Donald Trump returned to Butler on Saturday, where he had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on July 13, assuring, in a provocative tone, that he would “never” give up even if the shooter tried to “ silence”.
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“12 weeks ago, right here, an assassin tried to silence me and our movement. This vicious monster (…) was close to achieving it, but the hand of Providence prevented him,” declared Mr. Trump, in front of a supportive crowd.
But the ex-president assures him, “I will never give up, never bend, never break.”
Getty Images via AFP
The Republican candidate and former president of the United States addressed several thousand people gathered in the town of Butler, in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, one month to the day before the presidential election on November 5 in which he will face Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
In the process, the Republican candidate marked a minute of silence, at the precise time when the shots rang out on July 13, with a strong tribute to the only victim, Corey Comperatore, before resuming his speech at the place exactly where it was then interrupted.
He also denounced those he called “the enemies from within, much more dangerous than those from without.”
“For the past eight years, those who want to stop us have slandered me, tried to impeach me, sued me, tried to take away my ballots and, who knows, maybe even tried to kill me. But I have never stopped fighting for you and I will never stop,” the former president assured his supporters.
The gathering took place under very high security, with snipers installed on the roofs of several surrounding buildings while a drone flew over the crowd, an AFP journalist noted.
“Trump must win”
Far more people came to hear Mr. Trump than at the previous rally in Butler, many of them wearing T-shirts featuring the former president’s image just after the assassination attempt, Others with their ears covered, reminiscent of the bandage he had worn in the following days.
Before entering the stage, Donald Trump was preceded by his running mate JD Vance, under the eyes of the richest man in the world Elon Musk, relatives of victims of the shootings and the police who protected him.
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Invited by Mr. Trump to come and speak, the billionaire presented the American election as “a fight that must not be lost”, fearing that it would, otherwise, be “the last election, that’s my prediction.”
“President Trump must win, to preserve the Constitution and democracy,” insisted Elon Musk.
The assassination attempt was seen as a pivotal moment in the electoral campaign, as Donald Trump stood out in opinion polls against Joe Biden after his disastrous televised debate and went two days later to “political martyr” at the Republican Convention.
Those close to the candidate have since accused the Democrats of inciting violence with their speech presenting Mr. Trump as an existential risk for democracy.
Getty Images via AFP
On July 13, in the middle of a rally, a young man shot the former president, injuring him in the ear, killing a sympathizer present in the stands and injuring two others.
“Fight, fight, fight”
For his team, Donald Trump “took a bullet for democracy.”
The populist tribune immediately grasped the scope of this shock: his ear bleeding, grazed by a bullet. Protected and evacuated by Secret Service agents, the septuagenarian remained standing, his fist raised in defiance in front of the cameras, urging his supporters to “fight, fight, fight”.
The scene, immortalized under a large American flag, went around the world.
AFP
The Secret Service had shot young gunman Thomas Crooks, 20, perched on the roof of a building a few hundred meters away. The head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, was forced to resign.
This assassination attempt, followed by a second in September on the former president’s golf course in Florida, caused shock at home and abroad. The United States is marked by a violent political history: the last president killed was John Kennedy in 1963.
At the same time, Kamala Harris, for her part, was in North Carolina, another key state in this election, hit by a powerful hurricane which left at least 220 dead in the southeast of the United States, where she met rescue teams and victims.
