Shooting at Trump Rally Is Being Investigated as Assassination Attempt, AP Sources Say

AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Law enforcement officers gather at the campaign rally site for Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is covered by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa.

BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — Donald Trump appeared to be the target of an assassination attempt as he spoke during a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, two law enforcement officials said. The former president, his ear covered in blood from what he said was a gunshot, was quickly pulled away by Secret Service agents and his campaign said he was “fine.”

A local prosecutor said the suspected gunman and at least one attendee are dead. The Secret Service said two spectators were critically injured.

Posting on his Truth Social media site about two and a half hours after the shooting, Trump said a bullet “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,” he said in the post. “Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”

The attack, by a shooter who law enforcement officials say was then killed by the Secret Service, was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It comes amid a deeply polarized political atmosphere, just four months from the presidential elections and days before Trump is to be officially named the Republican nominee at his party’s convention.