The Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito noted how the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump did not appear to phase him, and that he was able to “project strength” moments after the attempt on his life.
Zito, who was attending the rally herself and spoke to the former president ahead of his speech, said she and her daughter and son-in-law were about three feet away from Trump when the gunshot sounds were heard. Right after the sound went off, she noticed that Trump had “a red streak on his face,” prompting the Secret Service to act quickly and protect him.
“But he didn’t have a crumbling effect,” Zito said on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. “They often say when people see a traumatic event, that it goes in slow motion, they’re absolutely right. And so I immediately saw the law enforcement surround him. They formed the protective shield around him. They took a protective stance, and they had him go down; he did not fall down. And then they made sure everything was all clear. I could hear everything. I can hear the president say, ‘I need my shoes, I need my shoe.’ And then the president stands, and he says ‘fight, fight, fight.’ I think he actually said it more than three times.”
Moments after getting back up from the ground, Trump raised his fist to the crowd, prompting the audience to cheer as he was escorted from the scene. Zito said that she thought Trump acted on instinct in the moment and wanted to show the public that “it’s ok, we’re ok,” adding that she believed Trump did “a very effective job” at showing strength right after he almost died.
Zito added that she was “forever grateful” for the Trump campaign’s advance team and the protection they offered to her and others amid the shooting.
Trump has confirmed that he will still go and speak at this week’s Republican National Convention, which is starting just two days after the Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting. He wrote on Truth Social that “it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.”
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David Axelrod, a former senior adviser in the Obama White House, has contended that Trump will be “greeted as a kind of martyr” at the convention after Saturday’s historic events. He added that the shooting marked a “bracing moment for our country” during a “bitter election.”
The rally’s shooter has been identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20. The agency, which is leading the investigation, hasn’t identified a motive for the shooting yet, but has identified it as an attempted assassination.
