Former President Donald Trump is rushed off stage by secret service after an incident during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13. The Republican nominee will return to the same site for another high-profile rally on Saturday amid tightened security. File Photo by David Maxwell/EPA-EFE
Oct. 4 (UPI) — Donald Trump is set to take his 2024 presidential campaign back to Butler, Pa., on Saturday in a return to the scene of the first of two assassination attempts against him in recent months.
Security is expected to be much tighter than the last time the former president and current Republican nominee took the stage at the Butler Farm Show, where on July 13 he was grazed by a bullet fired by 20-year-old sniper Thomas Crooks before the gunman was killed by Secret Service agents.
Trump’s campaign has said that, during the rally, the former president will “honor the memory of Corey Comperatore, who heroically sacrificed his life to shield his wife and daughters from the bullets” on July 13, as well as two others who were wounded in the shooting, David Dutch and James Copenhaver.
That assassination attempt, as well as another some two months later when an armed 58-year-old man was found hiding along the perimeter of Trump’s West Palm Beach, Fla., golf course while the GOP nominee was playing, has led to a “paradigm shift” in how the Secret Service is providing protection for candidates and other public figures, its leaders say.
On Saturday, the agency and local law enforcement will likely be on their highest alert and Trump will be shielded by bulletproof glass, as he has been at his outdoor rallies since late August.
“We don’t want to see that happen again,” Butler County, Pa., District Attorney Rich Goldinger told WPXI-TV in Pittsburgh this week. “I think everyone is doubling down on their efforts to make sure this is done safely and correctly.”
Butler County Sheriff Mike Slupe told the station there is “probably quadruple” the size of Secret Service assets than there was in July, adding that law enforcement is expecting a big crowd at the event.
Despite the need for the tightest of security, Trump’s supporters say they’re eager to return to Butler because they see it as a prime opportunity to leverage the tremendous publicity generated by assassination attempt into a high-profile megaphone in the most important of all U.S. swing states, where recent polls say he is in a virtual dead heat with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris.
“It’s a huge opportunity. It’ll be more covered than his typical rally these days,” an unnamed Trump ally who has worked in Pennsylvania told NBC News on Friday.
The importance the campaign is placing on the Butler rally is evident by who else is going to appear there, including billionaire supporter Elon Musk, Trump’s vice presidential running mate Sen. JD Vance, seven House Republicans and Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo.
But the Butler rally and the increased attention it is getting is also putting a spotlight on what critics in both parties characterize as the increasingly harsh and unrestrained rhetoric Trump has unleashed during his recent rallies demonizing Harris, immigrants, the judicial system and other political targets.
Immediately after the July 13 assassination attempt, he sounded conciliatory, writing on his social media platform, “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.”
But in recent weeks, that tone has given way to some of Trump’s most ominous and over-the-top language of the campaign, for instance, calling Democrats “dangerous people” and demanding that Harris be “impeached and prosecuted” while calling her “mentally impaired.”
