Former President Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally, days before he was to accept the Republican nomination for a third time.
A barrage of gunfire set off panic, and a bloodied Trump, who said he was shot in the ear, was surrounded by Secret Service and hurried to his SUV as he pumped his fist in a show of defiance.
Trump’s campaign said the presumptive GOP nominee was doing “fine” after the shooting, which he said pierced the upper part of his 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. Much bleeding took place,” he wrote on his social media site.
Law enforcement officials told the press the assailant who opened fire at the rally was a 20-year-old man from Pennsylvania. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that hadn’t yet been publicly released.
One attendee was killed and two spectators were critically injured, authorities said. All were identified as men. The Secret Service said it killed the suspected shooter — who it said attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue, a farm show in Butler, Pennsylvania — and said Trump was safe.
The FBI said during a press conference late Saturday that they were not prepared to release the identity of the shooter and had not yet identified a motive for the assassination attempt.
The attack was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It drew new attention to concerns about political violence in a deeply polarized US less than four months before the presidential election. And it could alter the tenor and security posture at the Republican National Convention, which will begin Monday in Milwaukee.
Organizers said the convention would proceed as planned.
Trump flew to New Jersey after visiting a local Pennsylvania hospital, landing shortly after midnight at Newark Liberty International Airport. Video posted by an aide showed the former president deplaning his private jet flanked by U.S. Secret Service agents and heavily armed members of the agency’s counter assault team — an unusually visible show of force by his protective detail.
President Joe Biden, who is running against Trump, was briefed on the incident and spoke to Trump several hours after the shooting, the White House said.
“There’s no place in America for this type of violence,” the president said in public remarks. “It’s sick. It’s sick.”
