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      Biden urges US to reject ‘extremism and fury’ after Trump assassination attempt

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      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.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.Meanwhile, details have begun to emerge about the suspect, who was shot and killed by Secret Service counter-snipers.As a junior in high school, Crooks donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a political action committee aligned with the Democratic party, but eight months later he registered to vote as a member of the Republican party.Former classmates described the man as a smart, and quiet student. One former classmate told Reuters that Crooks had not shown a particular interest in politics in high school, and would rather would discuss computers and games.“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 told Reuters. “Nothing crazy ever came up in any conversation.”Another young man who described himself as a former classmate of Crooks at Bethel Park high school spoke with reporters on Sunday, recalling how his ex-companion “was bullied almost every day” on campus.View image in fullscreenThe president, who was at church in Delaware during the time of the shooting, cut short his weekend and returned to Washington to confront the situation, arriving at the White House after midnight. He and Trump spoke late on Saturday.Biden spoke briefly from the White House earlier on Sunday, delivering a similar message from the Roosevelt room after receiving a briefing on the investigation in the Situation Room.In those comments, Biden asked the public not to “make assumptions” about the shooter’s motives or affiliations, as conspiracy theories and misinformation swirl online.The Republican national convention will begin on Monday in Milwaukee, where Trump is expected to receive a hero’s welcome by the party’s rank and file, rattled but defiant. Trump, who arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday evening, is not scheduled to address the convention until Thursday evening, after he is formally nominated as the party’s nominee.Speaking to the New York Post while en route to Milwaukee, Trump said he was “supposed to be dead”, adding: “The doctor at the hospital said he never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle.”Biden’s remarks came at a fragile moment in the election, a re-match between the president and Trump already defined by exceptional tumult and deep political polarization.For weeks, the president has been fighting calls from elected officials in his own party to abandon his re-election campaign after a disastrous debate performance last month that underscored concerns about his age and fitness for office. The 81-year-old Biden has insisted he will not be pushed out as the party’s nominee, but has done little to quell the swirl of doubt that he is the best candidate to defeat Trump in November.Trump earlier this year became the first former president to be convicted of felonies, and faces several more legal challenges related to his role in the 6 January Capitol attack and efforts to overturn the results of a lost election. At least one Republican senator, Mike Lee of Utah, has called for the criminal cases against Trump to be dropped in light of the assassination attempt.In his remarks on Sunday evening, Biden was realistic about the challenge of heeding his words, accepting that national unity was “the most elusive of goals” in an America deeply divided into camps. Already, Republicans were blaming the violence on the president, arguing that Biden’s attempts to portray Trump as a threat to American democracy helped fuel a toxic political environment.Yet the attack has drawn condemnation from Republican and Democratic officials across the country as well as world leaders.“We need to turn the temperature down,” House speaker Mike Johnson said on Sunday, in an interview on CNN.The president acknowledged that he and Trump offer drastically competing visions, and that their supporters diverged sharply. In Milwaukee, Republicans would offer sustained critiques of Biden’s record, the president said, while he planned to travel on Monday to Nevada, where he would rally supporters around his agenda. Because of the attack, he postponed a trip to Texas, where he was scheduled to speak at the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon B Johnson presidential library.“We debate and disagree. We compare and contrast the character of the candidates, the records, the issues, the agenda, the vision for America,” he said, arguing that the contest should be settled at the “ballot box” and “not with bullets”.After the attack on Saturday night, the Biden campaign reportedly moved to pull down its television ads “as quickly as possible” and pause all “outbound communications”.“Politics must never be a literal battlefield or, god forbid, a literal killing field,” Biden emphasized in his address on Sunday night. He urged Americans to “get out of our silos” and echo chambers where misinformation is rampant.“Remember: though we may disagree,” he said, “we are not enemies.” More

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      Donald Trump shooting: authorities attempt to determine motive as suspect’s devices seized

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      FBI officials said on Sunday they were assessing the shooting of Donald Trump at a campaign rally on Saturday as a possible domestic terrorism attack and assassination attempt, as federal investigators executed a flurry of warrants in trying to determine a motive.The officials said there was no evidence that the 20-year-old suspected gunman, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was operating as part of a larger group. But his reasons for scaling the roof of a building overlooking the rally to shoot at Trump remained unclear.By Sunday evening, dozens of federal investigators with the FBI, the ATF and all three US attorney’s offices in Pennsylvania were involved in an expanding investigation that had seized several of Crooks’ devices and started to piece together some of his communications before the rally.The other major development was the discovery of potential explosive devices in Crooks’ car. Former prosecutors suggested that those could indicate Crooks expected to survive the shooting.The devices and the AR-15-style rifle, which officials said was bought legally, were sent to the bureau’s lab in Quantico, Virginia.The ATF identified the owner of the gun through its national tracing center and using business records from a gun dealer. The results of the trace were provided to the FBI within 30 minutes, the agency’s spokesperson Katrina Mastropasqua said.The shooting at the campaign rally has raised the stakes and the significance of Trump’s appearance at the Republican national convention starting Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he will formally accept the GOP nomination for president and will unveil his running-mate.It also cast the 2024 presidential race into uncertainty. The campaigns for both Trump and Joe Biden pulled back on political functions over the weekend, as they moved to grapple with the immediate fallout of the situation.View image in fullscreenIn Washington, Biden spoke with Trump on a call described by a source familiar as “brief and very respectful” before receiving a briefing from top US officials including the attorney general, Merrick Garland, the FBI director Christopher Wray, the Secretary for Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas.In brief remarks to the nation from the White House, Biden called the assassination attempt “contrary to everything we stand for us as a nation, everything. It’s not who we are as a nation. It’s not American. And we cannot allow this to happen”.Biden said he had demanded a national security review that he would share publicly, and that he had directed the US secret service to review security arrangements for the Republican convention.Later, in a primetime address, the president called for unity. The shooting “calls on all of us to take a step back,” Biden said. “We stand for an America of decency and grace … politics must never be a killing field.”Trump, for his part, huddled with senior advisers at his Bedminster club in New Jersey, keeping to his planned schedule as he prepared for the Republican convention, The Guardian previously reported. Trump’s next appearance is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday in Milwaukee, where he arrived on Sunday evening.“Based on yesterday’s terrible events, I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin, and The Republican National Convention, by two days, but have just decided that I cannot allow a ‘shooter,’ or a potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else,” Trump wrote.The assassination attempt placed the secret service under intense scrutiny, with lawmakers from both parties moving to open investigations into the security arrangements and calling for the agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, to account for the decisions.At issue remains how a single man with a semi-automatic rifle managed to access a roof 140 yards away from the stage where Trump was speaking at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.The House homeland security committee ordered the secret service’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, to produce documents and communications related to the security apparatus for the rally and whether any requests for more resources had been rebuffed. More

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      What We Know About the Trump Rally Shooting Victims So Far

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      The Trump rally shooting that sent shock waves across the nation killed a father of two and critically wounded two other men on Saturday evening.The victims, all adult men, include a longtime volunteer firefighter and a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. All were from the Pittsburgh area, according to the Pennsylvania State Police. One died at the scene, while the two critically wounded victims were transported to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh and were in critical but stable condition, officials said. As more details began to emerge on Sunday, tributes and prayers for the victims and their families were pouring in, including from officials such as Mayor Ed Gainey of Pittsburgh, and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.Here’s what we know so far about the victims.Corey ComperatoreCorey Comperatore, 50, was fatally shot in the head after he dove to cover family members who accompanied him to the rally, according to the governor. Governor Shapiro said on Sunday that Mr. Comperatore “died a hero.” He added, “Corey was the very best of us.”Mr. Comperatore was a father of two from Sarver, Pa., who worked at a plastic manufacturing company and loved fishing. He spent several years as a volunteer firefighter, at one point serving as the chief of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company. He attended nearby Cabot Church, where he was selected as a future trustee in 2021, helping oversee issues like church property and insurance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump rally shooting: what we know about the suspected gunman

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      The early portrait that has emerged of the 20-year-old Pennsylvania man who authorities say tried to assassinate Donald Trump at a campaign rally in the state on Saturday before secret service agents shot him to death is a complicated and so far sparse one.Thomas Matthew Crooks resided in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white, generally affluent suburb of Pittsburgh. Public records show he shared a home with parents who were licensed behavioral care counselors. Those same records contain no mention of any criminal or traffic citations – as well as any financial problems such as foreclosures.Actions that Crooks took late in his time as a student at Bethel Park high school offered virtually no hint of his political leanings. He was a junior at the school, and it was the first day of Joe Biden’s presidency, when Crooks donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a political action committee aligned with the president’s Democratic party. Public records show his father is a registered Republican and his mother a registered Democrat.Yet eight months later, early in his senior year, Crooks registered to vote as a member of the Republican party, led by Trump since 2016. And he had left his affiliation unchanged when he voted in the November 2022 midterm elections, which took place months after he graduated from Bethel Park high, where he was among a group of students to receive a $500 National Math and Science Initiative “star award”.A former classmate of Crooks’ said he had not shown any particular interest in politics in high school, but they would discuss computers and games. “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 told Reuters. “Nothing crazy ever came up in any conversation.”Another young man who described himself as a former schoolmate of Crooks at Bethel Park high school spoke with reporters Sunday, recalling how his ex-companion “was bullied almost every day” on campus.The man told NBC News and other outlets that Crooks’ penchant for wearing “hunting” and “military” clothes – and eating alone at lunch – drew derision from his peers, who considered him a “loner” and an “outcast”.“You know how kids are these days – they’re going to see someone like that and they’re going to target him because they think it’s funny or whatever,” the man said to journalists.While the man made clear he wasn’t saying any of those experiences fueled Saturday’s assassination attempt, he added: “It’s honestly kind of sad … He was bullied so much.”ABC News reported that two former classmates of Crooks told the outlet that he was rejected from their school’s rifle club because he wasn’t a very skilled shot. School officials had not immediately confirmed those recollections.Crooks reportedly had an account on Discord, an online chat app that began as a space for gamers but gained notoriety in part because the white supremacist who fatally shot 10 people at grocery in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo posted on the platform about his plans to attack the store.Discord told the gaming news outlet Kotaku that the account that appeared to be linked to Crooks “was rarely utilized”.“We have no evidence that it was used to plan this incident or discuss his political views,” said the company’s statement to Kotaku. In addition to pledging to cooperate with law enforcement, the statement continued: “Discord strongly condemns violence of any kind, including political violence.”Crooks thrust himself into the center of the political world on Saturday when he went about an hour north of Bethel Park and got atop the roof of a bottle manufacturing plant in Butler county, Pennsylvania. Nearby, the former US president was speaking at a supporters’ rally as he pursues a return to the White House in November.Multiple people who were listening to Trump’s speech outside the rally venue said they spotted Crooks as he brought an AR-style rifle to the plant rooftop and took aim in the direction of the former president. But they said officers did not immediately react to their warnings – assertions that prompted the local district attorney, Richard Goldinger, to tell CNN that it was urgent for investigators to figure out how Crooks “would’ve gotten to the location where he was”.Crooks ultimately managed to fire several shots toward the stage where Trump was speaking, which was less than 500ft away (152.4 meters) away. One spectator was killed, and two others were critically wounded. Trump reported that a bullet “pierced the upper part” of his right ear, which was visibly bloodied – but he was otherwise “fine”, he said after Secret Service agents whisked him away from the scene.Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Secret Service said, agents returned fire at Crooks and killed him.View image in fullscreenABC News cited multiple law enforcement sources who told the outlet that the rifle the gunman fired on Saturday had been purchased legally by the suspect’s father, Matthew Crooks. Investigators arrived at that conclusion after the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms conducted an urgent trace on the weapon, according to the network.Separately, the Associated Press reported that authorities had discovered bomb-making materials in Crooks’ home and car, which was parked near the site of Saturday’s Trump rally.The Wall Street Journal added that police received multiple reports of suspicious packages near where Crooks was, prompting officials to dispatch bomb technicians.Graphic pictures of the scene circulating on social media showed Crooks had been clad in a T-shirt branded with the name of a YouTube channel dedicated to providing content on guns and demolition.Late Saturday, the channel’s host reposted a picture on Instagram of law enforcement officers standing over Crooks’ body – with part of the T-shirt’s wording visible – and wrote: “What the hell”.The FBI identified Crooks as Trump’s would-be assassin late on Saturday. On Sunday, the bureau said all available information suggested Crooks “acted alone” and there were no immediate “public safety concerns” about a larger plot.The FBI said it had not yet uncovered a motive for the apparent assassination attempt, or whether Crooks adhered to any specific ideologies. Crooks’ social media profile does not contain threatening language, authorities said on Sunday. Investigators have not found evidence of mental health issues.FBI officials told the AP that Crooks’ family was cooperating with their investigation – part of which also hoped to determine how he took the rifle he fired Saturday.Bethel Park skilled nursing and rehabilitation center, where Crooks was employed as a dietary aide, said it was “shocked and saddened” to hear he was responsible for Saturday’s shooting.“His background check was clean,” said a statement from the facility, which also condemned “all acts of violence”. More

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      Pennsylvania town reckons with Trump rally shooting: ‘The rhetoric has to stop’

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      Amid tight security and blocked-off roads, the small town of Butler, Pennsylvania, was attempting to come to terms with becoming the site of a major attempted US political assassination on Sunday.Many went to church to make sense of events. At one, Father Kevin Fazio called on the congregation packed into pews to “pray for our nation”, but most of his flock seemed subdued by the violence that had come to town.Less than a quarter of a mile away, the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds remains a crime scene, the gantries that hang massive stars and stripes and concert-sized speakers over Donald Trump’s rallies still erect, and the roof of AGR Industries, from where a gunman took aim at the former president, was clearly visible.Many inhabitants of Butler said they were deeply shaken. A farming town 20 miles north of Pittsburgh is typical of rural Trump country. Farms are being sold off for new housing developments, but the roads into town are still dotted with farm stands and signs urging Christian values: “In a world where you can be anything – be kind,” read one.But Butler is now a marker of America’s periodic turns to political violence.Trump’s rallies have long been carnivals, part politics and an expression of shared rightwing values and entertainment. That changed on Saturday evening, when shots rang out. The former US president reached to his ear, ducked behind the podium and was engulfed by a scrum of Secret Service agents, only to emerge seconds later, bloodied, with his fist in the air and mouthing: “Fight! Fight!”View image in fullscreenOutside a Sunoco gas station near the fairgrounds, an older man come for coffee and a breakfast sandwich and said he believed his son-in-law Greg Smith – the man who described seeing the shooter doing a bear-crawl along the rooftop, rifle in hand, to the BBC – had saved Trump’s life.“He was yelling at the shooter, causing him to fire sooner and miss his mark while the police were doing nothing,” he said, recounting his experience as a deer hunter, where presence of mind was required to aim and fire accurately.Another man at the store, who had been at the rally, said it was not the shooting itself that caused panic in the crowds, as many believed the gunshots were merely fire-crackers going off. But panic began to take hold when a section of the crowd, unaware of the shooting, pushed back on those at the front trying to flee.“People were falling on top of each other,” he said. “The elders who fell couldn’t get up, the kids were screaming. My family is all shook up.”Another man, Randy, said but it was a blessing that a summer heatwave had many kept people away from the fair and there hadn’t been a stampede. But the political temperature in the country, he said, had made it almost inevitable that “you’re going to get a crazy doing something crazy”.“The rhetoric in this country is sad, it’s terrible. It has to stop,” he said.The Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, travelled to Butler to express condolences for the family of Corey Comperatore, former fire-chief a nearby township, who was killed in the shooting as he tried to protect his daughters from the gunfire.Shapiro called on Americans to “be firm” and to “advocate for” their beliefs but peacefully. “Every day when I’m out in Pennsylvania, I see the best of Pennsylvanians,” he said. “Those who love their neighbors even if they have differences.”Richard Goldinger, district attorney of Butler county, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that “it’s embarrassing that this would happen here. This hasn’t happened in more than 40 years – to have an attempt on a president’s life.”View image in fullscreenOthers pointed to the security failings ahead of Trump’s appearance on stage. Evan, a young man who said he was not a Trump supporter, said security at the fairgrounds had been talked about in the town for days before the event – particularly the vulnerability of the surrounding buildings.“The Secret Service dropped the ball big time,” he said.Bobbie Barbary, passing though from South Bend, Indiana, had another perspective: “America has a disease – resentment, hatred and racism,” he said.Butler may mark an end to the freewheeling Trump roadshow and his campaign rallies will need to be reined in for his safety and that of others. But that’s not how it looked 12 hours earlier, when the Butler Eagle newspaper predicted Trump’s campaign stop was “an opportunity to put a small town on the map in a contentious presidential election”.By coming to Butler, the paper said, the rally – two days before the Republican convention kicks off in Milwaukee – would be a return to a different, older style of campaigning of going to where the voters are, in this case a farm show, that focused on increasing support among undecided people that Trump needs to carry the state in November.But for some in the wake of the shooting, Saturday’s events were now a sign that some aspects of modern American political life were better kept at a distance. The suspected shooter, from an affluent neighborhood just 30 miles (48km) away, had brought not only a rifle to kill Trump but explosives too were found in his car and his home.Yet an exact motive remains a mystery. Crooks was both a registered Republican and a very minor donor to a progressive cause. His social media footprint was negligible and betrayed little of his beliefs.“It’s America,” said a checkout worker at the town farmers’ market. “All kinds of crazy people out there.” More

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      in US Politics

      What we know about the shooting at a Donald Trump rally

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      A shooting occurred at a Donald Trump rally on Saturday, followed by the former president being rushed off the stage with blood around his ear. Here’s what we know about the situation so far.

      Trump was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when loud noises were heard in the crowd around 6.13pm.

      Trump appeared to have been struck by something in the area of his right ear as he was speaking, and videos show him quickly clutching his ear and then ducking down to the ground, as security agents and others leap to his aid.

      One spectator was killed and at least two were injured.

      Trump stood up with blood on the side of his face and appeared to be saying “fight, fight” while pumping his fist.

      Trump was then quickly escorted from the stage and into his vehicle.

      The rally location is now an active crime scene. The FBI has taken over the investigation.

      Trump’s team and the Secret Service confirmed that he was “fine” and being checked at a local medical facility.

      Trump later posted a statement on Truth Social, saying he was hit by a “bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear”.

      The Butler county district attorney confirmed that the suspected shooter and one rally attendee were dead. One person at the rally was in serious condition. The Secret Service later said two people were critically injured.

      The shooting is being investigated as an attempted assassination.

      The FBI later named Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, PA as the “subject involved” in the shooting. He is a registered on voter records as a Republican but also once donated $15 to a liberal voter group.

      The Secret Service shared more details on the shooter’s position and confirmed that the shooter was killed by the Secret Service. ABC News reported that law enforcement officials the suspect was perched on a rooftop and used an AR-style rifle.

      The Republican-controlled House of Representatives summoned the director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, to testify at an Oversight Committee hearing scheduled for 22 July.

      The president, Joe Biden, said “everybody must condemn political violence” in a speech shortly after the shooting. The White House later said the president and Trump had spoken. Biden is traveling back to the White House. Trump is in New Jersey. More

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      Trump rally shooting being investigated as attempt on his life as spectator killed

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      Law enforcement agents were investigating what they suspected was an attempt to assassinate Donald Trump after a man with a rifle fired shots at him during a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler county, Pennsylvania.The Secret Service spokesperson, Anthony Gugliemi, said on X that the former Republican president was “safe” following several shots, which prompted agents protecting Trump to leap on him amid the ensuing panic. Gugliemi said Secret Service agents then fatally shot the suspected attacker – who had fired toward Trump “from an elevated position outside of the rally venue”, Gugliemi said.One spectator was killed and two others were critically wounded. The FBI later identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, the Associated Press reported.Officials have not publicly disclosed a possible motive. A public records database showed a Bethel Park man with the exact same name and age as Crooks registered to vote as a Republican in 2021. Yet federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on 20 January 2021, the first day Democratic president Joe Biden took office.In a pair of statements, Trump said he was “fine” after a bullet hit “the upper part of [his] right ear”.The former president also issued thanks to the Secret Service agents as well as other law enforcement officers for “their rapid response” in a Truth Social post in the shooting’s aftermath.“Mostly importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed and also to the family of [those] badly injured,” said Trump, who was taken to a hospital for evaluation and then reportedly released about 10.20pm local time.“It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country.”Your browser doesn’t support HTML5 video. Here is a link to the video instead.Video from NBC News captured more than a dozen shots, with later ones apparently coming from agents protecting the president, who had been speaking on stage at the time.A voice could be heard saying: “Get down, get down, get down!” Agents arrived to throw themselves on top of Trump as the gunfire continued and screams were heard from the crowd.Audio from the network captured agent’s voices saying: “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down. Are we good to move? We’re clear, we’re clear.”As agents tried to move Trump off the stage at the rally, he said: “Let me get my shoes. Let me get my shoes.” Agents can be heard telling the former president: “I got you. Hold on. Your head is bloody. We’ve got to move.”Trump replied: “Wait, wait.” He then pumped his fist, mouthed the words: “Fight, fight, fight.”And the crowd at the rally responded with cries of: “USA! USA! USA!”Armed troops in uniform soon arrived as some spectators shouted abuse at the media.Agents then whisked Trump away from sight.Video showed blood on Trump’s ear. There were also snipers on a roof near the stage where Trump was standing, the Reuters news agency reported.NBC News, citing two senior law enforcement officials, reported there was growing concern among investigators that the shooting at the Trump rally “may have been a serious attempt on his life”.The local district attorney, Richard Goldinger, appeared on CNN and said he wasn’t sure how the suspected shooter “would’ve gotten to the location where he was”.“That’s something we’re going to have to figure out – how he got there.”View image in fullscreenThe BBC, meanwhile, interviewed a Trump supporter who said he was outside the rally site and had been trying to get close enough to hear the former president speak when he saw a man carrying a rifle climb on to the roof of a building.The man said he pointed out the building in question to police and remarked: “There’s a guy on the roof with a rifle.” But none of the police reacted, and about two minutes later, the man fired five or so shots toward Trump.At that point, the man told the BBC, Secret Service agents shot the attacker to death. “They blew his head off,” the man said.Investigators recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene, the AP reported, quoting a law enforcement source.The AP reportedly geolocated a video posted to social media which showed the body of a person lying motionless on the roof of a building at AGR International, a manufacturing plant just north of Saturday’s Trump rally.“The roof was less than 165 yards from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target,” the AP’s Scott Bauer wrote on X.Biden said on X that he had been briefed on the reported shooting.“I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well,” the president said of Trump, with whom he reportedly spoke on Saturday night. “I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information.”In a televised address, Biden urged widespread condemnation of political violence.“The bottom line is, the Trump rally … should have been able to be conducted peacefully without any problem,” Biden said. “But the idea … that there’s political violence … in America like this is just unheard of. It’s just not appropriate. Everybody must condemn it.”The scenes from the rally prompted a flood of reactions, including among Trump’s fellow Republicans.The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, wrote on X that his congressional chamber would “conduct a full investigation of the tragic events today”.“The American people deserve to know the truth,” Johnson said, pledging that the House would summon officials from the Secret Service, homeland security and FBI for hearings as soon as possible.Former Republican president George W Bush said he was “grateful” that Trump was “safe following the cowardly attack on his life”.The top Democrat in the US House, Hakeem Jeffries, offered prayers to Trump.“I am thankful for the decisive law enforcement response,” Jeffries wrote on X. “America is a democracy. Political violence of any kind is never acceptable.”The former Democratic president Barack Obama said in a separate statement: “There is 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.”In a Guardian interview in June, Steve Bannon – a Trump adviser and former White House chief strategist – spoke of his concerns that the Republican nominee would be assassinated before the election in November.“It’s my number one fear,” Bannon said, speaking before he began a four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena. “Assassination has to be at the top of the list and I believe that the woman that’s running the Secret Service part is not doing her job.”Referring to the Republican national convention, due to start Monday, he added: “I’m not comfortable with what’s happening in Milwaukee.” But he added: “His detachment is fantastic.”Bannon argued that Trump had been portrayed as a new Julius Caesar everywhere from a New York theatre production to an essay by leading scholar Robert Kagan, paving the way for a would-be assassin to feel justified in emulating Brutus. He said president Abraham Lincoln received similar treatment after the civil war before his assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth.“Remember John Wilkes Booth,” Bannon said. “In the southern press, and in particular the Richmond papers, Caesar-ism, Lincoln is Caesar, Lincoln is taking your liberties. You fought this war but, even in losing the war, he’s going to take all your liberties and enslave you.” More

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      in Elections

      Shooting at a Trump Rally in Pennsylvania: Maps and Photos

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      The Associated Press; Photograph By Doug Mills/The New York Times Former President Donald J. Trump was whisked off the stage at his rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday after gunshots were fired toward the area where he was speaking. Officials said the incident was being investigated as an assassination attempt. The rally took place on the […] More