Law enforcement agents are investigating what they suspect may have been a genuine attempt on Donald Trump’s life at a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.
A Secret Service spokesperson said on X that “the former president [was] safe” after more than a dozen gunshots erupted, prompting agents protecting Trump to leap on him amid the ensuing panic.
Trump himself said he was “fine” in a statement and was being checked at a medical facility.
The local district attorney, Richard Goldringer, told NBC News that both the suspected shooter and one spectator were dead following Saturday’s violence. A third person – a spectator as well – is criticially injured, Goldringer said.
A spokesperson for the former president added that Trump thanked “law enforcement and first responders for their quick action during this heinous act”.
Video from NBC News captured more than a dozen shots, with later ones apparently coming from agents protecting the president.
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.”
Trump is covered by Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July.
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”.
Joe Biden said on Saturday 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. “I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information.”
Biden added that he and the first lady, Jill Biden, were both “grateful to the Secret Service for getting him to safety”.
“There’s no place for this kind of violence in America,” Biden said. “We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”
One rallygoer who described himself to CBS News as an emergency room physician recounted walking toward a voice saying: “He’s been shot.” The rallygoer, whose shirt was bloodstained, said he saw a man with a bullet wound to the head who had been spun around and ended up “jammed between the benches”.
He said he had tried to perform CPR on the wounded man, who at the time was about to be loaded into a medical helicopter.
The scenes from the rally prompted a flood of reactions, including support for Trump from Republicans such as former president George W Bush as well as the US senators Marco Rubio of Florida and JD Vance of Ohio.
Former first lady Laura Bush “and I are grateful that president Trump is safe following the cowardly attack on his life”, Bush said. “And we commend the men and women of the Secret Service for their speedy response.”
Rubio said on X on Saturday: “Praying for President Trump and all those attending the rally in Pennsylvania today.”
And Vance posted on X: “Everyone join me in praying for our President Trump and everyone at that rally. I hope everyone is OK.”
The top Democrat in the US House, Hakeem Jeffries, also 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. Michelle and I are wishing him a quick recovery.”
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 on 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 Abraham Lincoln received similar treatment after the civil war.
“Remember John Wilkes Booth. 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.”
