The shooting adds a new layer of darkness and unpredictability to an already extraordinary contest between President Biden and his predecessor, who maintains that the 2020 election was stolen from him and has embraced the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The shooting has thrust Biden, who is still trying to recover from a stumbling late-June debate performance, into a delicate dual role as a president who has long warned against political violence and a candidate running against a man who has been targeted by that violence. Law enforcement agencies pressed forward with their investigations, but revealed no major clues about the shooter’s motive.
Biden prepared to speak to the nation from the Oval Office Sunday evening in an address expected to focus on bringing Americans together.
A person who spoke to Trump on Sunday said the former president was almost “spiritual” about his attempted assassination Saturday night. Trump said he was struck by a bullet in his right ear, and officials said one rally attendee was killed and two others were critically injured.
“He thinks he was handed a gift from God. He can’t believe it,” said the person, who like other people interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential conversations and planning. Though plans are still in flux and subject to change, the convention is expected to focus more on Trump’s “courage and his resilience,” a person close to him said. The convention’s planners “want speakers to dial it down, not dial it up,” the person said, referring to the rhetoric used in speeches.
Seeking to reassure aides in the early hours of Sunday, top Trump advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles sent an email to staff obtained by The Washington Post stating that the convention would “continue as planned” as party delegates prepare to “nominate our President to be the brave and fearless nominee of our party.”
LaCivita and Wiles said they had enhanced the security presence at Trump’s campaign offices in D.C. and West Palm Beach, Fla., and encouraged aides to stay away from the offices as they assessed the security risks. Several people with knowledge of convention planning said additional security measures were put in place to ensure that events, including those outside the hardened security perimeter, would be safe to attend.
On a call Sunday afternoon, Wiles told staffers the president was upbeat and in good spirits. She encouraged them to carry on and be careful, but she described the last 24 hours as difficult, according to a person with knowledge of the call.
Trump’s plane had arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey early Sunday after the shooting, according to flight records. In Bedminster, N.J., police guarded the entrance to his golf club and residence, prohibiting any vehicle from idling anywhere near the gate. The officers directed press to the parking lot of a library nearly four miles from the entrance of Trump National Golf Club Bedminster.
The FBI is investigating the Saturday evening shooting at Trump’s Butler, Pa., campaign rally as an assassination attempt and have identified the suspected gunman as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa.
Aides to both Trump and President Biden are grappling with the anger and partisan vitriol that burst forth immediately after the shooting. Many supporters of Trump, both rank-and-file voters and elected officials, quickly took to social media to argue that the rhetoric of Biden and his supporters — casting Trump as a threat to democracy — led to Saturday’s events.
Trump struck a note of defiance in the immediate moments after the shooting, pumping his fist and mouthing the word “fight” several times as his Secret Service detail ushered him offstage. But LaCivita and Wiles sought to cool the temperature in their overnight memo, asking aides not to comment publicly on the shooting. “We condemn all forms of violence and will not tolerate dangerous rhetoric on social media.”
LaCivita initially posted a more pointed commentary on X on Saturday night — suggesting the attack was tied to decisions by Trump’s adversaries. “[W]ell of course they tried to keep him off the ballot, they tried to put him in jail and now you see this,” LaCivita wrote. He later deleted the post.
Many Trump allies, including Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), who is under consideration to be Trump’s running mate, cast blame for the shooting on Trump’s political opponents — with Vance arguing that it was not “just some isolated incident.”
Authorities said they cannot yet speak to the shooter’s motive. As they raced to learn more, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that Congress would investigate any potential lapses in security that allowed the attack.
“In the meantime, we’ve got to turn the rhetoric down,” Johnson urged on NBC’s “Today” show on what he called a “surreal” morning. Like other Republicans, Johnson noted Biden’s recent call to put Trump in a “bull’s eye.” Johnson added that he knows that Biden “didn’t mean what is being implied there” but also believes “that kind of language on either side should be called out.”
“We’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bull’s eye,” Biden had said on a Monday call with donors.
In one notable addition to this week’s program in Milwaukee, Nikki Haley — the former South Carolina governor who ran for the Republican nomination against Trump — will speak at the convention, according to several sources familiar with the planning, a nod to the GOP leaders’ interest in trying to bridge divisions within the party.
Biden’s allies have long condemned Trump’s more inflammatory statements, and Biden himself ran for president in 2020 promising to heal the country’s divisions. But in the hours following the shooting, the Biden campaign has largely avoided engaging in a debate over heated rhetoric.
In a televised statement Saturday, Biden called the violence “sick” and asked Americans to “unite as one nation to condemn it.” Democrats had planned a full week of counterprogramming with daily news conferences to push their message about Biden’s economic successes, the Republican Party’s direction on abortion and Trump’s statements about what he would do if he is elected again.
But the Biden campaign paused all outbound communications on Saturday night and aides said they were working to pull their television ads down as quickly as possible — injecting uncertainty into how the campaign will respond to convention speeches and activities this week. Biden cut short his weekend stay in Rehoboth Beach, Del., to return to the White House, and he has postponed a planned trip to Texas on Monday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. The Biden-Harris campaign also suspended a $50 million ad blitz.
But on the campaign trail, Biden’s team was seeking ways to continue criticizing Trump, whom they view as a threat to democracy, while also showing sensitivity and compassion.
The president is scheduled for an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Monday, and he could resume campaigning later in the week as Republicans gather for their nominating convention.
Elected officials from both parties tried to reassure Americans that they were taking precautions to ensure the convention would be safe for all attendees.
During a call with members of Congress, the House Sergeant-at-Arms said members should expect increased security at the Republican convention in Milwaukee and that lawmakers attending will have their movements monitored, according to a lawmaker on the call.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson noted that his city had joined a bipartisan coalition before the RNC that successfully lobbied Congress to increase the grant for RNC security from $60 million to $75 million.
“I’m a public safety mayor. We want to make sure we have not just a safe convention, but a safe city,” Johnson said. The mayor, a Democrat elected in 2022, said he understands that some convention attendees may be worried about security. “In light of what happened yesterday, that’s a question that would naturally come up in people’s minds,” he said in a telephone interview.
Milwaukee has more than 1,600 police officers and is receiving help from thousands more at outside agencies, Johnson said. A planned march by protesters, the Coalition to March on the RNC, will be permitted to go forward on “to ensure they have the ability to express their First Amendment rights.”
“We want this to be a safe convention for all, whether you’re cheering for a candidate or detest them and don’t want to see them elected,” Johnson said.
Dawsey reported from Washington, and Jacobs reported from Bedminster, N.J. Danielle Paquette in Butler, Pa.; Marianna Sotomayor; Marianne Levine; Toluse Olorunnipa and Tyler Pager contributed to this report.
