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Trump rallies at site of failed assassination: 'Never quit'

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Agence France-Presse

<p>BUTLER, United States — Donald Trump defiantly returned Saturday to the site of a campaign rally where an assassin&#x27;s bullet almost killed him in July, questioning whether his opponents were responsible and declaring he would &quot;never quit.&quot;</p><p>&quot;Exactly 12 weeks ago this evening, on this very ground, a cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me,&quot; the Republican candidate told tens of thousands of supporters after taking the stage behind bulletproof glass.</p><p>Calling the gunman a &quot;vicious monster,&quot; Trump vowed he would &quot;never quit... never bend... never break&quot; to cheers of &quot;fight, fight, fight&quot; from the crowd.</p><p>Trump&#x27;s much-hyped return to Butler, Pennsylvania, came exactly one month before the November 5 presidential election, the outcome of which President Joe Biden suggested on Friday might not be peaceful.</p><p>Trump lashed out at his political opponents, calling them the &quot;enemy within&quot; who had pushed to indict him and &quot;who knows, maybe even tried to kill me.&quot;</p><p>&quot;I wasn&#x27;t supposed to make it,&quot; he said ominously.</p><div><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/10/5/biden-says-not-confident-of-peaceful-us-election-1111">RELATED: Biden says &#x27;not confident&#x27; of peaceful US election</a></div><p>Security was noticeably tighter than Trump&#x27;s July rally, with sniper squads atop surrounding buildings, and a surveillance drone deployed overhead.</p><p>&quot;There&#x27;s a lot going on that&#x27;s unnerving,&quot; said Heather Hughes, 43, who had traveled from New Castle in must-win Pennsylvania.</p><p>&quot;Do I think he&#x27;s safe? No, I think there&#x27;s going to be another attempt. But I think he&#x27;s going to make it through.&quot;</p><p>After the assassination attempt, pictures of Trump -- with a blood-streaked face, pumping his fist and shouting &quot;fight, fight, fight&quot; -- became defining images of the campaign.</p><p>On Saturday, many Trump supporters wore shirts emblazoned with the iconography, and some sported ear coverings recalling the bandage the former president wore after the shooting.</p><p>Billionaire Elon Musk joined Trump on stage, stressing the tight margins that will likely decide the election in battleground states like Pennsylvania and encouraging voter registration.</p><p>Trump &quot;must win to preserve democracy in America,&quot; said Musk, echoing the alarmist messaging he frequently pushes to his 200 million followers on his X platform.</p><div><strong>Race upended</strong></div><p>Much has changed since Trump&#x27;s last visit to Butler, when he was riding high in polls after crushing Biden in a TV debate.</p><p>Barely a week after the failed assassination bid, the presidential race was turned on its head when Biden dropped out and was replaced as the Democratic nominee by Vice President Kamala Harris.</p><p>Harris has clawed back the poll deficit -- reversing it in some states -- and the seismic events in Butler that had threatened to unleash chaos were largely overtaken.</p><p>Trump&#x27;s rally appeared aimed at recovering the momentum as a bruising campaign enters its final phase.</p><p>Harris, who Trump called incompetent, was in North Carolina Saturday meeting first responders and people hit by Hurricane Helene, which killed at least 220 as it ripped through the southeast.</p><p>The emergency response is &quot;an example of the best we can do when we bring resources together at the federal, state and local level and tap into the kind of collegiality that produces results,&quot; she told officials at a briefing.</p><p>Trump has criticized the federal response, alleging without evidence that the Biden-Harris administration wrongly redirected relief funds to migrants.</p><div style="caret-color:rgb(0, 0, 0);color:rgb(0, 0, 0)"><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/world/2024/10/3/us-election-like-no-other-enters-nail-biting-final-month-1020" style="color:rgb(199, 29, 29)">READ: US election like no other enters nail-biting final month</a></div><div><strong>Election violence?</strong></div><p>The heavy security presence on Saturday highlighted persistent security fears, underscored when another attempt on Trump&#x27;s life was foiled last month.</p><p>The Secret Service has been pilloried for failing to secure the building where the Butler shooter managed to fire at Trump eight times before being shot dead.</p><p>Along with Trump, two supporters were wounded and one -- firefighter Corey Comperatore -- was killed.</p><p>Trump and his campaign have sought to challenge Democrats&#x27; warnings about the former president representing a threat to democracy.</p><p>&quot;The Republicans aren&#x27;t violent... I think they (the Democrats) incite. They keep talking about Hitler and the end of democracy,&quot; said retiree Glen Scheirer, who was with five relatives wearing identical &quot;By the grace of God&quot; T-shirts showing Trump after the shooting.</p><p>In the immediate aftermath of the Butler incident, all sides urged a lowering of the political temperature.</p><p>But Trump quickly reverted to his signature inflammatory rhetoric and has refused to commit to accepting the eventual result in November.</p><p>He has been indicted over the effort to subvert the 2020 election that culminated in his supporters storming the Capitol.</p><p>Asked about the possibility of further election-related violence, Biden said Friday he did not know if the vote would be peaceful.</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse </strong></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>RELATED VIDEO</strong></div><div><span class="fr-video fr-deletable fr-fvc fr-dvb fr-draggable" contenteditable="false" draggable="true"><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/watch??app=desktop&amp;v=rV5TUvH0g1Q&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe></span><br/></div>

<p>Security was noticeably tighter than Trump's July rally, with sniper squads atop surrounding buildings, and a surveillance drone deployed overhead.</p>

Security was noticeably tighter than Trump's July rally, with sniper squads atop surrounding buildings, and a surveillance drone deployed overhead.