The attack, which is being investigated as an attempted assassination and a potential act of domestic terrorism, left Trump injured at the ear, but it killed a spectator, identified as a former fire chief, and critically injured two others.
“We cannot, we must not go down this road in America,” Biden added, citing a rising tide of political violence that included the assault on the US Capitol, the attack on the husband of the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, and a kidnapping plot against Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan.
Biden also praised Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old former fire chief who was killed as he dove to shield his wife and daughter. Comperatore, Biden said, was a “hero” and extended his “deepest condolences” to his family.
Investigators were still searching for the motive of the 20-year-old suspect, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
More than 24 hours after the attack, the investigation into how Crooks managed to open fire, reportedly using a AR-15 bought legally by his father, at the rally remained fluid. Investigators have seized several of Crooks’s devices and are starting to piece together his communications before the event. Authorities said they had discovered potential explosive devices in Crooks’s car.
Joe Biden on Sunday forcefully condemned political violence and appealed to a nation still reeling from the attempted assassination of Donald Trump to reject “extremism and fury”.
In a primetime address from the Oval Office, Biden said Americans must strive for “national unity,” warning that the political rhetoric in the US had gotten “too heated” as passions rise in the final months before the November presidential election.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence – for any violence. Ever. Period. No exception,” the president said. “We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”
Biden’s plea for Americans to “cool it down” came as Trump said that he would use his speech at the Republican national convention to bring “the whole country, even the whole world, together.”
“The speech will be a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” Trump told the Washington Examiner, adding that the reality of what had happened was “just setting in,”.
Biden ordered an independent review into how a gunman was able to get on to a roof overlooking a Trump campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, and fire multiple shots at the former president from an “elevated position” outside of the venue. The FBI warned on Sunday that online threats of political violence, already heightened, had spiked since the shooting.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has spoken with Trump.
“The Prime Minister condemned yesterday’s appalling assassination attempt and reiterated there’s no place for political violence. The Prime Minister wished the former President well and offered condolences to the shooting victims and to the family of Corey Comperatore,” Trudeau’s office said in a statement.
Senator for Ohio, JD Vance, said: “Today is not just some isolated incident. The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” There is no evidence that what Vance said is true.
Today is not just some isolated incident.
The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.
That rhetoric led directly to President Trump's attempted assassination.
Reuters has spoken to people who knew the alleged shooter:
The early details that have emerged about Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot dead by law enforcement, show a young man working an entry-level job near his hometown in Pennsylvania, where he graduated from high school in 2022 with a reputation as a bright but quiet classmate. His high school counsellor described him as “respectful” and said he never knew Crooks to be political.
The FBI said on Sunday that Crooks’ social media profile does not contain threatening language, nor have they found any history of mental health issues. They said he acted alone and have not identified a motive.
What is unique about Crooks - when compared to other recent shooters who opened fire at schools, churches, malls and parades - is that he came within inches of killing a presidential candidate.
On Saturday afternoon, Crooks slipped onto a rooftop location 150 yards (140 meters) from the stage where Trump was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania. He then began firing an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, purchased by his father, officials said.
…
A resident of Bethel Park, about an hour away from where the shooting occurred, Crooks was a registered Republican who would have been eligible to cast his first presidential vote in the 5 November election in which Trump is challenging President Joe Biden. Public records show his father is a registered Republican and his mother a registered Democrat, and that as a 17-year-old Crooks made a $15 donation to a Democratic Party cause.
Crooks was employed as a dietary aide at a nursing home at the time of the shooting, the home’s administrator said in a statement.
Two years ago, Crooks graduated from the local high school, where he showed no particular interest in politics, according to one classmate who asked not to be identified. Crooks’ interests centered on building computers and playing games, the classmate said in an interview.
“He was super smart. That’s what really kind of threw me off was, this was, like, a really, really smart kid, like he excelled,” the classmate said.
“Nothing crazy ever came up in any conversation.”
Jim Knapp, who retired from his job as the school counselor at Bethel Park High School in 2022, said Crooks had always been “quiet as a churchmouse,” “respectful” and kept to himself, although he did have a few friends.
He added that he couldn’t recall Crooks ever being disciplined in school.
“Anybody could snap, anybody could have issues,” he said. “Something triggered that young man and drove him to drive up to Butler yesterday and do what he did.”
Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
The suspected shooter in the assasination attempt on Donald Trump is dead. He was named as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
Trump was injured in the shooting, and two other rally attendees were also shot and survived. One man, Corey Comperatore, 50, died in the shooting, and has been hailed as a hero from trying to protect his daughters from the bullets.
Details from the suspected shooter’s former high school classmates, the nursing home where he worked, and others, mostly described him as smart and quiet, with a clean record, someone who wore camouflage and other hunting clothes to class, but lived in an area where that did stand out. Early details shed little light on why Crooks might have wanted to carry out an attack on Trump or his supporters.
Public records showed he was a registered Republican, though he had once donated $15 to a progressive PAC.
Early attempts to identify social media posts or other writings that would explain the shooting were not successful. FBI officials said on Sunday afternoon that they did not “currently have an identified motive” and that “at present, we have not identified an ideology associated with the subject.”
Law enforcement officials identified the gun used in the attack as an AR-style rifle that was legally purchased by the shooter’s father. His family has not spoken publicly, but is cooperating with the investigation, officials said.
Donald Trump and Joe Biden spoke on the phone after the assault, and both of them have said the conversation was a good one and spoke respectfully of each other.
Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday night for the Republican National Convention this week, which the candidate pledged would continue as scheduled.
Joe Biden gave an address to the nation, calling for unity and a rejection of political violence. His campaign was reportedly planning to tone down verbal attacks and television attack ads against Trump in the wake of the shooting, while still continuing to tout Biden’s political message about why voters should elect him in November.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley will speak Tuesday at the Republican National Convention. Haley was President Donald Trump’s last major challenger in this year’s GOP primary. Haley, who was also elected twice as South Carolina governor, was added to the schedule after she was initially not among the list of speakers, according to Haley spokesperson Chaney Denton.
Trump had CT scan after assassination attempt - reports. CNN and the ABC reported that Trump underwent a precautionary CT scan after he was grazed by a bullet at a rally on Saturday. The ABC cited unnamed sources who said the scan came back clear.
Democrat Senator Cory Booker is speaking on CNN now, he says that conversations about getting Biden to stand aside are still going on. Biden needs to, “Unify the party,” he says. He says he will position himself to best “support whoever our nominee is” at the Democratic convention.
Trump gave an interview, his first since the shooting, to the conservative newspaper the Washington Examiner, saying that he has rewritten his RNC speech. “The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,” he said, and that it “would’ve been one of the most incredible speeches”. Its focus was Biden’s policies while in office, Trump said. “This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” he said. He also said that the reason he wasn’t killed was that he looked away from the crowd and to a screen with speech notes. “I rarely look away from the crowd. Had I not done that in that moment, well, we would not be talking today, would we?”
FBI officials said on Sunday they were assessing the shooting as a possible domestic terrorism attack and assassination attempt.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley will speak Tuesday at the Republican National Convention. Haley was President Donald Trump’s last major challenger in this year’s GOP primary.
Haley, who was also elected twice as South Carolina governor, was added to the schedule after she was initially not among the list of speakers, according to Haley spokesperson Chaney Denton. The schedule change was confirmed by a Republican official who is familiar with the convention plans but was not authorised to speak publicly.
Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Photograph: Cliff Owen/AP
Denton had said last week that the former South Carolina governor was not invited to the convention, but Haley had instructed her delegates to vote for Trump and issued a public call for party unity.
During the primary, Haley accused Trump of causing chaos and disregarding the importance of US alliances abroad. She did not endorse him when she dropped out in early March, instead waiting more than two months before she said she planned to vote for him.
Trump, in turn, repeatedly mocked her with the nickname “Birdbrain,” though he curtailed his criticism after securing enough delegates in March to become the presumptive Republican nominee.
For Trump, the gain is greater. What happened on Saturday turned the old maxim – what does not kill him makes stronger – literal. The circus master’s presence of mind, raising a fist and shouting “Fight!” to his supporters, produced a photograph for the ages and guaranteed his status as both messiah and martyr.
This week the spotlight will turn firmly back in Trump’s direction. Come Thursday, instead of the august setting of the Oval Office, there will be the kitsch theatrics of a primetime speech at the Republican convention.
Trump could do something truly historic by echoing Biden’s address, insisting that violence has no place in politics, accepting that his own narrow escape is a cathartic moment and now America must pull back from the brink. The rest of the election campaign could be one of decency and grace.
Commentators would gush that Trump had become “presidential” and of course it wouldn’t last. Biden might have the bully pulpit but Trump remains the bully to beat.
Analysis: The failed assassination has strengthened the hand of both presidential candidates
David Smith
Biden, embracing his role as repairer of the breach, made a plea: “In America, we resolve our differences at the ballot box – you know that’s how we do it, at the ballot box, not with bullets. The power to change American should should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin.”
Biden nodded towards a return to politics as usual soon, noting that the Republican convention starts on Monday and highlighting his own campaign efforts.
But some of the old glitches did not disappear. While Biden showed his generous spirit by saying he had called his opponent and prayed for him, he referred to “former Trump” instead of “former President Trump”.
The cold, dispassionate reality is that the failed assassination of Trump has strengthened the hand of both presidential candidates. Biden had been desperate to change the post-debate narrative and that happened in a way he would not have wished.
Democrats have privately admitted that this is not the time to mount a challenge to his leadership, when they are concerned about the safety of their staff. But in the mind of the electorate, the perception of Biden as doddery and declining is likely to persist.
Analysis: Biden embraces role as healer – but Trump remains king of the spectacle
David Smith
Donald Trump has the stagecraft but Joe Biden still commands the biggest stage.
A day after the former US president displayed his preternatural genius for spectacle – forcing the Secret Service to pause so he could show bloody defiance after a near-death experience – the spotlight turned back to his beleaguered election opponent.
On Sunday, Biden delivered an Oval Office address for only the third time in his presidency, having previously done so when a deal was reached to avoid a breach of the debt ceiling and to comment on the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
The set piece allowed him to demonstrate the power of incumbency, sending a message to Democratic rebels who want the 81-year-old to step aside amid concerns he lacks the mental agility to beat Trump.
The familiar trappings of the Resolute Desk against a backdrop of family photos, window, flags and curtains also sought to project the image of Biden as president rather than candidate, an elder statesman rising above the fray to call for national unity after a traumatic moment.
It was a solemn duty that came with relative ease to a man who, during 36 years in the Senate, made bipartisanship a cornerstone of his political identity.
