The shooter was dead, one rally attendee was killed and two other spectators were injured, the Secret Service said in a statement. The incident is being investigated as an assassination attempt.
Law enforcement officials told reporters they had tentatively identified a suspected shooter but were not ready to do so publicly. They also said they not yet identified a motive.
Trump, 78, had just started his speech when the shots rang out. He grabbed his right ear with his right hand, then brought his hand down to look at it before dropping to his knees behind the podium before Secret Service agents swarmed and covered him. He emerged about a minute later, his red 'Make America Great Again' hat knocked off, and could be heard saying "wait, wait," before the fist bump, then agents rushed him to a black SUV.
"I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear," Trump said later on his Truth Social platform following the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Pittsburgh. "Much bleeding took place."
The shooting occurred less than four months before the November 5 election. Leading Republicans and Democrats quickly condemned the violence. The Trump campaign said he was "doing well". President Biden said in a statement: "There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it."
The shooting raised immediate questions about security failures by the Secret Service, which provides former presidents including Trump with lifetime protection.
It was the first shooting of a US president or major party candidate since the 1981 attempted assassination of Republican President Ronald Reagan.
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chillTDS ? Tenancy Deposit Scheme - doubtful. TDS Water Test Meter - unlikely. Tour de Suisse Bike Race - no. Ah got it thanks to the Acronyms Dictionary - TDS is an acronym for Trump Derangement Syndrome, a term applied to people who express deep loathing and fear of President Donald Trump. It’s usually used by Trump supporters for liberals. So Mr Chill I have TDS do I ? Please reread that extensive list of the man's faults and then tell us which of those you disagree with. Which of those is wrong and why, because they all can be shown to be present in his media strewn life. I also ponder on the miss-spelling of my moniker or handle. Trans I certainly am not . Tranquil I hope most of the time until I am riled by specific acts of utter stupidity. Supporting a person such as the Orange Buffoon would in my mind qualify .
This is only the beginning of the violence that will ensue, regardless of who wins the election. Extreme windup politics never has a happy ending. And they all have guns.
The only people who like Trump are racists, conspiracy theory nut jobs and the intellectually challenged.
Bryan AdamsStarting to get nervous ?
I'm sure that the moronic orange bucket of lard will find a way to spin it somehow. With followers that stupid, it doesn't take much.
tranq tranquerWho is John Little ?
And your point is ?
trans tranquil: Having a severe case of TDS????
Says a non entity Journo on £20k a year who nobody has heard of. Trump over senile Biden any day.
The best description of Donald Trump was done by Nate White a British columnist: “A few things spring to mind; Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W. look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?’ If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.” John Little