2024-07-23 09:36:50
Por Gregory WALTON
Former US President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the November elections, was injured in the ear while holding an election rally on Saturday in Pennsylvania, in an incident that has shocked the country just months before the November elections.
“I was shot with a bullet that pierced the top of my right ear,” Trump said shortly after the shooting in the town of Butler, in Pennsylvania (northeast), a key swing state in the presidential election.
Trump, 78, had just begun his speech with one of his usual diatribes about the massive influx of migrants into the country, which he blames on Democratic President Joe Biden.
As he spoke, gunshots rang out, and he put his hand to his ear and dropped to the ground behind the lectern before being immediately surrounded by his security as the audience screamed in horror.
Moments later, Donald Trump stood up, disheveled and without his red cap, surrounded by police officers. “Let me get my shoes,” he was heard saying.
The former president left the stage, brandishing his raised fist, surrounded by security.
One rally-goer was killed and two others are in critical condition, according to the secret services, although the Butler County district attorney only spoke of one seriously injured.
The shooter, who was standing “high up” outside the venue where the Republican tycoon was holding his rally, was also killed, said prosecutor Richard Godlinger. The secret services said he had been “neutralized.”
“I don’t know how he got to where he was, but he was outside the compound. And I think that’s something we’re going to have to figure out how he got there,” the prosecutor said.
“President Trump thanks law enforcement and first responders for their swift action during this heinous act. He is doing well and is being examined at a local medical facility. More details will follow,” his campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
– «There is no place for violence» –
“There is no place for this kind of violence,” President Joe Biden, a possible rival of the Republican in the November 5 elections, immediately responded to the shooting.
“We can’t be like this,” he said before adding that he was “grateful to hear that she is safe and doing well,” he said in a statement.
“I am praying for him and his family and everyone who was at the rally as we await further information,” she said, adding that “we must come together as a nation to condemn” the violence.
The White House announced that the president would make a public statement.
This was Trump’s last rally before the Republican convention scheduled to take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, starting on Monday. It is expected that the candidate seeking to return to the White House will be officially nominated as a candidate to face Joe Biden in the November 5 elections.
“We saw a lot of people lying on the ground, looking confused. I heard the shots, it sounded like something between firecrackers and a small-calibre pistol,” John Yeykal, a supporter at the scene, told AFP.
The reactions were not long in coming. The leader of the Democratic majority in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, was one of the first politicians to react. He declared himself “horrified.”
Former President Barack Obama also responded on X, his former Twitter account, saying he was “relieved” that the former president “was not seriously injured” and took the opportunity to call for “civility and respect for politics” in a highly polarized country.
Elon Musk, the tycoon who owns Tesla and Twitter X, reacted by offering his support to Donald Trump and wishing him a “speedy recovery.”
– «Existential choice» –
The consequences of this event for the campaign are still unpredictable.
In recent days, attention has focused on the physical and mental state of Joe Biden, 81, and his ability to stand up to Donald Trump, since their June 27 debate, marked by the Democratic president’s calamitous performance.
Around twenty deputies are now asking him to withdraw from the presidential race.
Vice President Kamala Harris, seen as a possible alternative, once again assured him of her loyalty and trust at a campaign event in Philadelphia on Saturday, shortly before Donald Trump’s rally in the key state of Pennsylvania.
“This is the most existential, consequential and important election of our lifetimes and we always knew it would be difficult,” he said.
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© Agence France-Presse
