Trump Stages Dramatic Return to Site of Pa. Assassination Attempt

The Washington Post / Isaac Arnsdorf, Justine McDaniel

15:26 JST, October 7, 2024

BUTLER, Pa. – Republican nominee Donald Trump suggested that his political opponents could have been responsible for the July assassination attempt against him as he staged a dramatic return Saturday to the fairgrounds where he was hit by an attempted assassin’s bullet July 13.

“Those who want to stop us … have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me,” Trump said.

Eric Trump, the former president’s son, also used the word “they” in speaking about the assassination attempt rather than referring to the lone shooter with a singular noun, suggesting there was a conspiracy behind the attack – something that the FBI has not found.

“They tried to take away someone we all love,” he said. “They tried to smear us. They came after us. They impeached him twice. … And then, guys, they tried to kill him. They tried to kill him. And it’s because the Democratic Party, they can’t do anything right.”

With the theatrics – which included a full slate of speakers, an original country song about July 13, skydivers, a flyover by Trump’s private jet and the repeated casting of Trump’s survival as the will of God – Trump’s campaign solidified the assassination attempt as a defining moment for his presidential campaign and his MAGA movement.

Trump used his return to reinforce his bond with his supporters, telling them, “We’ve bled together.” He added: “Nobody has gone through what we’ve gone through. Nobody. Because I go through it, you’re going through it, too.” He said the MAGA movement was “nearer to victory than ever before,” said it had become “immune” to attacks, and pledged he would “never yield, even in the face of death itself.”

“Exactly 12 weeks ago this evening, on this very ground, a cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me and to silence the greatest movement, MAGA, in the history of our country,” Trump said. “MAGA. We love MAGA.”

The former president took the stage after an introductory video montage, which compared his surviving the shooting to George Washington crossing the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War. His appearance lasted almost two hours.

To open his speech, Trump displayed the same inaccurate chart on immigration that had been onstage when the shooting occurred. “As I was saying …” Trump began, gesturing to the chart. The crowd erupted into cheers. “Oh, I love that. I love that chart.”

The campaign brought back many attendees who had sat in the bleachers behind Trump at the July rally, where a gunman shooting from a nearby roof grazed the former president’s ear, killed one attendee and wounded two others. The family of Corey Comperatore, who was killed, was in attendance Saturday, as was one of the men who was wounded. Trump said the other was recovering from surgery related to the shooting.

He called Comperatore “a loving and devoted father, a really great man” and a “hero.” Trump then asked for a moment of silence at 6:11, the time the shooting began, and a bell tolled three times. Comperatore’s firefighting uniform was arranged in the bleachers with flowers.

The assassination attempt has become a growing theme for Trump and his supporters, especially after another man allegedly tried to kill him Sept. 15 and intelligence officials briefed the former president last week on ongoing threats to his safety from Iran.

The Secret Service admitted multiple failures in preparation and communication that allowed the July 13 gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, to reach an unpatrolled roof about 150 yards from the stage. Countersnipers killed Crooks at the scene. Investigators have not identified a motive, any political or ideological dimension, or any foreign connection to the shooting. Crooks, 20, was a registered Republican who had also given a small donation to a liberal PAC. He had researched past assassinations and had photos on his phone of both Trump and Biden.

While the motives remain unknown, Trump’s movement now commonly discusses the shooting as part of a long sequence of hardships that includes investigations, impeachments and prosecutions – and Trump frequently mentions it on the campaign trail.

Saturday’s event drew thousands and featured survivors of the shooting and tributes to the victims and first responders, plus Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), billionaire backer Elon Musk and the singer of Trump’s walkout anthem, Lee Greenwood.

Trump described hearing “the bullets winging right over my head.” He praised “the hand of providence and the grace of God” for saving his life, thanked the Secret Service members “who threw their bodies on top of mine” and said countersnipers who killed the shooter had saved many lives.

He also ran through themes from his regular campaign speeches, repeating false claims about immigrants, criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris and claiming he had “the greatest economy.”

Taking the stage midway through Trump’s speech, Musk also recounted the assassination attempt, saying Trump “was fist-pumping after getting shot. ‘Fight, fight, fight!’ Blood coming down the face.” Musk predicted that if people don’t vote for Trump, “this will be the last election,” falsely suggesting that Democrats would end elections.

About a half-hour into Trump’s speech, some attendees began leaving. Others broke into the national anthem during a pause when someone in the crowd needed medical attention. Chants of “God bless Trump” and “USA” rose up throughout the night.

Speaking to the crowd ahead of Trump, Vance repeated the right-wing talking point that Democratic warnings that Trump is a threat to democracy because of his attempts to overturn the 2020 election spurred the attempted assassination against him.

“How dare you talk about threats to democracy,” Vance said of Harris, Trump’s opponent. “Donald Trump took a bullet for democracy. What the hell have you done?”

He opened his speech by recounting the attempt: “Now, 84 days ago, of course, on this very field, an assassin tried to fill our hearts with terror,” Vance said. “But we’re here to say we can’t be intimidated. We cannot be stopped. We won’t be denied.”

After Vance accused Democrats of inflammatory rhetoric, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump called the election a conflict between “good and evil.” Like others, she also referred to Trump’s survival as a miracle from God.

“If you had any question whether God exists and He performs miracles, we got our answer here on July 13th, right here in Butler, Pennsylvania. He spared Donald Trump’s life because He was not finished with Donald Trump,” she said.

The return to Butler also marked how much the race for the White House has changed in less than three months. On Trump’s last visit, he was about to formally accept the Republican nomination and name his running mate with a commanding lead in national and swing-state polls after President Joe Biden’s halting, muddled performance in a June debate. This time, Trump is narrowly trailing Harris in most polls, lagging in fundraising and campaign infrastructure, and hammering on his most enduring themes of immigration and crime in the search for a winning message against her.

Another tangible change took the form of beefed-up security. Roads around the fairgrounds were blocked off in advance on Friday, and box trucks formed a protective ring around the venue, blocking sightlines from the road. The county sheriff told local news outlets that undercover and uniformed officers would be deployed throughout the crowd.

Trump was less than 10 minutes into his speech on July 13 when Crooks opened fire. Trump’s head was turned to look at the chart displayed on a screen next to the stage, a motion that he and many of his supporters believe saved his life.

“It’s going to be a very emotional day for a lot of people,” John Fredericks, a pro-Trump radio host based in Pennsylvania, said before the event. “A lot of us believe that it was God’s will that he turned his head.”

The maze to enter the rally was completely full by 9 a.m. Saturday, an hour before doors opened. People baahed like sheep and mooed like cows as they snaked through the barricades, with occasional chants of “U.S.A.!” and “Fight!” Many in line wore shirts or earrings with images of the assassination attempt and discussed their experience here the last time.

On the evening before the rally, a group of Trump supporters camping out to be among the first to enter the rally formed an impromptu prayer circle under a giant flag bearing Trump’s mug shot and the words NEVER SURRENDER. Passing cars honked or blasted music in support. One motorist booed.

Waiting for the rally to begin, some spoke of the sense of camaraderie and family they felt at Trump gatherings, and of their frustration with government benefits they believed were going to undocumented immigrants while they worked multiple jobs and struggled to get by.

A mobile billboard truck parked near the fairgrounds displayed rotating memes, including a picture of Trump with Jesus behind him, captioned: “It’s okay. They called me guilty too.” Throughout the afternoon, a man dragged a life-size wooden crucifix up and down the road between tents selling Trump shirts, flags and signs with the iconic photo of him raising his fist and shouting “Fight!” after being shot.

A woman from the Butler area named Tracey Baker recalled how before the shooting on July 13, the flag suspended above the stage became tangled in the wind. A nearby church had put up a billboard of the image along the main road. “It was an angel,” she said. “If you believe in God, you only would have seen that. You knew what it was. You couldn’t deny it.”