“It takes guts”: Trump comes to “finish his speech” where he was almost killed

Donald Trump returns on Saturday to the same place where on July 13 he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, in the home stretch of an extraordinary presidential election which remains marked by the threat of political violence.

The Republican candidate and former president of the United States will hold a campaign rally in the town of Butler, in the crucial state of Pennsylvania, one month to the day before the presidential election on November 5 where he faces the vice-president. Democratic President Kamala Harris.

A gathering under very high security, with snipers installed on the roofs of several surrounding buildings and a drone flying over the crowd, an AFP journalist observed.

“I don’t think he’s safe, in my opinion, there will be another attempt,” said Heather Hughes, 43, who came from the neighboring town of New Castle (Pennsylvania) to attend the meeting.

Opponents of the Republican candidate “want to get rid of him because they know what he will make the United States better,” she assures, adding: “but I think he will get through it, his + guardians + are very strong”.

Like her, several hundred people gathered in Butler, many dressed in a t-shirt bearing the image of the former president just after the assassination attempt, others with their ears covered, reminiscent of the bandage that he had worn in the days that followed.

Elon Musk present

As for the Republican candidate, he had to address the crowd from behind armored glass. At his side, his running mate JD Vance will be present as well as the richest man in the world Elon Musk, relatives of victims of the shootings and the police who protected him.

“I appreciate him coming back. He said he would come and finish his speech and for me, that takes guts,” greets Robert Dupain, 53, an employee in the construction sector who was already present on July 13.

The assassination attempt was seen as a pivotal moment in the electoral campaign, as Donald Trump was trailing in opinion polls against Joe Biden after his disastrous televised debate, and he surrendered two days later as a “political martyr” at the Republican convention.

Those close to the Republican candidate have since accused the Democrats of inciting violence with their speech presenting Mr. Trump as an existential risk for democracy.

The candidate’s return to Butler, which promises to be colorful, comes the day after Joe Biden’s statements worrying about the risk that the vote would not be “peaceful”.

“I am worried about what they are going to do” during the vote, the American president said on Friday. Donald Trump has never acknowledged his defeat in 2020 and he is already denouncing the fact that Democrats “cheat like hell”.

“Republicans are not violent, I think (Democrats) are pushing for that. They keep talking about Hitler and the end of democracy,” replies Glen Scheirer, a retiree who came to the meeting with five relatives.

“Ball for democracy”

On July 13, in the middle of a meeting, a young man shot the former president, injuring him in the ear, killing a sympathizer present in the stands and injuring two others.

According to his team, Donald Trump “took a bullet for democracy.”

The populist tribune immediately grasped the scope of this shock: his ear bleeding, grazed by a bullet, protected and evacuated by Secret Service agents, the septuagenarian remained standing with his fist raised in defiance in front of the cameras, urging his supporters to “fight, fight, fight.”

The scene, immortalized under a large American flag, went around the world.

The Secret Service had shot young gunman Thomas Crooks, 20, perched on the roof of a building a few hundred meters away. The head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, was forced to resign.

This assassination attempt, followed by a second in September on the former president’s golf course in Florida, caused shock in the country and abroad. The United States is marked by a violent political history: the last president killed was John Kennedy in 1963.

While Mr. Trump was expected in Pennsylvania, Kamala Harris was going to North Carolina, another key state in these elections, hit by a powerful hurricane which left at least 220 dead in the southeast of the United States.

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© Agence France-Presse