Donald Trump returned on Saturday to the “scene of the crime”: Butler, a small town in the crucial state of Pennsylvania where on July 13 a young man shot the former president of the United States who had narrowly escaped death. He will have by his side his running mate JD Vance, the richest man in the world Elon Musk, relatives of victims of the shootings – which left one dead in addition to the shooter Thomas Crooks, 20 years old – and the police who protected Mr. Trump.
The businessman and populist tribune immediately grasped the scope andimpact of the shock of July 13: his ear bleeding, visibly 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.
According to his team, this is the place where he “took a bullet for democracy”. The Secret Service, the police which protect the sitting president, his predecessors and high dignitaries, had shot dead the young gunman perched on the roof of a building a few hundred meters away. The police had the scene evacuated, which they immediately declared a “crime scene”.
The Secret Service, whose head Kimberly Cheatle had to resign, had for a time imposed on Mr. Trump that he only speak this summer in indoor rooms, before authorizing him again to speak in the open air, but behind armored glass. On July 13, the electoral campaign shifted into another dimension.
Donald Trump later told supporters that he immediately inquired about the number of casualties: a firefighter, Corey Comperatore, had been killed and two people injured. A microphone left open on the stage also allowed us to hear him ask the Secret Service to “let him pick up (his) shoes”. “We will be there on Saturday. It’s going to be a big event, really something important and we’re going to pay tribute to Corey and the two seriously injured gentlemen,” Donald Trump recently promised.
This assassination attempt, followed bya second in September on the former president’s golf course in Florida, caused a shock at home and abroad. The United States is marked by a violent political history: the last president killed was John Kennedy in 1963. Eight days after the first assassination attempt, on July 21, and following a disastrous debate against Donald Trump, Joe Biden, very weakened at 81, had thrown in the towel under pressure from his own Democratic camp, giving way to his vice-president Kamala Harris.
The two rivals have since engaged in a very acrimonious fight, like their only televised debate in September. The two drastically opposed visions of the candidates show that as the November 5 vote approaches, American society is on edge. The electoral centers of the most contested counties, targets of high tensions four years ago, have turned into fortresses, protected by wrought iron fences and metal detectors.
Related News :