Trump plans return to Pennsylvania assassination attempt site, says law enforcement will 'learn from this'
Former President Trump on Monday announced his plans to return to Butler, Pennsylvania – where a gunman tried to assassinate him at a campaign rally on July 13 – in October, though he didn’t give an exact date.
The announcement came during the former president’s hour-long conversation with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on X, formerly Twitter, that garnered about a billion viewers in total, Musk said in a follow-up post early Tuesday morning.
“By the way, we’re going back to Butler, and we’re going to go back in October,” Trump said during the conversation over X’s “Spaces” feature, which allows users to listen to audio conversations in real-time.
Butler is a “great area,” Trump said, adding that he has been in touch with the families of Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old husband, father and retired volunteer fire chief who was fatally shot during the assassination attempt; David Dutch, the 57-year-old Marine veteran critically wounded; and James Copenhaver, the 74-year-old father who was also critically wounded.
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The former president credited a change in plans – specifically, when he asked his campaign to project a chart showing immigration statistics on a large screen to the right of his podium – as the reason he walked away from the rally alive, with only a nicked ear.
“It’s very much… an act of God. It’s a miracle. I’m honored by it.”
“The bigger miracle was that I was looking in the exact direction of the shooter. And so it hit me at an angle that was far less destructive than any other angle,” Trump told Musk. “So that was the miracle.… For those people that don’t believe in God – I think we gotta all start thinking about that.”
Trump also credited various first responders for their help during and after the shooting, from local police to U.S. Secret Service officials to doctors in the Butler area.
“[T]he Secret Service sniper – they call him or sharpshooter, but sniper… he didn’t know there was a problem. He’s an extraordinary shot, obviously. And he didn’t know there was a problem. And he was able to pick it all out within five seconds,” Trump said. “He used one bullet from very far away… probably about 400 yards… and he saw the smoke and the flame from the gun. He immediately recognized it and immediately took a shot.”
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He also credited the USSS officers who jumped on top of him when he heard the first bullets fly by his head.
“They moved so fast,” he said of the agents. “And let me tell you, that took tremendous courage.”
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Trump then praised a Butler police officer who climbed up onto the roof of the AGR building, where shooter Thomas Crooks was hiding, just seconds before Crooks opened fire. Trump said if it weren’t for that distraction, he may not be alive today.
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“[The officer] saw the man with the gun, the man with a gun pointed the gun at him, he thought he was probably going to get shot. But he was, like, pulling himself up, and because of that, he couldn’t get to his gun. And he fell down, actually very badly hurt.… But he fell down and he did, from what I understand, he did say there’s a guy up there with a gun. And the shooting started very quickly after that.”
The local officer “did what he was supposed to do,” Trump added later on.
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Trump thinks the encounter between the local officer, who has not been publicly named, and Crooks made Crooks act “quicker,” potentially impacting his aim at the former president.
“For those people that don’t believe in God – I think we gotta all start thinking about that.”
The former president also said the assassination attempt will be a learning experience for law enforcement: “They’re going to learn from this,” he told Musk when the Tesla CEO asked about the former president’s thoughts on how officials missed a gunman on the roof of a nearby building that was unmanned at the time of the rally, despite people in the crowd pointing him out.
“There was a mistake. If somebody knew, because… there was just a bad feeling that there was somebody around,” Trump said.
Additionally, Trump gave a shout-out to doctors who treated him and the other victims, saying they “were really incredible.”
“It was a very terrible experience. The Butler hospital, they did such a great job, the doctors were so good,” the former president said.
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