Donald Trump was rushed off stage by Secret Service agents on Saturday afternoon after shots rang out at his rally in Pennsylvania. A male attacker was shot and killed by a federal agent after the assassination attempt. The attacker killed one spectator at the rally, and two others are critically injured, according to the secret service.
Trump has now left a local hospital and says he 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’, the former president posted on his Truth Social account. ‘Much bleeding took place, so I realised then what was happening.’
Trump’s spokesman subsequently confirmed that the former president ‘is fine’. Following the shots, security staff swarmed the stage and rushed Trump off to a waiting vehicle. But before they did so Trump, with blood streaming down his face, raised his fist in an act of defiance, in what will surely become one of the defining images of the year.
BREAKING: The moment shots ring out at Trump's rally in Pennsylvania. pic.twitter.com/Y8LG7WmOVI
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 13, 2024
A secret service investigation has been launched into the assassination attempt, with more details likely to emerge in the coming days. Politicians across the national and international spectrum have been quick to pay their tributes, with many declaring it an ‘attack on democracy’. In a press conference President Biden said he hoped to speak to Trump later today.
‘We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this,’ he added. Barack Obama wrote online: ‘We should all be relieved that former President Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.’
Today’s shocking act of political violence will inevitably impact the remaining four months of the election campaign. Already, Senator J.D. Vance – a possible contender to be the Republican vice-presidential nominee – has suggested that the Democratic campaign’s ‘rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.’ Biden’s team has now-paused all political statements and is working to pull its television ads as quickly as possible.
Images of Trump, fist aloft, have already been widely shared his supporters. His son, Donald Trump Junior, shared one on Twitter, declaring that ‘He’ll never stop fighting to save America’. The former president had been speaking in Pennsylvania – a crucial swing state – ahead of Monday’s Republican National Convention in Wisconsin.
Already adored by the Republican faithful, Trump is now likely to receive an especially rapturous hero’s welcome when he receives the convention’s formal endorsement on Thursday night.
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