Former President Donald Trump has revealed what his wife and former first lady Melania Trump was doing the moment a would-be assassin’s bullet grazed his right ear at a rally earlier this month in Butler, Pa. He told Fox News host Laura Ingraham during a Monday interview that Melania was “watching live” when the incident happened, and now is unable to really discuss it with anyone.
Trump, who was shot by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, mentioned that the former first lady was watching the event on television as the horrifying shooting unfolded and thought “the worst had happened.” He said, “She was watching live. She can’t really even talk about it, which is OK. That means she likes me.” He then added: “When I went down, she thought the worst had happened,” the 45th president said of Melania’s immediate reaction, “because I went down and grabbed my hand and my hand was loaded up with blood.”
Crooks was engaged by a Secret Service counter-sniper team and killed within seconds of firing on the president. A rallygoer was killed and two others wounded in the shooting, both of whom have since been discharged from hospitals. The Secret Service has faced criticism for failing to secure the roof of the building that Crooks was able to scale before he aimed at Trump and opened fire. The agency has also been scrutinized for losing track of the would-be assassin’s location despite receiving warnings about him before Trump took the stage.
“There should have been communication with the local police, which there wasn’t,” Trump said of the Secret Service. “So that’s a bad thing, and they were seeing this guy – it was a very disturbed person, and they were seeing him around.” Meanwhile, Trump has said he will ignore the Secret Service’s recommendation that he stop doing outside rallies. “Yeah, I’m going to do rallies [outside],” he told Ingraham, adding he believes it’s “important symbolically.” That will include holding another rally outdoors in Butler.
The FBI and the Secret Service have both said they will send officials to testify before Congress regarding the failed assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump earlier this month during a rally in Butler, PA. Senate lawmakers are expected to question the acting director of the Secret Service on Tuesday regarding law enforcement lapses in the hours leading up to the attempted assassination. The hearing is part of an ongoing series of congressional sessions focused on the shooting.
Ronald Rowe took over as acting director of the Secret Service last week following Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation, which came after a House hearing where she faced intense questioning from lawmakers and struggled to address specific issues related to communication failures before the July 13 shooting. Rowe will appear alongside FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate at a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees, the Associated Press reported.
“The hearing comes one day after the FBI released new details about its investigation into the shooting, revealing that the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, had looked online for information about mass shootings, power plants, improvised explosive devices and the May assassination attempt of the Slovakian prime minister,” the AP report stated. “The FBI also said that Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, has agreed to be interviewed by agents as a crime victim. The bureau said last week that the former president had been struck in the ear by a bullet or fragment of one. Trump said Monday evening that he expected that interview to take place Thursday.”
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