Former United States President Donald Trump – the Republican candidate in the presidential election – has returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, where he survived an assassination attempt in July.
Supporters on Saturday gathered for the rally, which came just a month before the November 5 election as Trump remains neck-and-neck with Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris.
“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 told the crowd, referring to his Make America Great Again movement.
He said he returned to Butler to show his supporters “stand stronger, prouder, united, more determined and nearer to victory than ever before”.
He then praised Corey Comperatore, a rally attendee who was fatally shot in the July 13 attack. Comperatore’s family were among those in attendance on Saturday, as were other victims injured in the shooting, Trump’s running mate, Senator JD Vance, and billionaire Elon Musk, who endorsed Trump moments after the assassination attempt.
During the July attack, Trump narrowly avoided a bullet fired by a man perched on a nearby roof. The former president briefly went to the floor as Secret Service agents rushed towards him. He then stood up, his ear bloodied, and pumped his fist in the air chanting “fight, fight, fight” as he was moved off stage.
The shooting transformed the election season, briefly giving Trump a bump in support as his campaign portrayed the incident as a showcase of Trump’s resiliency.
Still, the close call was largely overshadowed by US President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race in July and make way for Harris’s rise.
Speaking during the rally, Lara Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s daughter-in-law, sought to again harness the post attack momentum. She framed Trump’s survival as divine intervention.
“If you had any question whether God exists and performs miracles we got our answer here July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania,” she said. “He spared Donald Trump’s life because he wasn’t finished with Donald Trump.”
The assassination attempt also raised the spectre of political violence in the US, with Trump briefly pledging to take a more unifying approach before returning to the charged rhetoric that has defined his political career.
In September, Trump had another brush with an attempted assassin as he golfed at his resort in Florida, further charging the political climate.
Trump has broadly blamed the violence on Democrats’ claims that he poses an existential threat to US democracy.
The former president had pushed a series of falsehoods surrounding the 2020 election. His supporters later stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to overturn Biden’s victory. Experts have warned Trump is laying the groundwork to repeat the effort if he loses this time around.
Speaking at the rally, vice presidential candidate Vance decried Democrats – and Harris – for arguing the former president could again undermine Democratic norms.
“I think you all will join me in saying to Kamala Harris, how dare you call [Trump] a threat to Democracy?” Vance said to cheers. “Donald Trump took a bullet for Democracy.”
‘Strength and resiliency’
For his part, Trump’s son, Eric Trump, lumped the assassination attempts with the legal actions and criminal indictments Trump has faced since leaving office, as well as attempts by lawmakers to impeach Trump while he was in the White House.
The younger Trump claimed, baselessly, that Trump has been the subject over a wider coordinated effort to bring him down.
“They tried to get my father every second since he went down that golden escalator,” he said, referring to his father’s 2016 campaign launch.
The rally came as the US Secret Service continues to face questions over the security breach that allowed 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks to escape detection ahead of the July attack.
Crooks was able to take a position on a roof with a direct line of sight on Trump. He was fatally shot at the scene after opening fire.
The head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, stepped down in the days after the attack, which prompted both internal investigations and a Congressional probe.
Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service’s chief spokesman, told NBC News that “our people are being pushed to the limit” as they have sought to assure another attack does not happen.
“We recognise that this is not sustainable, and we cannot risk another mission failure,” he said.
