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BUTLER, Pa. — Former President Donald Trump returned to the Butler Farm Show grounds to rally in the same place a Bethel Park man attempted to assassinate him on July 13.
Trump began his speech on Saturday by showing a graphic on immigration from the last rally here that led to him turning his head, narrowly avoiding the bullet that ended up grazing his ear.
“A cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me and to silence the greatest movement, MAGA, in the history of our country,” he said. “For 16 harrowing seconds during the gunfire, time stopped as this vicious monster unleashed pure evil from his sniper’s perch not so far away.”
“By the grace of God, that villain did not succeed,” he said to a cheering crowd at the Connoquenessing Township venue.
In addition to wounding Trump, shots fired by the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, killed former Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company Chief Corey Comperatore and severely injured two others, David Dutch and James Copenhaver. The gunman was killed by a sniper.
At 6:11 p.m. Saturday, Trump asked the crowd to join in a moment of silence for Comperatore.
The rally, especially that moment, was a sober contrast to Trump’s typically animated speeches. He spent the beginning of his 90-minute speech memorializing Comperatore, speaking of his courage and the loss to the Comperatore family.
When Trump tried to find the Comperatore family in the audience, he said he was having trouble finding them because of the crowd size. Prior to the rally, Comperatore’s wife, Helen, told the Butler Eagle she would be attending.
Trump thanked the first responders, Secret Service, Butler Township police department and Butler Memorial Hospital, where he was treated after the shooting, for their actions on July 13.
He directly thanked Dutch, who was in the audience, calling him a “great, great gentleman.” Trump also commended Copenhaver, who just had a surgery as a result of the shooting.
Trump eventually brought up some of his frequent talking points during rallies: fracking, immigration and transgender rights. He said he supports “fracking like we’ve never fracked before,” then criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign for being anti-fracking.
He criticized Harris for “all of a sudden” supporting fracking.
“You’re sitting on top of a massive amount of energy that she doesn’t want to get,” he said. “She spent 14 years knocking fracking.”
Energy quickly became a theme for the rally as Trump reaffirmed his support for the oil and gas industry. The crowd joined him as he said “Drill, baby, drill.”
He cited a report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association that found nearly 20 million households were behind on their utility payments as of March 2023, an increase from 17.6 million a year prior. In 2024, that number rose to about 21 million households.
“We have more liquid gold, oil and gas, under our feet than any nation in the world,” he said. “We will become energy independent like we were just four years ago.”
He asked the crowd who wanted “open borders” and “sex change operations” as the crowd booed in response. He claimed Harris wants to open borders, referring to her as the “Border Czar,” a common refrain from Trump and his campaign.
Day 1 of his administration, he said, he would “seal the border.”
Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO, joined Trump on stage, speaking about free speech, gun rights, and voting.
“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy,” he said. “You must have free speech in order to have democracy. That’s why it’s the First Amendment, and the Second Amendment is there to ensure that we have the First Amendment.”
He claimed that California passed a law banning voter ID in an apparent reference to a bill that prohibits local governments from requiring voter ID at polling places.
Trump’s second visit came after Butler County was thrust irreversibly into the spotlight: Comperatore, 50, was killed by gunfire intended for Trump while shielding his family in the melee. Dutch and Copenhaver were hospitalized.
Crooks, 20, had climbed on the roof of the AGR building near the grounds, out of view of authorities, and opened fire with an assault rifle as Trump spoke. Crooks, who worked as a nursing home aide near his home in Bethel Park, logged several visits to a sportsmen’s club for rifle practice in the weeks prior. A Secret Service sniper fatally shot him.
“I could be in Monte Carlo, but I’d rather be in Butler,” Trump said.
Saturday marked one month to Election Day, and Trump’s visit to Pennsylvania is the latest in many by the former president and Harris as both fight for Pennsylvania’s 19 electoral votes, which ties with Illinois for the fifth-most in the country.
Toward the end of his speech, Trump shouted out Republican politicians who had spoken earlier, including Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick. He encouraged the audience to support McCormick’s Senate bid by voting.
“All we are all asking is that everyone goes out and votes,” he said. “We can’t take another four years like this. We won’t have a country anymore, we’re not gonna have a country anymore, and all of this will be for nothing if we don’t get out and vote.”
Widespread polling shows Trump and Harris neck-and-neck in Pennsylvania.
“We’re here for a reason, and that’s to win and honor Corey, and Corey wants us to win too,” Trump said.
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