nearly every battleground state poll.
