Donald Trump was injured in what the FBI said was an attempted assassination at an election rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening, an act of political violence that threatens to upend an already tumultuous US election race and deepen the country’s polarisation.
The former president was injured in a volley of gunfire at 6.15pm from an “elevated position” outside the venue, according to the US Secret Service. The shots killed one spectator and critically wounded others, all of whom were male, according to authorities.
Trump was immediately rushed offstage to his motorcade, with blood visible on his right ear and streaking across his cheek. He pumped his fists and shouted “Fight!” to the crowd before being driven away.
The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting current and former presidents, said the suspected shooter had fired “multiple shots towards the stage” and that the assailant was dead. The FBI called the incident “an assassination attempt against our former president Donald Trump”.
The FBI later identified the suspected shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
The shooting drew condemnation from across the US political spectrum, with President Joe Biden, who spoke to Trump late on Saturday, describing the incident as “sick” and a reason “why we have to unite this country”.
“There’s no place in America for this kind of violence,” Biden said.
International leaders also denounced the act of violence, with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer saying he was “appalled by the shocking scenes”. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he would “pray for President Trump’s speedy recovery”.
There were conflicting reports about the cause of Trump’s injury. The former president wrote on his Truth Social platform that he had been “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear”.
“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” Trump wrote. “Much bleeding took place, so I realised then what was happening.” He offered his condolences to the families of the killed and injured attendees.
The gunfire erupted just minutes after Trump began speaking at a rally of supporters in Butler, a rural town in north-western Pennsylvania. Witnesses and footage suggested seven or eight shots were fired.
Law enforcement became aware of the shooter only after shots were fired, according to an initial assessment. Asked at a news conference if the incident marked a failure of security, FBI agent Kevin Rojek said it was too early to make any determination, but added it was “surprising” the perpetrator was able to fire several shots. Rojek also declined to comment on the shooter’s motive or the type of weapon used.
Trump left Butler county and later landed in New Jersey, according to a social media post from his campaign’s staff.
Biden was briefed on the shooting soon after the incident. “Apparently he’s doing well,” the president said of Trump in brief remarks from the police department in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he has a holiday home. “You cannot allow for this to be happening. You cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.”
Biden continued: “The bottom line is that the Trump rally is a rally that he should have been able to [conduct] peacefully without any problem.”
Biden was set to return to the White House at 12.30am on Sunday morning, a spokesperson said.
A Biden campaign official said the president’s re-election campaign was “pausing all outbound communications and working to pull down our television ads as quickly as possible”.
The apparent attempt on Trump’s life marked the first time in decades that a current or former president has been a victim in a shooting, and came less than four months before the presidential election in November, and ahead of the Republican National Convention next week, when Trump is set to formally accept his party’s nomination for president.
Trump’s campaign said after the shooting that he still “looks forward to joining [supporters] at the convention”.
US politics has been plagued in recent years by deep divisions and heightened political rhetoric, with sporadic eruptions of violence over the past four years including the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters. Some Republicans were quick to attribute blame for the incident on Biden’s political rhetoric.
JD Vance, the Republican Ohio Senator and potential Trump running mate, said the “central premise of the Biden campaign” was that Trump was “an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” he said.
US attorney-general Merrick Garland said the justice department would “bring every available resource to bear” to an investigation, which the FBI said in a separate statement it would lead.
Mike Johnson, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, wrote on X that he had been briefed on the situation and was “praying for President Trump”. Johnson later said the House would “conduct a full investigation” and subpoena the Secret Service director and other federal officials to testify before congressional committees “ASAP”.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, said in a statement that he was “horrified by what happened”, adding: “Political violence has no place in our country.”
Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, and former president Barack Obama were among those who echoed that sentiment, with Hakeem Jeffries, the top US House Democrat, saying he was “thankful for the decisive law enforcement response”.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz, Stefania Palma and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
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