Donald Trump was injured in a shooting 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 that the US Secret Service said came from an “elevated position” outside the venue. The shots killed one spectator and wounded at least two other spectators.
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 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”.
International leaders also condemned 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. He said on his Truth Social platform that he had been “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear”, adding: “Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead”.
The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting current and former presidents, said the suspected shooter had fired “multiple shots toward the stage” and that the assailant was now dead.
The gunfire erupted just minutes after Trump began speaking at a rally of supporters in Butler, a rural town in the state’s north-west. Witnesses and footage suggested seven or eight shots were fired.
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.
“I have an opinion but I don’t have any facts,” Biden said when asked if this had been an assassination attempt.
The president condemned the attack, saying: “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick. It’s sick. It’s one of the reasons why we have to unite this country.”
“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 1230am 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”.
But 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.
The apparent attempt on Trump’s life marks the first time in decades that a current or former president has been a victim in a shooting, and came with less than four months to go until the presidential election in November.
But it comes amid heightened political rhetoric and deep divisions in the country, with sporadic eruptions of violence over the past four years including the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.
Saturday’s shooting happened just days before the start of the Republican National Convention, when Trump is set to formally accept his party’s nomination for president. His campaign said after the shooting that he still “looks forward to joining [supporters] at the convention”.
“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 said in his post. “Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.” He offered his condolences to the families of the killed and injured attendees.
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, said 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 echoing 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 and Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
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