In a span of less than 24 hours last weekend, former President Donald Trump was shot at during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., was whisked from the podium there with a bloody ear, treated at a local hospital, flew to Newark, N.J., then got up the next morning and proceeded to Milwaukee, site of the Republican National Convention.
On the flight to Milwaukee, where he will accept the Republican Party’s nomination for the 2024 presidential election, he put the actions of the weekend in perspective.
Reflecting on the shooting, when asked by reporters if he should even be traveling to Milwaukee for the start of the RNC, Trump said, “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead.”
That's because, this is the first assassination attempt on a sitting president, or one running for president, since 1981 when Ronald Reagan was shot.
Aside from a bloodied ear, Trump was not seriously hurt in Saturday’s incident at the rally just north of Pittsburgh. By Monday, he was in the VIP box at the RNC, with a bandage over his injured right ear, hours after he officially named Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate.
While the convention continued as scheduled, despite a welcome reception on Sunday that was canceled, the Secret Service did add additional security to Trump’s detail at the event, including additional tactical officers and SWAT team members.
An RNC coordinator said the security perimeter would not expand in lieu of Saturday’s incident, noting it is already designated as “A national security event”, which is the highest level on the federal government’s priority list.
President Biden has called for an independent review of Secret Service tactics — like how anyone could get a “direct line of sight” on a figure at a rally like Saturday’s.
Secret Service agency director Kim Cheatle is expected to appear for a Congressional hearing on Monday. She told the Associated Press her agency welcomes the independent review.
The Biden campaign responded to the incident by announcing it will halt all ads for the presidential race.
“The Biden campaign is pausing all outbound communications and working to pull down our television ads as quickly as possible,” a campaign spokesman said Saturday night.
The bulk of the facts of this story were originally reported by some of America’s most fact-thorough national news agencies, like ABC News, CNN and the Associated Press.