The NPR Politics Podcast - Donald Trump Safe After Shooting During Pennsylvania Rally

Episode Date: July 14, 2024

The former president was rushed off the stage by the Secret Service. Trump said in a statement on his platform Truth Social a bullet grazed his right ear. The Secret Service said the shooter was killed and two spectators were critically wounded. President Biden made remarks decrying political violence, and then spoke to former President Trump. This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro, and campaign correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben.The podcast is produced by Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell and Kelli Wessinger. Our intern is Bria Suggs. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. It is 9.55 p.m. on Saturday, July 13th. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Domenica Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the presidential campaign. And at about 6.15 Eastern this evening, shots were fired at former President Donald Trump as he addressed a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. We're going to hear that now, and it lasts about 15 seconds if you'd like to skip forward. If you want to really see something that said, take a look at what happened. A bullet grazed Trump's right ear, and he ducked down where Secret Service surrounded him and escorted him off the stage as blood dripped down his face.

The Secret Service agents killed the suspected shooter who has not been identified as we tape this podcast tonight. Danielle, you were there. We should also note you are safe. Can you explain what was happening at the moment the shots rang out? Yeah, I mean, it was a pretty run-of-the-mill Trump rally up until that point. He was talking a lot about undocumented immigrants, using pretty inflammatory language. And then the shots happened. And everybody around me in the press pen really hit the deck, got down, got down on our stomachs or behind anything we could find and waited for

the shots to end. Now, once they did, we all stood up and kind of looked around. And first of all, there was a lot of discussion of what was that? Was that gunshots? Was that firecrackers? We couldn't tell in the immediate aftermath from that distance away from the stage. Danielle, as he was being escorted off the stage, and we should note Donald Trump is fine, there was this dramatic moment where they seemed to want to get him off the stage, but he turned back to the rally. Yes, yeah, and that was one of the first things I saw when I stood up because I turned to the stage and I saw a small swarm of Secret Service agents pulling him off, and I saw him raise his fist to the crowd.

And as he did, the crowd, at least as much as they could at that point, went wild. Both who saw him, you know, cheered pretty loudly. And then they really rushed him off. Domenico, we don't have a lot of facts right now. And I think it's important to remind our listeners that in these moments, we are extremely cautious with what we report and what we can confirm. But what do we know right now about what happened tonight? Well, we know that Trump was shot at. We know that he says that he was grazed on the right ear. We saw him go off stage on video with blood coming down the side of his face. He pumped his fist to the crowd, and you

heard him audibly say, fight, fight, twice, and then went off stage, Secret Service, trying to get him off stage. And there's a lot of bad information that flies in these kinds of breaking news moments. That's the core of what we know. We know that the Secret Service tonight said that the suspected shooter was killed, that someone in the crowd was also killed from the shooter's bullet, and that two others are critically wounded. The Secret Service also made clear that the shots were fired from an elevated position that was outside the rally venue. So it was not someone who got into the campaign rally with a weapon. Danielle, in the aftermath of this, when they take Trump away, I mean, you were still at this rally for a long time talking

to Trump voters and supporters. What were those conversations like? Well, first and foremost, people were quite shaken. I saw people holding each other and more than one person with tears in their eyes. But the people I talked to, I mean, their reactions were, you know, first of all, they were quite relieved that from what we saw at the time and what we now know, it sure seemed like Trump was at least relatively okay. They were quite relieved that from what we saw at the time and what we now know, it sure seemed like Trump was at least relatively OK. They were very, very there was a lot of relief in the people that I talked to. There was also there was quite a bit of anger. The sense that you get is that this kind of plays into a narrative already of Trump being targeted by his political enemies.

Domenico, the timing of this matters. It's 48 hours before the kickoff of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. And you have to think that this event sort of changes all the messaging we're going to be hearing from the Republican Party next week. Yeah, this definitely changes everything about Milwaukee at this point. You know, the convention is certainly going to have a lot about this. And it's certainly part of Trump's messaging going into this, as Danielle was noting, you know, that he has been somebody who's been, you know, quote unquote, targeted by political enemies, whether it was in, you know, court or being prosecuted or any other kind of way you can think of, Trump has said that the they is out to get him.

All right, let's take a quick break and we'll talk more about the response to the shooting when we get back. And we're back. And when horrific acts of political violence happen, there is at least initially a call for unity and a condemnation of violence. And that did happen. Here is President Biden addressing the nation this evening. Look, there's no place in America for this kind of violence. It's sick. It's sick.

It's one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot cond for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this. The Biden campaign also paused all of its advertising and outbound communication in the short term. But, Domenico, it was striking to me that within maybe two hours of the shooting and after it was clear that former President Trump was fine, his health was not in danger, pretty quickly Trump allies in Congress and elsewhere began to point the finger at the Democratic Party and Joe Biden for this. Yep, right away went right to politics. And I have to say, I'm maybe a little surprised at the speed by which that happened. But I was too, you know,

but I guess not really, right. I mean, I kind of immediately in my head sort of thought, this is where this is going to go. And then it did. I just thought it would go there tomorrow morning. I think we knew it was going to get political quick, but it turned really fast. It seemed like you had people setting a stopwatch on how long it took President Biden to actually make a public statement, you know, before cameras, as opposed to a written statement, which the White House put out fairly quickly. Of course, the president has to wait for information to be briefed from various agencies so that he can speak with the facts. And we saw him being cautious and also saying that this should be condemned. You know, we saw people who are allies of Trump's come out and say things like

Ben Carson, for example, somebody who's been thought to be a potential vice presidential pick for his ticket, served as a housing secretary under Trump. He said they tried to bankrupt him. They tried to slander him. They tried to imprison him. Now they've tried to kill him. And I think we're going to see a lot of that kind of thing at the convention. Trump's campaign, saying for years and even today, leftist activists, Democrat donors, now even Joe Biden, have made disgusting remarks and descriptions of shooting Donald Trump. It's high time that they be held accountable for it. The best way is through the ballot box. I mean,

there are arguments from Democrats where they would completely push back against that, but it's not really about winning over anybody or, you know, in a lot of ways, meaning that entirely. It is about rallying the base to come completely together so that they are on fully, fully on board for November. Going along with what Domenico said, after the incident and after things had calmed down a little bit, I, you know, saw some of the photos out of the event with Trump with his fist in the air and blood spattered on his face. And after the horrific event, looking at that, one of the first things I thought was, that's the next Trump rally t-shirt. You go to these rallies and people already often have t-shirts of Trump's mugshot, the mugshot being a sort of defiant symbol of, again,

Trump's enemies coming after him, at least to his supporters they are. Well, if you have a photo of him with his fist in the air, blood spattered on his face, once again, that is another powerful potential symbol, I think, that plays into that existing idea. It does sort of validate part of Trumpology and his message to his supporters that has always been like, I'm your retribution. I'm your warrior. They're coming after me because they can't come after you. He has always positioned himself as somebody that greater forces want to take down. And I think it validates for a lot of Trump supporters what he was saying all along. A thousand percent, yes. And I think that, you know, I'm not going to make any predictions,

but I mean, that's definitely something I think we'll all be watching for in Milwaukee. Domenico, before we started taping this podcast, when the news was first breaking, I had this thought where I was like, we have to be really careful to talk about this on the politics podcast because we don't want to be the ones talking about politics in this really serious time. But because the Republican Party is so clearly already kicked open those floodgates, I think it begs the question, what do you make of how this event could potentially impact the presidential race? Well, we haven't seen a lot move the needle in this presidential race, you know, whether it was Trump's conviction, Biden's poor debate performance. But if this doesn't, then probably nothing will. I would expect that there's going to be a strong outpouring of support for the former president. And, you know, if there was there are people on the fence, who are thinking about which candidate to support,

this is going to be the kind of thing that certainly Trump this next week is going to be hoping that he can drive this message home to win them over to his side. All right, we're going to leave it there for tonight, but we will continue to bring you updates as we have them on your local NPR member station and at NPR.org. And a reminder, we'll be in Milwaukee all next week covering the Republican National Convention. And a reminder, we'll be in Milwaukee all next week covering the Republican

National Convention. And a reminder that we're going to be in your feeds late every night of the convention to bring you the recap and the analysis. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. I'm Danielle Kirklaben. I cover the presidential campaign. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.