Law enforcement agents were investigating what they suspected was a genuine attempt on Donald Trump’s life at a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Gugliemi said on X that “the former president [was] safe” after more than a dozen gunshots erupted, prompting agents protecting Trump to leap on him amid the ensuing panic.
In a pair of statements, Trump himself said he was “fine” after a bullet struck “the upper part of [his] right ear”.
Secret Service agents shot the suspected attacker dead after he fired toward Trump “from an elevated position outside of the rally venue”, Gugliemi said.
One spectator was killed and two others were critically wounded. The shooter was not immediately identified.
Trump issued thanks to the Secret Service agents as well as other law enforcement officers for “their rapid response” in a post on X in the shooting’s aftermath.
“Mostly importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed and also to the family of [those] badly injured,” Trump said.
“It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country.”
Video from NBC News captured more than a dozen shots, with later ones apparently coming from agents protecting the president, who had been speaking on stage at the time.
A voice could be heard saying: “Get down, get down, get down!” Agents arrived to throw themselves on top of Trump as the gunfire continued and screams were heard from the crowd.
Audio from the network captured agent’s voices saying: “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down. Are we good to move? We’re clear, we’re clear.”
As agents tried to move Trump off the stage at the rally, he said: “Let me get my shoes. Let me get my shoes.” Agents can be heard telling the former president: “I got you. Hold on. Your head is bloody. We’ve got to move.”
Trump replied: “Wait, wait.” He then pumped his fist, mouthed the words: “Fight, fight, fight.”
And the crowd at the rally responded with cries of: “USA! USA! USA!”
Armed troops in uniform soon arrived as some spectators shouted abuse at the media.
Agents then whisked Trump away from sight.
Video showed blood on Trump’s ear. There were also snipers on a roof near the stage where Trump was standing, the Reuters news agency reported.
NBC News, citing two senior law enforcement officials, reported there was growing concern among investigators that the shooting at the Trump rally “may have been a serious attempt on his life”.
Local district attorney Richard Goldinger appeared on CNN and said he wasn’t sure how the suspected shooter “would’ve gotten to the location where he was”.
“That’s something we’re going to have to figure out – how he got there.”
The BBC, meanwhile, interviewed a Trump supporter who said he was outside the rally site and had been trying to get close enough to hear the former president speak when he saw a man carrying a rifle climb on to the roof of a building.
The man said he pointed out the building in question to police and remarked: “There’s a guy on the roof with a rifle.” But none of the police reacted, and about two minutes later, the man fired several shots.
At that point, the man told the BBC, Secret Service agents shot the makeshift sniper to death. “They blew his head off,” the man said.
One rallygoer who described himself to CBS News as an emergency room physician recounted walking toward a voice saying: “He’s been shot.” The rallygoer, whose shirt was bloodstained, said he saw a man with a bullet wound to the head who had been spun around and ended up “jammed between the benches”.
He said he had tried to perform CPR on the wounded man, who at the time was about to be loaded into a medical helicopter.
Joe Biden said Saturday on X that he had been briefed on the reported shooting.
“I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well,” the president said of Trump. “I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information.”
In a televised address, Biden urged widespread condemnation of political violence.
“The bottom line is, the Trump rally … should have been able to be conducted peacefully without any problem,” Biden said. “But the idea … that there’s political violence … in America like this is just unheard of. It’s just not appropriate. Everybody must condemn it.”
The scenes from the rally prompted a flood of reactions, including support for Trump from Republicans such as former president George W Bush as well as the US senators Marco Rubio of Florida and JD Vance of Ohio.
Former first lady Laura Bush “and I are grateful that president Trump is safe following the cowardly attack on his life”, Bush said. “And we commend the men and women of the Secret Service for their speedy response.”
Rubio said on X on Saturday: “Praying for President Trump and all those attending the rally in Pennsylvania today.”
And Vance posted on X: “Everyone join me in praying for our President Trump and everyone at that rally. I hope everyone is OK.”
The top Democrat in the US House, Hakeem Jeffries, also offered prayers to Trump.
“I am thankful for the decisive law enforcement response,” Jeffries wrote on X. “America is a democracy. Political violence of any kind is never acceptable.”
The former Democratic president Barack Obama said in a separate statement: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, 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. Michelle and I are wishing him a quick recovery.”
In a Guardian interview in June, Steve Bannon – a Trump adviser and former White House chief strategist – spoke of his concerns that the Republican nominee would be assassinated before the election in November.
“It’s my number one fear,” Bannon said, speaking before he began a four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena. “Assassination has to be at the top of the list and I believe that the woman that’s running the Secret Service part is not doing her job.”
Referring to the Republican national convention, due to start on Monday, he added: “I’m not comfortable with what’s happening in Milwaukee.” But he added: “His detachment is fantastic.”
Bannon argued that Trump had been portrayed as a new Julius Caesar everywhere from a New York theatre production to an essay by leading scholar Robert Kagan, paving the way for a would-be assassin to feel justified in emulating Brutus. He said Abraham Lincoln received similar treatment after the civil war.
“Remember John Wilkes Booth. In the southern press, and in particular the Richmond papers, Caesar-ism, Lincoln is Caesar, Lincoln is taking your liberties. You fought this war but, even in losing the war, he’s going to take all your liberties and enslave you.”
