A head tilt to see a chart microseconds before the bullet’s impact saved former US President Donald Trump from certain death. 

A TikTok account, PointConsciousness, tracked the trajectory of the ballistic with a graphic showing how the head tilt saved Trump from losing his life at the rally in Pennsylvania’s Butler. 

Almost two seconds before the bullet’s impact, the right side of Mr Trump’s head was in the round’s trajectory. A second later, the former US President leaned toward his left and tilted his head slightly right – the AR-15 rifle’s bullet grazed his right ear, with blood spattering on his face.

WOW … 100% a miracle.

pic.twitter.com/cuk6qtnwI1

— Catturd (@catturd2) July 16, 2024

How A Chart Saved Mr Trump’s Life

Trump, a hardliner on immigration issues, told Texas Congressman Ronny Jackson, also a doctor, a few hours after the assassination attempt as to how a chart saved his life. In an interview with the New York Times, Mr Jackson recounts what Mr Trump told him over the phone.

The chart featured statistics on immigration during President Joe Biden’s regime.

Mr Trump credited the border patrol for “saving his life”. He was referring to a chart with immigration statistics on a screen to his right. He tilted his head to take a look at the chart, and that is when the bullet hit his ear, narrowly missing his head. 

Mr Jackson’s nephew was also injured at the rally, he wrote on X. “Thankfully his injury was not serious and he is doing well. My family was sitting in the front, near where the President was speaking. They heard shots ringing out – my nephew then realized he had blood on his neck and something had grazed and cut his neck. He was treated by the providers in the medical tent. Thank you to all those that have reached out to check on him. “

My nephew was injured at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Thankfully his injury was not serious and he is doing well. My family was sitting in the front, near where the President was speaking. They heard shots ringing out — my nephew then realized he had blood on his neck…

— Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) July 14, 2024

“The President and the survivors are lucky to be alive,” he added.

‘Confusion And Fear Had Set In’

Jason Vecchio, a man who attended the Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, told NDTV. Mr Vechhio, who was 150 steps away from the stage, said that it was a very positive experience until the former president was shot at and then a kind of “confusion and fear set in”.

“Those bullets whizzed by him, hit the machine and the boom came down because it hit a hydraulic line. We see Secret Service jump on top of him, to shield him and protect him. It wasn’t like instantly that we knew what was going on. Sounded like gunfire because I have been around firearms. We got down and heard the gunfire stop. At that point, I ran over to the fence, hopped over the fence and took cover under a police car just because I wasn’t sure if there was a secondary shooter or if a shooter was in the crowd. No one had any idea where the shooter was. So I just wanted to be in the safest place I could be in.

“And then we all watched Trump stand up and put his fist in the air and we all stood up and started chanting. It was quite an experience. It was quite a moving moment to see him stand up after we all just thought he died. And then I walked over to the fence and walked over to my buddies and together we opened the fence and started funnelling everybody through the exit,” said Mr Vechhio, recounting what he saw at the event.

‘Snipers Spotted Shooters Before Attack’

The assassination attempt has changed the course of the presidential election campaign, with the Republican party more united and rallying behind its candidate, Donald Trump. Probe agencies are still searching for clues on what led to Crooks attacking Mr Trump.

The Secret Service, responsible for protecting US political leaders, has faced backlash over how a gunman aiming an assault rifle was allowed to take a position on a roof some 500 feet from Trump.

Footage has emerged of people sighting the gunman on the roof and trying to warn security before he opened fire. According to CBS News, there were three snipers stationed inside the building the shooter used. The operations plan had them stationed inside the building looking out windows toward the Trump rally. Crooks took out a rangefinder and the Secret Service sniper radioed to the command post, CBS News reported. 

Officers believe that the shooter might have used an air conditioning unit to get on top of the roof.

Months ahead of the crucial presidential elections in the US, Donald Trump became the target of an apparent assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania. This came days before the former president was scheduled to accept the Republican nomination for a third time.

While law enforcement officials are trying to determine the motive behind the 20-year-old opening fire from a nearby rooftop, the word ‘Staged’ became a trend on social media in the country within minutes of the attack.

This word has become synonymous with extreme conspiracy theories across social media platforms, being frequently used to question the veracity of an attack or shooting.

In the last 24 hours, it has overtaken other topics in popular internet discourse, as millions of views have been received by posts on X that are filled with unsupported rumours, hate speech, and abuse, BBC reported.

However, it must be noted that conspiracy theories have historically been drawn to assassination attempts on US presidents, with the most well-known example being the assassination of John F Kennedy back in November 1963. As it was the first to occur in real-time, it was unsurprising that false reports took off, the report stated.

The trend was not just limited to committed groups of political supporters and was actively recommended in users’ “For You” feeds as they tried to make sense of what had happened. Further, it was frequently posted by individuals having blue ticks, thereby providing their posts more prominence.

Questions raised

Some of these conspiracy theories centred on the alleged security failings, with social media users questioning how such a thing could happen.

“It looks very staged… Nobody in the crowd is running or panicking. Nobody in the crowd heard an actual gun. I don’t trust it. I don’t trust him,” read a post that received millions of views.

It looks very staged. Sounded like a BB gun. Nobody in the crowd is running or panicking.

Nobody in that crowd heard an actual gun.
I don’t trust it. I don’t trust him. ????????‍ pic.twitter.com/b1Bkruyq2g

— ???????????????? É???????????? (@cyberfrontier) July 13, 2024

Later, the post was labelled with a note pointing out the shooting was real.

Moreover, these conspiracy theories were further compounded by the photographs and videos that later came out. In particular, one photograph showed the former US president’s fist raised, having blood on his face and ear, while the US flag can be seen in the background.

The image was just “too damn perfect,” a US-based YouTuber stated and further emphasised how they managed to get “the flag positioned perfect and everything”.

However, this post, which received nearly a million views, was later removed by the person who shared it.

Another X user wrote, “Staged to get sympathy? You can’t trust these people with anything and no, I’m not going to pray for him”.

However, the BBC report highlighted that most of these viral posts came from left-leaning users, often seen posting anti-Trump views.

President Joe Biden warned on July 14 of the the risks of political violence in the U.S. after Saturday’s attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, saying, “It’s time to cool it down.”

In a prime-time national address from the Oval Office, Mr. Biden said political passions can run high but “we must never descend into violence.”

Also read | Trump assassination bid: violent U.S. rhetoric comes ‘home to roost’

“There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence. Ever. Period. No exception. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized,” Mr. Biden said.

Mr. Biden spoke for about five minutes from the Oval Office. He noted that the Republican National Convention was opening in Milwaukee on Monday, while he himself would be traveling the country to campaign for re-election.

He said passions would run high on both sides and the stakes of the election were enormous.

Also Read : Trump rally shooting LIVE updates

“We can do this,” Mr. Biden implored, saying the nation was founded on a democracy that gave reason and balance a chance to prevail over brute force. “American democracy — where arguments are made in good faith. American democracy — where the rule of law is respected. Where decency, dignity, fair play aren’t just quaint notions, they’re living, breathing realities.”

Earlier Sunday, Mr. Biden condemned the attempted assassination of his predecessor, Trump, as “contrary to everything we stand for as a nation” and said he was ordering an independent security review of how such an attack could have happened.

He called for the country to “unite as one nation,” promised a “thorough and swift” review and asked the public not to “make assumptions” about the shooter’s motives or affiliations.

The President said he has also directed the U.S. Secret Service to review all security measures for the RNC. Hours later, Audrey Gibson-Cicchino, the Secret Service’s coordinator for the convention, said the weekend attack against Trump did not prompt any changes to the agency’s security plan for the event and officials “are fully prepared.”

In his remarks, Mr. Biden called the attack on Trump “not who we are as a nation.”

Also read | From Lincoln to Trump: A long history of shootings in U.S. Presidential politics

“It’s not American. And we cannot allow this to happen,” he said. “Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is more important than that right now.”

The president said he and first lady Jill Biden were praying for the family of Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who was shot and killed during the Trump rally Saturday night in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“He was protecting his family from the bullets,” Biden said. “God love him.”

The President also said he’d had a “short but good conversation” with Trump in the hours after the shootings and said he was “sincerely grateful” that the former president is “doing well and recovering.”

Trump, who has called for national resilience since the shooting, posted on his social media account after Biden’s remarks, “UNITE AMERICA!”

Actually achieving unity will be far more challenging, especially in the midst of a bitter presidential campaign. Biden’s team is grappling with how to calibrate the path forward after the weekend attack on the very person he is trying to defeat in November’s election.

Mr. Biden, who has set out to brand Trump as a dire threat to democracy and the nation’s very founding principles, put a temporary pause on such political messaging. Shortly after Saturday night’s attack, Biden’s reelection campaign froze “all outbound communications” and was working to pull down its television ads.

The President also postponed a planned trip to Texas on Monday, where he was to speak on the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential library. An NBC News interview between Biden and anchor Lester Holt will now occur at the White House, instead of in Texas, as initially planned.

Mr. Biden’s campaign said that, after the NBC interview airs on Monday night, it and the Democratic National Committee “will continue drawing the contrast” with Trump over the course of the GOP convention — even though it remains unclear when ads would resume.

Mr. Biden also still plans to make a planned trip to Las Vegas, which will include a campaign event Wednesday. Vice President Kamala Harris postponed her planned campaign trip to Florida on Tuesday, where she had been set to meet with Republican women.

Trump, meanwhile, announced he was moving up plans to go to Milwaukee and the Republican convention, where criticism of Biden and the Democrats is sure to be searing.

The weekend developments were only the latest upheaval in a campaign that has been extraordinarily topsy-turvy in recent weeks.

Mr. Biden’s shaky debate performance on June 27 so spooked his own party that some top surrogates and donors turned on him, and nearly 20 Democratic members of Congress called on the president to leave the race outright. Facing mounting questions about whether he was fit for a second term, Biden and his top advisers have been scrambling to salvage his campaign by adding events around the country and more aggressively criticizing Trump.

Saturday’s attack upended — at least for now — that counteroffensive on the cusp of the Republican convention.

The campaign also hopes that Sunday’s Oval Office address lets Biden further drive home his point about unity while demonstrating leadership that could assuage nervous critics within his own party.

“We’ll debate and we’ll disagree, that’s not going to change,” Biden said in his afternoon remarks. “But we’ll not lose sight of who we are as Americans.”

Although investigators are still in the early stages of determining what occurred and why, some Biden critics are calling out the president for telling donors in a private call Monday that “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

A person familiar with those remarks said the president was trying to make the point that Trump had gotten away with a light public schedule after last month’s debate while the president himself faced intense scrutiny. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to more freely discuss private conversations.

In the donor call, Mr. Biden said: “I have one job and that’s to beat Donald Trump. … I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that.”

He continued: “So, we’re done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye. He’s gotten away with doing nothing for the last 10 days except ride around in his golf cart, bragging about scores he didn’t score. … Anyway I won’t get into his golf game.”

New Delhi:

Indian-American entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy today condemned the attack on former US President Donald Trump, who got hit on his ear during an attempt on his life at an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“We believe the fact that Trump is safe right now is nothing short of an act of God,” Ramaswamy, who challenged the 78-year-old politician for the Republican presidential nomination at the primaries, wrote in a long post on X.

“My heart tells me God intervened not just for Trump, but for our nation.

“Today, the future survival of the United States of America came down to less than a hair’s width in the path of a bullet,” Ramaswamy said.

He continued his praise for Trump and said Americans just had the chance to see “our next President’s true character, unvarnished”. 

First they sued him. Then they prosecuted him. Then they tried to take him off the ballot. The only thing more tragic than what just happened is that, if we’re being honest, it wasn’t totally a shock. Biden’s inevitable ritual condemnation of political violence today (when it…

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) July 14, 2024

“He took the fire, he took the hit, he felt the blood, and then he stood right back up for the people he was put here to lead,” Ramaswamy added.

He, however, attacked US President Joe Biden and said, “First they sued him. Then they prosecuted him. Then they tried to take him off the ballot. The only thing more tragic than what just happened is that, if we’re being honest, it wasn’t totally a shock. 

“Biden’s inevitable ritual condemnation of political violence today (when it comes) will be insufficient and irrelevant. No amount of verbiage today changes the toxic national climate that led to this tragedy,” he said.

Regardless of who you vote for, let’s unite around the truth that what happened today is “unacceptable, now and forever”, he said.

His long post drew a reaction from billionaire Elon Musk, who earlier reacted to the shocking shooting by quickly endorsing Trump.

“You very much predicted this,” Musk said. “I badly hoped I would be wrong,” Ramaswamy responded.

I badly hoped I would be wrong.

— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) July 14, 2024

Trump had just started speaking at the packed outdoor election rally in Butler town when bullets started flying. 

Video footage showed him grabbing his ear as shots were fired. With his face streaked with blood, Trump was quickly rescued by the US Secret Service agents.

Shortly after the incident, he said, “I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”

The attacker, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was also shot and killed by a member of the Secret Service.

The shooting left one spectator dead and two others critically injured. 

Moscow:

Moscow called on the United States Sunday to “take stock” of its “policies of incitement to hatred”, while using the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump to denounce support for Ukraine. 

Addressing “those who vote in the United States to supply arms” to Kyiv, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova denounced support for Kyiv, which she said stoked “attacks against the Russian president”. 

She added that “perhaps it would be better to use this money to fund the American police and other services that are supposed to ensure law and order in the United States?” 

A Trump victory in the November elections would put into question continued US support for Ukraine as it resists the Russian offensives launched in 2022.

The Republican Party candidate has suggested that he would end the conflict very quickly if he won back the presidency, which Kyiv fears would mean it would be forced to negotiate with Moscow from a weakened position.

Vladimir Putin has said he takes Trump’s comments about ending the war “very seriously”.

Zakharova added that “when other means of getting rid of troublesome president are exhausted, good old Lee Harvey Oswald comes into play”, referring to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, a source of numerous conspiracy theories including that his death was ordered from within the US state apparatus. 

The JFK assassination commission concluded in 1964 that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine who had lived in the Soviet Union, had acted alone.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

The story so far: In a shooting incident under investigation as an attempted assassination attempt, former U.S. President Donald Trump was shot in the ear during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, leaving one person dead and two others critically injured. Follow Live Updates here

The U.S. Secret Service, which provides former Presidents with lifetime protection, said Trump was safe while the suspected shooter was killed.

The attack marks the first attempt to assassinate a President or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. Coming less than four months before the November 5 election and just days before Trump was to accept the Republican nomination for a third time to set up a potential rematch with President Joe Biden, the incident is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the presidential race and domestic politics.

Here’s what we know so far.

How did the shooting unfold? 

On Saturday evening, a few minutes after Trump took the stage in Butler and began his speech, at least five shots rang out as the former U.S. President was talking about a spike in illegal border crossings. In one of the videos of the incident, Trump is seen clutching his right ear behind the podium before Secret Service agents dash toward him and cover him. “Get down,” the agents said as Trump dropped to the ground as gunfire set off panic.

A minute later, he emerged with his face streaked with blood. He pumped his fist in the air in a show of defiance, mouthing the words “Fight! Fight! Fight!” before the Secret Service rushed him to a black SUV.

Who was the shooter?

The suspected shooter, who attacked Trump from an elevated position outside the rally venue, was killed at the scene. The suspect has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Law enforcement reportedly recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene. No motive has been identified so far in the assassination attempt, the FBI has stated and added that the investigation is ongoing.

Crooks was a registered Republican, according to the state’s voter records. However, he had given $15 to a progressive political action committee in 2021, the day President Joe Biden took over, as per an AP report.

How did rally attendees react?

A witness recounted how a man next to him was shot dead during the apparent assassination attempt on the Republican presidential candidate. “I heard several gunshots. The man beside me suffered a gun shot to the head, was instantly killed [and] fell to the bottom of the bleachers. Another woman looked like she got hit in the forearm or hand,” the man told NBC News. He said it seemed the victim was “in the way of the shots between whoever was shooting the gun and the President.”

Republican Dan Meuser was in the front row with other elected officials and candidates when the shots rang out. “It was pretty clear after the first pop that it was gunfire,” he told AP. “It was just a lot of mayhem, and just a terrible, terrible tragedy, a terrible shame.”

Rico Elmore, vice chairman of the Beaver County Republican Party, was sitting in a section for special guests, facing President Trump, when he heard what sounded like firecrackers. “So, everyone hesitated — and it was like, no, these are actual shots. So I yelled, ‘Get down!’” Elmore saw Secret Service agents helping Trump off the stage and then heard someone from his left calling for a medic. He took off his tie and jumped a barricade, but when he reached the person, Elmore saw he had been shot in the head. Elmore said he held the victim’s head but it was too late. “I mean, it was a horror,” Elmore said.

Chet Jack, a member of the state Republican Party, and his wife Beth were sitting in the bleachers facing Trump when they heard the shots. Beth ducked after hearing the shots and then a second round of shots. “I couldn’t see what happened with President Trump, because the minute I heard a shot, I yelled, ‘Everybody get down!’” Beth said. While Beth ducked for cover, Chet said he remained standing. He said he believed the shots were coming from above, and that ducking wouldn’t protect him.

Also Read |From Lincoln to Trump: A long history of shootings in U.S. Presidential politics

Is Trump safe? 

After the incident, Trump left for New Jersey to spend the night at his private gold club. He wrote on his Truth Social site that he, “knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realised then what was happening…” He thanked the Secret Service and law endorsement for their “rapid response”.

Trump also extended his condolences to the family of the person killed at the rally. “It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead,” he said.

Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said his father was “in great spirits.” “He will never stop fighting to save America, no matter what the radical left throws at him,” Trump Jr. said in a statement.

What has Biden said?

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, returned to Washington from Delaware earlier than planned following the attack at the Trump rally. The White House said President Biden also spoke with former President Donald Trump.

“I’m grateful to hear that [Trump is] safe and doing well. I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information … There’s no place for this kind of violence in America,” the U.S. President said in a statement.

Vice President Kamala Harris said she was “relieved that he [Trump] is not seriously injured.” “We are praying for him, his family, and all those who have been injured and impacted by this senseless shooting,” she said in a statement.

“Violence such as this has no place in our nation. We must all condemn this abhorrent act and do our part to ensure that it does not lead to more violence.”

What is the world saying?

The deadly incident sent shockwaves across the globe, with leaders uniting to condemn the attack and denounce political violence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “deeply concerned” by the attack on his friend.

“Violence has no place in politics and democracies. Wish him speedy recovery… Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the deceased, those injured and the American people,” the PM added.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “sickened” by the shooting, while a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office denounced all forms of political violence. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the incident “concerning and confronting.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was shocked. Jordan Bardella of the French far-right National Rally party said “Violence is the poison of any democracy.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she was “following with apprehension” updates from Pennsylvania and wished Trump a speedy recovery.

People sit in a local bar near the Fiserv Forum watching news ahead of the 2024 Republican National Convention, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Milwaukee. Former president Donald Trump was whisked off the stage at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania after apparent gunshots rang through the crowd.
| Photo Credit: AP

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump by a gunman at his Pennsylvania rally has confirmed the worst fears of public figures warning that an escalation in incendiary political rhetoric on all sides could lead to bloodshed.

U.S. lawmakers and analysts have been voicing concern since the 2021 US Capitol riot that increasingly bellicose campaign language was becoming a worrying contusion on the U.S. body politic ahead of November’s presidential election.

Also read | Trump rally witness recounts victim shot dead

The danger was vividly illustrated in 2022, when then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked with a hammer by a far-right conspiracy theorist who wanted to hold the Democratic leader hostage and “break her kneecaps.”

The political affiliations of Saturday’s shooter, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, were not immediately clear — but analysts and politicians immediately pointed the finger at extreme political discourse.

“For weeks Democrat leaders have been fueling ludicrous hysteria that Donald Trump winning re-election would be the end of democracy in America,” House Republican Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was seriously wounded in a mass shooting at a congressional sports event in 2017, said on X.

“Clearly we’ve seen far left lunatics act on violent rhetoric in the past. This incendiary rhetoric must stop.”

Senior Trump campaign aide Chris LaCivita assailed the language of “leftist activists, Democrat donors and even Joe Biden.”

While Ajamu Baraka, Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s running mate in 2016, suggested Democratic rhetoric might have led the gunman to see it as his “patriotic duty to eliminate an existential threat to the nation.”

“The chickens have really come home to roost,” he posted on X.

Private security

What none of the three acknowledged was that Trump himself has been a major architect of the coarsening in US political discourse in recent years.

Many of Trump’s targets in Congress and the government — from Republican Senator Mitt Romney to retired top government scientist Anthony Fauci — have disclosed having to take on private security after threats from Trump’s supporters.

The former US president sparked fury last year when he implied that the country’s top military officer should be executed, and joked about the Pelosi hammer attack.

Trump’s exhortations to violence are nothing new — he suggested that protesters should be “roughed up” at a rally in 2016, and that looters should be shot during the 2020 racial protests over the police murder of George Floyd.

He has also repeatedly described the attorneys leading the multiple civil and criminal cases he faces as “monster,” “deranged” and “psycho.”

And, of course, many argue he incited the deadly Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, when he exhorted his followers to “fight like hell” shortly before they stormed the seat of US government, leaving five people dead.

Republicans have in the past accused Democrats of overreacting to figurative language and ignoring leftist aggression, such as harassment of conservative Supreme Court justices and the 2017 shooting that wounded Scalise.

Still, law enforcement agencies say that while threats have proliferated from every corner, right-wing violence is the bigger worry.

‘Attack on our democracy’

Discourse that was once taboo is now commonplace on the far right, with Republican flamethrowers in Congress incorporating violent language and imagery into their stump speeches.

Threats against members of Congress of all stripes reached a record high of 9,625 in 2021, according to data provided by the Capitol Police, compared with just 3,939 in 2017.

Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has conducted several polls on political violence since the Capitol assault. In his latest last month, 10 percent of respondents said the use of force was “justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president.”

“The shooting of former President Trump is a consequence of such significant support for political violence in our country,” he told AFP.

“We also need to worry about threat in retribution to President Biden. Our survey shows seven percent of American adults — 18 million — support force to restore Trump to the presidency, half of whom own guns.”

Political analyst Charlie Kolean called for Americans to stand together “in condemning such violence and work towards ensuring the safety and security of all public officials.”

“Today’s events are a stark reminder of the threats our leaders face,” Kolean, the chief strategy officer at conservative-leaning political consultancy RED PAC, told AFP.

“An attack on the presidential candidate is an attack on our democracy.”

The crowd reacts as Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

A witness to the July 13 shooting at a Donald Trump rally told how a man next to him was shot dead during the apparent assassination attempt on the Republican presidential candidate.

“I heard several gunshots. The man beside me suffered a gun shot to the head, was instantly killed [and] fell to the bottom of the bleachers. Another woman looked like she got hit in the forearm or hand,” the man, whose name was only given as Joseph, told NBC News.

Trump rally shooting live updates: July 14, 2024

He said it seemed the victim was “in the way of the shots between whoever was shooting the gun and the President.”

A second witness, an unnamed man who said he was an emergency doctor, described trying to help one of the victims.

“Somebody over there was screaming he’s been shot, he’s been shot, so I made my way over, I said I’m an emergency department physician, let me help you,” said the man, who was wearing a white USA T-shirt stained with blood and a red MAGA hat.

“The guy had spun around, was jammed between the benches. He had a headshot here,” he said, indicating a spot on his head.

“There’s lots of blood and he had brain matter,” the man continued in comments that spread widely through US media.

Trump said he was hit in the ear but was not seriously injured by the gunman, who was killed after the incident.

Two other spectators were critically injured, the Secret Service said.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks following the incident that occurred at a campaign rally for former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, U.S., on July 13, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden led the condemnation after his election rival Donald Trump was wounded in an apparent assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, in violence that also left a bystander dead.

Political leaders on both sides of the aisle slammed the attack minutes after the Republican candidate was rushed off stage by the Secret Service with blood running down his face.

“There’s no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick. It’s sick. It’s one of the reasons why we have to unite this country… We cannot be like this, we cannot condone this,” Biden told reporters in an emergency briefing at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.

“The idea that there’s political violence, or violence in America like this, is just unheard of. It’s just not appropriate. Everybody, everybody must condemn it. Everybody,” Mr. Biden said.

He said he hoped to speak with Trump “shortly.”

Vice President Kamala Harris said on X: “We are praying for him, his family, and all those who have been injured and impacted by this senseless shooting.”

Mr. Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, echoed his words in a statement, saying there was “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,” the Democrat said on X.

Former President George W. Bush condemned the “cowardly” attack.

“Laura and I are grateful that President Trump is safe following the cowardly attack on his life. And we commend the men and women of the Secret Service for their speedy response,” the Republican said in a statement.

From the Senate, top Democrat Chuck Schumer said he was “horrified by what happened at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania and relieved that former President Trump is safe. Political violence has no place in our country.”

His Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell also posted: “Tonight, all Americans are grateful that President Trump appears to be fine after a despicable attack on a peaceful rally. Violence has no place in our politics.”

“As one whose family has been the victim of political violence, I know firsthand that political violence of any kind has no place in our society,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband was attacked in a home invasion in 2022, wrote, also on X.

“I thank God that former President Trump is safe. As we learn more details about this horrifying incident, let us pray that all those in attendance at the former President’s rally today are unharmed,” she continued.

‘I love you Dad’

Trump’s shocked children also took to social media.

“This is the fighter America needs!” son Eric Trump wrote above a photo of his father with blood running down his cheek, his fist in the air and an American flag waving in the background as the Secret Service rushed him from the stage.

Donald Trump Jr posted the same photo, writing on X: “He’ll never stop fighting to Save America.”

“I love you Dad, today and always,” daughter Ivanka posted on X, thanking supporters as well as the Secret Service for their “quick and decisive actions today.”

“I continue to pray for our country,” she said.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Saturday that he “fully” endorses Trump after the rally violence.

“I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Mr. Musk wrote on X, as he shared a video of Trump pumping his fist while being escorted away by Secret Service officials.

“Had it been less than a half inch to the right, he would not have survived,” the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, posted on X.

“Trump is truly blessed.”