On the first night after Donald Trump was injured in an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., some supporters and allies, including campaign staff, immediately began blaming President Joe Biden and Democrats before any information was available about the shooter or his possible motive. Trump himself didn’t go there. In his first public statements after the July 13 shooting, Trump thanked law enforcement, offered condolences to the rallygoers killed and wounded, and called for unity.
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But his tone changed in recent weeks, as the Republican presidential nominee began promoting conspiracy theories such as those that label the assassination attempt an “inside job” by government agencies or make up Democratic ties to lawyers representing the shooter’s parents. Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), frequently portray the attempt as part of efforts by political opponents to prevent the former president from returning to power.
“I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me,” Trump said at Tuesday’s ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, referring to the bullet or bullet fragment that authorities said grazed his right ear.
The photo of Trump raising his fist with blood on his face has supplanted his mug shot as the defining image of his campaign, adorning everything from T-shirts to Christmas ornaments, and symbolizing the feeling of defiance that Trump has made core to his political persona. Republicans’ new rallying cry became the “Fight! Fight! Fight!” chant inspired by Trump’s first words after getting shot.
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His frequent retellings of what happened in Butler serve to deepen his bond with his supporters by fostering a collective experience of overcoming adversity. That shared feeling gets intensified by a perceived indifference from the media and the rest of the country, as attention quickly moved on from the shooting to Trump’s selection of Vance and Harris’s replacement of Biden as the Democratic nominee. And as with previous MAGA myths, such as unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, Trump’s supporters bring him information and suspicions that he amplifies and validates, creating a mutually reinforcing feedback loop.
“The more we see what happened that day, the more suspicious it all looks,” right-wing podcast host Monica Crowley said in an interview with Trump released on Aug. 29. “It looks like the three-letter agencies are slow-walking a lot of this evidence, a lot of the videos, etc. Does it look increasingly to you like this was a suspicious, maybe even inside job?”
“It’s very suspicious,” Trump replied. “The more you see it, the more you start to say, ‘There could be something else.’”
Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said: “President Trump wants to ensure we learn where failures happened and how to prevent them in the future.”
Researchers who study political violence said these words, images and emotions have the dual effect of mobilizing Trump’s supporters to vote for him and delegitimizing the outcome in case he loses. They also said Trump’s emphasis on the shooting could inspire some of his supporters to resort to violence in his defense.
“It is creating a permission structure for at least some people to want to take matters into their own hands,” said Matt Dallek, a George Washington University professor who studies the conservative movement and is working on a book about presidential assassination attempts and political violence in the 20th century. “It operates similarly to the ‘big lie’ about the 2020 election being stolen, and therein lies the danger to the country.”
Investigators have yet to identify a motive for the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was killed at the scene by a Secret Service sniper. Authorities said Crooks’s phone had pictures of Biden and a member of the British royal family as well as Trump, and they have found no sign of an ideological or political motive. Instead, the available evidence points to Crooks as a troubled young man like many of those behind past assassination attempts or, more often, school shootings.
A series of lapses made it so Crooks was able to take multiple shots at Trump using his father’s rifle from about 150 yards from where Trump was speaking, firing from the roof of a building where local police were staged. Police searched for Crooks as a reported suspicious person for 30 minutes before Trump’s detail found out, and one officer found him on the roof but had to retreat just before Crooks opened fire.
The Secret Service repeatedly turned down the Trump campaign’s requests for additional resources as the agency struggled to keep up with expanding protection needs for more than two dozen people. Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned under pressure in July, and there are ongoing investigations by congressional committees, the FBI and Homeland Security’s inspector general. No evidence has emerged of White House involvement in resource decisions.
The shocks of freak events like assassinations almost always tempt imaginations, with loose ends about the political murders of the 1960s that linger still today. In the case of the Butler rally, the embarrassing revelations and stubborn unknowns have given Trump and his supporters ample jumping-off points. Some on the left have also engaged with unfounded suspicions about the source and nature of Trump’s injury. In a recent podcast interview, Trump pointed to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray’s initial uncertainty in congressional testimony about what hit Trump’s ear as reason to distrust him; Wray, whom Trump appointed, clarified that the former president was injured by a bullet or fragment.
“This is all set up to prime his base to believe that, if his loses in November, the Democrats have once again stolen the election, that Harris is illegitimate, and they should in some respects come to his defense,” said Barbara F. Walter, a professor at the University of California at San Diego and the author of “How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them.” If his polls deteriorate in coming weeks and it looks like he may lose, she added, “he’s going to ratchet up that narrative even further.”
Cut through the 2024 election noise. Get The Campaign Moment newsletter.
But his tone changed in recent weeks, as the Republican presidential nominee began promoting conspiracy theories such as those that label the assassination attempt an “inside job” by government agencies or make up Democratic ties to lawyers representing the shooter’s parents. Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), frequently portray the attempt as part of efforts by political opponents to prevent the former president from returning to power.
“I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me,” Trump said at Tuesday’s ABC News debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, referring to the bullet or bullet fragment that authorities said grazed his right ear.
The photo of Trump raising his fist with blood on his face has supplanted his mug shot as the defining image of his campaign, adorning everything from T-shirts to Christmas ornaments, and symbolizing the feeling of defiance that Trump has made core to his political persona. Republicans’ new rallying cry became the “Fight! Fight! Fight!” chant inspired by Trump’s first words after getting shot.
Follow Election 2024
His frequent retellings of what happened in Butler serve to deepen his bond with his supporters by fostering a collective experience of overcoming adversity. That shared feeling gets intensified by a perceived indifference from the media and the rest of the country, as attention quickly moved on from the shooting to Trump’s selection of Vance and Harris’s replacement of Biden as the Democratic nominee. And as with previous MAGA myths, such as unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, Trump’s supporters bring him information and suspicions that he amplifies and validates, creating a mutually reinforcing feedback loop.
“The more we see what happened that day, the more suspicious it all looks,” right-wing podcast host Monica Crowley said in an interview with Trump released on Aug. 29. “It looks like the three-letter agencies are slow-walking a lot of this evidence, a lot of the videos, etc. Does it look increasingly to you like this was a suspicious, maybe even inside job?”
“It’s very suspicious,” Trump replied. “The more you see it, the more you start to say, ‘There could be something else.’”
Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said: “President Trump wants to ensure we learn where failures happened and how to prevent them in the future.”
Researchers who study political violence said these words, images and emotions have the dual effect of mobilizing Trump’s supporters to vote for him and delegitimizing the outcome in case he loses. They also said Trump’s emphasis on the shooting could inspire some of his supporters to resort to violence in his defense.
“It is creating a permission structure for at least some people to want to take matters into their own hands,” said Matt Dallek, a George Washington University professor who studies the conservative movement and is working on a book about presidential assassination attempts and political violence in the 20th century. “It operates similarly to the ‘big lie’ about the 2020 election being stolen, and therein lies the danger to the country.”
Investigators have yet to identify a motive for the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, who was killed at the scene by a Secret Service sniper. Authorities said Crooks’s phone had pictures of Biden and a member of the British royal family as well as Trump, and they have found no sign of an ideological or political motive. Instead, the available evidence points to Crooks as a troubled young man like many of those behind past assassination attempts or, more often, school shootings.
A series of lapses made it so Crooks was able to take multiple shots at Trump using his father’s rifle from about 150 yards from where Trump was speaking, firing from the roof of a building where local police were staged. Police searched for Crooks as a reported suspicious person for 30 minutes before Trump’s detail found out, and one officer found him on the roof but had to retreat just before Crooks opened fire.
The Secret Service repeatedly turned down the Trump campaign’s requests for additional resources as the agency struggled to keep up with expanding protection needs for more than two dozen people. Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned under pressure in July, and there are ongoing investigations by congressional committees, the FBI and Homeland Security’s inspector general. No evidence has emerged of White House involvement in resource decisions.
The shocks of freak events like assassinations almost always tempt imaginations, with loose ends about the political murders of the 1960s that linger still today. In the case of the Butler rally, the embarrassing revelations and stubborn unknowns have given Trump and his supporters ample jumping-off points. Some on the left have also engaged with unfounded suspicions about the source and nature of Trump’s injury. In a recent podcast interview, Trump pointed to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray’s initial uncertainty in congressional testimony about what hit Trump’s ear as reason to distrust him; Wray, whom Trump appointed, clarified that the former president was injured by a bullet or fragment.
“This is all set up to prime his base to believe that, if his loses in November, the Democrats have once again stolen the election, that Harris is illegitimate, and they should in some respects come to his defense,” said Barbara F. Walter, a professor at the University of California at San Diego and the author of “How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them.” If his polls deteriorate in coming weeks and it looks like he may lose, she added, “he’s going to ratchet up that narrative even further.”
