Trump vows to press ahead after surviving assassination bid

Donald Trump said he was headed for Milwaukee yesterday, where Republicans will formally make him their presidential nominee later this week after he survived an assassination attempt that further inflames an already bitter US political divide.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said he had ordered a review of how a 20-year-old man carrying an AR-15-style rifle managed on Saturday to get close enough to shoot from a rooftop at Trump, who as a former president has lifetime protection by the US Secret Service, a unit of the federal Department of Homeland Security.
Trump, 78, was holding a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania - one of the states expected to be most competitive in the Nov 5 election - when shots rang out, hitting his right ear and streaking his face with blood. His campaign said he was doing well and appeared to have suffered no major injury besides a wound on his upper right ear.
Trump is due to receive his party’s formal nomination at the Republican National Convention, which kicks off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, today. RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said on Fox News on Sunday that authorities are working together to safeguard the venue, where officials have spent months making security preparations.
“I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin, and The Republican National Convention, by two days, but have just decided that I cannot allow a ‘shooter,’ or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else. Therefore, I will be leaving for Milwaukee, as scheduled,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.
The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the suspect in what it called an attempted assassination. He was a registered Republican, according to state voter records and had made a $15 donation to a Democratic political action committee at the age of 17.
Law enforcement officials told reporters they had yet to identify a motive for the attack. Both Republicans and Democrats will be looking for evidence of Crooks’ political affiliation as they seek to cast the rival party as representing extremism.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence,” Biden said at the White House. “I urge everyone, everyone please don’t make assumptions about his motive or affiliations.”
Trump and Biden are locked in a close election rematch, according to most opinion polls including those by Reuters/Ipsos.
The shooting whipsawed the discussion around the presidential campaign, which had recently focused on whether Biden, 81, should drop out following a disastrous June debate performance. Pages 10, 11
Secret Service agents fatally shot the suspect, the agency said, after he opened fire from the roof of a building about 140 m from the stage where Trump was speaking. An AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle used in the shooting was recovered near his body, according to sources.
The firearm was legally purchased by the suspect’s father, ABC and the Wall Street Journal reported. Bomb-making materials were found in the suspect’s car.
Authorities identified a rally attendee who was shot and killed as Corey Comperatore, 50, of Sarver, Pennsylvania, who Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro told reporters was killed when he dove on top of his family to protect them from the hail of bullets.
Two other rally attendees were critically wounded, the Secret Service said.
Residents of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, where the alleged shooter lived, expressed shock at the news.
Americans fear rising political violence, recent Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, with two out of three respondents to a May survey saying they worried violence could follow the election.
Hours after the attack, the Oversight Committee in the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives summoned Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to testify at a hearing scheduled for July 22.
Some of Trump’s Republican allies said they believed the attack was politically motivated.
“It’s one side that is going after Donald Trump in a way to demonize him personally,” said Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican. “The left seems to have targeted Donald Trump as a person.”