Demands for answers were mounting on Sunday as to how an armed man was able to get into position on a roof overlooking a rally and fire shots at Donald Trump – the 2024 presumptive Republican nominee – despite federal and local law enforcement presence and witnesses reportedly alerting police.
National lawmakers expressed shock at the apparent security lapses. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, said the chamber would conduct a “full investigation”.
Johnson posted on X, formerly Twitter, that “the American people deserve to know the truth” and said that the US Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, and “other appropriate officials” from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI would be required to appear for congressional hearings as soon as possible.
Congressman Mike Turner, the Republican chair of the House intelligence committee, said on Sunday that “along with Donald Trump, our democracy dodged a bullet” during the shooting in Butler country, western Pennsylvania.
The incident is being investigated as an attempted assassination and is the first time a president or leading party candidate for the White House has been shot since Ronald Reagan in 1981. It has triggered fears of political violence and more attacks as the US endures one of the most contentious periods of its modern history, amid fears in some quarters of civil unrest.
Bomb-making materials were found in the vehicle and home of the suspect, officials said.
Trump was bleeding from his right ear and later described a bullet whizzing by while he was speaking at the rally. An attendee was killed and Secret Service agents then shot the suspect dead, with witnesses reporting that someone outside the rally had told police they had seen the armed suspect heading to the roof but it appeared that officers did not respond.
“How was it that someone could get [in position] on a roof … with a weapon and try to assassinate [Trump]?” Turner told CNN’s State of the Union show on Sunday morning, adding: “The fact that people knew there was a man with a rifle and were trying to get the police’s attention is a cause for concern.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks from nearby Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the “subject involved” in the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump, it said in a statement on Sunday.
Aides to Trump’s election campaign said on Sunday morning that he was fine, in “great spirits and doing well”. And on Sunday evening, Trump arrived in Wisconsin, ahead of the start of the Republican national convention.
The former president on Sunday called for national unity and resilience, in a country deeply divided amid the tumultuous 2024 election, where Joe Biden’s re-election campaign as the presumptive Democratic nominee has been thrown into crisis by his shaky performance while Trump is expected to be anointed as the Republican nominee at the party’s convention this week with a hard-right agenda.
Trump posted on his social media platform that “it is more important than ever that we stand united, and show our true character as Americans, remaining strong and determined, and not allowing evil to win”, also adding that “it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening”.
Biden quickly condemned the violence saying “it’s sick”. The US president said: “There’s no place in America for this type of violence.”
In a primetime address on Sunday evening, Biden said the shooting “calls on all of us to take a step back”.
“We stand for an America of decency and grace ... politics must never be a killing field,” the president said.
Other US leaders were incredulous, amid the rise in political violence, that anyone had been able to take a shot at a former president.
The US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said in a statement: “The FBI, ATF, US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and the Department’s National Security Division are currently working with the Secret Service as well as state and local law enforcement partners on the ground in Butler, Pennsylvania … The Justice Department will bring every available resource to bear to this investigation.”
Hours after the attack, the oversight committee in the Republican-led House of Representatives summoned the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, to testify at a hearing scheduled for 22 July.
Trump’s wife, the former first lady Melania Trump, issued a statement saying: “America, the fabric of our gentle nation is tattered, but our courage and common sense must ascend and bring us back together as one. When I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and [son] Barron’s life, were on the brink of devastating change.”
“A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to [w]ring out Donald’s passion – his laughter, ingenuity, love of music, and inspiration. The core facets of my husband’s life – his human side – were buried below the political machine. Donald, the generous and caring man who I have been with through the best of times and the worst of times.” She concluded: “This morning, ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence.”
The political leanings of Crooks were not immediately clear. Records show he was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show in 2021 he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee. Officials have not publicly disclosed a possible motive. They said a review of Crooks’s social media accounts did not reveal any threatening language.
Former classmates described Crooks as quiet and smart. One former classmate told Reuters he could not recall Crooks discussing politics, but rather they would talk about computers and games.
The US Secret Service has said its agents shot the suspected attacked after he fired toward Trump – who was speaking on stage at the time – “from an elevated position outside of the rally venue” in Butler county.
Trump later posted on Truth Social that he wanted “to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed and also to the family of [those] badly injured”.
Video from NBC News captured more than a dozen shots ringing out at the rally, with later ones apparently coming from federal agents.
A voice could be heard saying: “Get down, get down, get down!” Agents threw themselves on top of Trump as the gunfire continued and onlookers screamed.
Audio from the network captured agent’s voices saying: “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down. Are we good to move? We’re clear, we’re clear.”
As agents tried to move Trump away, he said: “Let me get my shoes. Let me get my shoes.” Agents can be heard telling the former president: “I got you. Hold on. Your head is bloody. We’ve got to move.”
Trump replied: “Wait, wait.” He then pumped his fist, mouthed the words: “Fight, fight, fight.”
And the crowd at the rally responded with cries of: “USA! USA! USA!”
Agents then whisked Trump away from sight. Video showed blood on Trump’s ear.
Local district attorney Richard Goldlinger told CNN investigators were “going to have to figure out” how the shooter managed to get close enough to aim a gun at Trump and fire repeatedly.
A Trump supporter told the BBC he was outside the rally site but within hearing distance of the former president’s campaign speech when he saw a man carrying a rifle climb on to the roof of a nearby building.
The man, whom the British broadcaster did not identify, said he and the people he was with started pointing at the man, trying to alert security and police to the “guy on the roof with a rifle”.
The Associated Press said it was told by two law enforcement officials that a local police officer tried to confront Crooks on the roof before the shooting. But the officer retreated after Crooks pointed a rifle at him, and within moments he fired toward Trump.
The shots appeared to come from outside the area secured by the Secret Service, the agency said.
The Washington Post reported that the Secret Service relied heavily on borrowed local police for units whose purpose was to help spot and take out an attacker.
The FBI said it had taken the lead in investigating the attack.
FBI officials briefed reporters that it was surprising the suspect was able to fire multiple shots.
The House oversight committee issued a statement on social media that said: “Americans demand answers about the assassination attempt of President Trump.”
Biden arrived at the White House early on Sunday after cutting short a Delaware beach trip. He had posted on X that he was praying for Trump, his family and rally-goers.
His previous post, the morning before the incident, repeated his call for assault weapons to be banned for the general public and added that: “Trump promised the NRA [National Rifle Association] that he’d do nothing about guns. And he means it.”
The president and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, were to receive a fresh briefing at the White House on Sunday, before Harris travels to Pennsylvania to address a campaign event in Philadelphia.
Dave McCormick, a Republican Pennsylvania nominee for the Senate, who attended the rally, described a “scary moment” and told ABC’s This Week on Sunday: “An inch difference and the [former] president would have been dead.”
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting
