A few short minutes after Trump took the stage, shots rang out
BUTLER, Pennsylvania — On Saturday at 6:02 p.m., to the sounds of “God Bless the USA,” former President Donald Trump took the stage at a fair in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he waved to the cheering crowd and delivered his customary speech under a blazing midsummer sun.
A few minutes later, Trump pointed to a projection of a graph showing a spike in illegal border crossings under the man he’s running against, President Joe Biden. “That graph is a couple of months old,” Trump told the crowd. “And if you want to see something really sad —”
That’s when the shots rang out, at least five. Trump clutched his ear as darkly dressed Secret Service agents rushed toward him. He fell to the ground as the agents shouted, “Get down!” The thousands of rallygoers on the field before him moved as one, falling as silence spread across the grass, broken only by the occasional scream.
Moments later, Trump stood as Secret Service agents crowded around him, covering his body with their own. They attempted to escort the former president offstage to the left as blood dripped from his ear. “Wait, wait, wait,” Trump said. He clenched his fist as the crowd cheered and appeared to mutter the word “fight” before agents shoved him down the steps and toward a waiting black SUV. Trump clenched his fist again before heading inside.
The local district attorney said the gunman and one of the protesters were dead. In a statement issued shortly after the attack, which officials say was an assassination attempt, Trump’s campaign said he was “fine.”
There was no hint of the horror to come as rallygoers gathered outside the Secret Service’s secure perimeter earlier that afternoon. Butler, a city of 13,000 33 miles north of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania, is firmly in Trump territory. It’s the kind of rural Rust Belt terrain that helped Trump win the presidency in 2016 and nearly kept him in office in 2020 — Trump won Butler County by 32 percentage points.
The green grass of the field was slowly covered by a sea of red Make America Great Again hats as temperatures rose to 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Local politicians spoke intermittently as protesters waited patiently for hours, occasionally breaking into chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” At one point, a giant American flag became tangled, prompting chants of “fix the flag!” until the flag was unfurled properly.
Outside the perimeter, there were stalls selling food, drinks and Trump paraphernalia, as is customary at rallies. Behind the stage, separated from the field by waist-high metal barriers, stretched another field, dotted with distant buildings. The crowd cheered as Trump’s favorite playlist began, which began with The Village People’s “YMCA.” Trump then walked to the stage, wearing his familiar red hat, black suit, white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and no tie.
He smiled and pointed to the crowd cheering him on, waiting for the Lee Greenwood song to end before he began his remarks. “This is a great crowd,” Trump said. “This is a great, great, beautiful crowd.”
After naming David McCormick, the Republican running against Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and promising to bring him onstage later in the rally, Trump pivoted to one of his favorite themes. “We have millions and millions of people in our country who should not be here,” he said. “Dangerous people.”
He then referred the audience to the projected map showing the border crossings.
After the shots rang out and Trump was dragged off the stage, black-suited officers carrying assault rifles stormed the stage, the agency’s Counter-Assault Team. The crowd remained below, except for a small group of people standing on the left side of the perimeter, close to the sound of gunfire.
Even as Trump was being chased away, rallygoers remained low. Some had heard bullets ricochet off the stands, severing a hydraulic line to the speakers, which began to topple. Others rushed to call family or check their phones to see what had happened to the former president.
“Is he okay?” people started asking. “Is he okay?”
Eventually, people began to trickle out. A small group of about half a dozen stopped at the fenced-off area to hold the media. “This is all your fault!” they shouted.
Police and then the Secret Service led everyone outside. An hour after the shooting, the vast field was declared a crime scene, littered with empty plastic water bottles and soggy cardboard containers that once held cheese fries.
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Associated Press editor Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story from Denver.