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Donald Trump injured in assassination attempt at Pennsylvania rally
Donald Trump was injured in what the FBI said was an assassination attempt at an election rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, an act of political violence that threatens to upend an already tumultuous US election race and deepen the country’s polarization.
The former president was wounded in a hail of gunfire at 6:15 p.m. from an “elevated position” outside the venue, according to the U.S. Secret Service. The gunfire killed one bystander and critically wounded several others, all men, officials said.
Trump was immediately rushed off stage to his entourage, with blood visible from his right ear and running down his cheek. He raised his fists and shouted “Fight!” to the crowd before being led away.
The Secret Service, which protects current and former presidents, said the suspected gunman had fired “multiple shots toward the stage” before being killed by its agents. The FBI called the incident “an assassination attempt on our former President Donald Trump.”
The FBI later identified the alleged shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
Donald Trump with blood on his face after the shooting © AP
The shooting drew condemnation from across the US political spectrum, with President Joe Biden, who spoke to Trump on Saturday night, describing the incident as “sickening” and a reason “why we have to bring this country together”.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence,” Biden said.
International leaders also condemned the incident. UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was “horrified by the shocking scenes”. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he would “pray for President Trump’s speedy recovery”, while French President Emmanuel Macron called the incident “a tragedy for our democracies”. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said she was “deeply shocked”.
The shooting began just minutes after Trump began speaking at a rally of supporters in Butler, a rural town in northwestern Pennsylvania. Witnesses and footage suggested seven or eight shots were fired.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he was “shot with a bullet that pierced the top of my right ear.”
“I knew immediately something was wrong because I heard a whistling sound, gunshots and immediately felt the bullet rip through the skin,” he said. “There was a lot of bleeding, so I realized what was happening.” He offered his condolences to the families of the dead and injured participants.
Police became aware of the shooter only after the shots were fired, according to an initial assessment. Asked at a news conference whether the incident marked a security breach, FBI agent Kevin Rojek said it was too early to make any determinations but added that it was “surprising” that the perpetrator was able to fire multiple shots. Rojek also declined to comment on the shooter’s motive or the type of weapon used.
Trump left Butler County and then flew to New Jersey, according to a social media post from his campaign team.
Biden was briefed on the shooting shortly after the incident. “He appears to be OK,” the president said of Trump in brief remarks from the police department in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he has a vacation home. “You can’t allow this to happen. You can’t be like this. We can’t tolerate this.”
Biden continued: “The bottom line is that Trump’s rally is a rally he should have gotten [conduct] peacefully without any problems.”
Biden was expected to return to the White House at 12:30 a.m. Sunday, a spokesman said.
A Biden campaign representative said the president’s reelection campaign was “pausing all outbound communications and working to pull our television ads as quickly as possible.”
The apparent assassination attempt on Trump is the first time in decades that a current or former president has been the victim of a shooting. It comes less than four months before the presidential election in November and ahead of next week’s Republican National Convention, when Trump is expected to formally accept his party’s nomination for president.
Trump’s campaign said after the shooting that he still “looks forward to joining [supporters] at the convention”.
U.S. politics has been plagued in recent years by deep divisions and heightened political rhetoric, with sporadic outbreaks of violence over the past four years, including the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. Some Republicans were quick to pin the blame for the incident on Biden’s political rhetoric.
JD Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio and Trump’s potential running matesaid the “central premise of the Biden campaign” was that Trump was “an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to the assassination attempt on President Trump,” he said.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the justice department would “use all available resources” in the investigation, which the FBI said in a separate statement it would lead.
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Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, wrote in X that he had been briefed on the situation and was “praying for President Trump.” Johnson later said the House would “conduct a full investigation” and subpoena the Secret Service director and other federal officials to testify before congressional committees “as soon as possible.”
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, said in a statement that he was “horrified by what happened,” adding: “Political violence has no place in our country.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama were among those who echoed that sentiment, with Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the US House, saying he was “grateful for the decisive police response”.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz, Stefania Palma and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
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