(Daily Mail) On Saturday night, Donald Trump was in full-swing doing what has made him an insurmountable force in the United States.
The 78-year-old former president was on a roll in a field in Butler, Pennsylvania, telling thousands of his die-hard supporters how ‘Biden’s Border Crisis’ and the surge in immigration was ruining the country.
Despite his unprecedented hush money trial conviction in New York, he was dominating his 81-year-old Democratic rival in all nationwide polls and leading the critical swing states that will decide the 2024 election.
The ailing and embattled Joe Biden was frantically trying to shut down calls for him to drop out of the race after his car-crash debate performance sparked questions about his cognitive decline.
At 6.11pm, a bullet from gunman Thomas Crooks ripped through Trump’s ear in one of the most seismic moments in American history.
July 13
Trump makes a campaign stop at the Butler County fairgrounds in Pennsylvania. The city, with a population of 13,000 people, is approximately 30 miles from Pittsburgh. In 2016 and 2020 Trump won 66 per cent of the vote here.
18:02 ET
Trump takes to the stage and begins addressing his supporters, dozens of whom are seated behind the former president on a grand stand, holding placards.
18:11 ET
Loud cracks are heard and Trump grabs his right ear as the first shots are fired by Thomas Matthew Crooks. One member of the crowd is hit in the head and killed. Two others are seriously wounded.
18:11 ET
Trump is bundled to the ground by Secret Service agents as snipers return fire and kill Crooks. The former president is heard complaining that he has lost his shoes.
18:12 ET
Secret Service agents declare ‘shooter is down’ before they start evacuating Trump from the stage. The former president defiantly raises a fist as he his photographed with blood streaming down his face.
18:12 ET
Agents help Trump from the podium and rush him towards a car to take him to hospital for emergency treatment.
18:13 ET
As he reaches the car, Trump turns back towards the crowd and again raises his fist.
July 15
Trump arrives at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and appears in public for the first time since the botched assassination attempt. He wears an oversized white medical gauze on his ear.
Twenty-year-old Crooks managed to climb onto a roof just 144 yards away from the stage where Trump was speaking and started shooting.
He fired several rounds from his father’s AR-style rifle at the Republican presidential nominee grazing his ear. The errant rounds hit at least three members of the crowd, killing one, amid horrifying scenes that sparked blood-curdling screams.
The would-be assassin may have landed a fatal shot on Trump, if his target hadn’t tilted his head at the last second to point out a graph projected onto the big screen over his right shoulder. He moved barely an inch, but it was enough to change the course of history.
Secret Service agents swarmed the stage as Trump bent over clutching his right ear, which was pouring with blood.
Surrounded by bodyguards, Mr Trump crouched on the floor with blood running down his cheek.
As he stood up, with agents tightly huddled around him acting as human shields, he raised his fist in the air, looked to the audience and shouted ‘fight, fight, fight’.
After asking his protective detail to get his shoes, he was rushed off the stage into a motorcade and driven to hospital for observation.
Meanwhile, two snipers on a rooftop neutralised Crooks, whose bullet killed retired fire chief Corey Comperatore (pictured), 50. His heartbroken family said he died a hero, shielding his young daughter and wife from the gunfire.
A remote detonator was found next to the would-be assassin’s body. It is thought that it could have been used to set off the rudimentary explosives FBI officials found while searching Crooks’ car, which he’d parked nearby.
The Secret Service – which guards political leaders – is facing questions about how the gunman got close enough to shoot Trump.
The loner, who was relentlessly bullied, lived just 42 miles away from where the rally took place, and had turned up to the event three hours before opening fire.
He initially sparked the suspicions of law enforcement officers because he tried to pass through the security cordon’s metal detectors with a rangefinder, a gadget used by hunters to take long shots. It set the detector off and he was refused entry. A radio alert was put out telling officers to keep an eye on him.
Crooks, who was registered as a Republican, is then believed to have collected the rifle he used to shoot Trump.
About 40 minutes before the shooting, Crooks was back on the Secret Service radar. A photograph showing the sniper appearing to crawl on the ground while scouring the area was circulated after reports about his suspicious behavior were made to security.
Agents watched him but lost track of Crooks when he left the secure area.
He didn’t appear again until witnesses saw him climbing up the side of a squat manufacturing building, where he later opened fire from.
Snipers posted on the roof behind Trump, as he gave his speech | Getty
Police and military personnel stand over the body of Trump gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks after he was shot and killed | Getty
Solidarity with Trump
Just two days after Crooks’s attempt on his life, Trump made his first public appearance at a Republican convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
He emerged with a bandage over his right ear, receiving a raucous ovation from his party’s faithful who chanted ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ and pumped their fists, mimicking Trump’s reaction immediately after being wounded.
During the third night of the same convention, Trump advocates sported fake bandages on their ears in a sign of solidarity with their party’s nominee. Some make-shift accessories were created with cotton pads, others paper.
Delegate Joe Neglia, from Tempe, Arizona, said his show of support was ‘the least I can do’ to ‘honor him’. He claimed the bandages were the ‘newest fashion trend’.
Supporters and attendees wearing bandages over their ears in tribute to Trump during the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S., July 16, 2024 and July 17, 2024 | REUTERS
Trump’s ‘Reagan effect’?
In the aftermath of the horrifying shooting, political experts predicted Trump could win a ‘landslide’ in November’s election, referencing the shooting of Ronald Reagan in 1981 – the last major US assassination attempt.
He has hit 47.6 per cent in our voting intention tracker, which aggregates all the national head-to-head surveys collated by political site FiveThirtyEight each week. Biden, for comparison, currently sits three points behind.
The pair were neck and neck just six weeks ago, with a string of gaffes by Biden having fuelled support for the Republican candidate before the assassination attempt.
