Donald Trump injured in assassination attempt at Pennsylvania rally

Donald Trump was injured in what the FBI said was an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday night, an act of political violence that threatens to upend an already chaotic U.S. election race and deepen polarization in the country.

The former president was wounded in a hail of gunfire at 6.15pm from an “elevated position” outside the venue, according to the US Secret Service. The shots killed one spectator and seriously injured others, all of whom were men, authorities said.

trumpet was immediately taken off stage to his motorcade, with blood running down his right ear and cheek. He raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” to the crowd before being taken away.

The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting current and former presidents, said the suspected shooter fired “multiple shots toward the stage” and the attacker was dead. The FBI called the incident “an attempted assassination of our former president, Donald Trump.”

The FBI later identified the shooting suspect as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

The shooting has sparked condemnation across the US political spectrum, with President Joe Biden, who spoke with Trump late on Saturday, describing the incident as “sickening” and a reason “why we have to unite this country”.

“America does not accept this kind of violence,” Biden said.

International leaders also condemned the violence, with British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer saying he was “appalled by the shocking scenes”. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he would “pray for President Trump’s speedy recovery”, while French President Emmanuel Macron called the incident “a tragedy for our democracy”.

Gunfire erupted just minutes after Trump began speaking at a rally of supporters in Butler, a rural town in northwestern Pennsylvania. Witnesses and footage showed seven or eight shots were fired.

Writing on his social media platform Truth, Trump said he had been “shot through the upper part of his right ear by a bullet”.

“I knew something was wrong right away when I heard the whistling, the gunshot, and immediately felt the bullet go through my skin,” he said. “There was a lot of blood, so I realized what was happening.” He offered his condolences to the families of the dead and injured attendees.

According to initial assessments, law enforcement only learned of the gunman after shots were fired. Asked at a press conference whether the incident was a security incident, FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek said it was too early to make any determination, but added that it was “surprising” that the perpetrator was able to fire multiple shots. Rojek also declined to comment on the gunman’s motive or the type of weapon used.

According to a social media post from his campaign team, Trump left Butler County and then flew to New Jersey.

Biden was informed of the shooting shortly after the incident. “He’s obviously doing fine,” the president said of Trump in brief remarks from the police department in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he has a vacation home. “You can’t let this happen. You can’t do this. We can’t tolerate this.”

Biden continued: “The bottom line is that Trump’s rally was a rally that he should have been able to have. [conduct] peacefully without any problems.”

Biden is expected to return to the White House at 12:30 a.m. Sunday, the spokesman said.

A Biden campaign official said the president’s re-election campaign is “pausing all external communications and working to remove television advertising as quickly as possible.”

The assassination attempt on Trump marks the first time in decades that a sitting or former president has been the victim of a shooting, and comes less than four months before the November presidential election, and ahead of next week’s Republican National Convention, when Trump is set to formally accept his party’s nomination for president.

Trump’s campaign said after the shooting that he still “looks forward to participating” [supporters] at the conference”.

US politics has been plagued in recent years by deepening divisions and heightened political rhetoric, with sporadic outbreaks of violence over the past four years including the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters. Some Republicans were quick to blame Biden’s political rhetoric for the incident.

JD Vance, Republican Senator from Ohio and Trump’s potential candidatesaid the “central premise of the Biden campaign” is that Trump is “an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric leads directly to the assassination attempt on President Trump,” he said.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department would “use all available resources” to investigate, and the FBI said in a separate statement that it would lead the investigation.

Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives, wrote on X that he had been briefed on the situation and was “praying for President Trump.” Johnson later said the House would “conduct a full investigation” and subpoena the Secret Service director and other federal officials to testify before congressional committees “AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.”

Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in the Senate, said in a statement he was “horrified by what happened” and added: “Political violence has no place in our country.”

Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, and former president Barack Obama were among those who echoed that sentiment, with Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, saying he was “grateful for the aggressive response by law enforcement”.

Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz, Stefania Palma and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington