Even before the details of what happened Donald TrumpAs the former president's campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, began to escalate on Saturday, Republicans and allies of the former president rushed to circulate a photo of him covered in blood and raising his fist in the air.
Trump was rushed from the rally stage Saturday night after gunfire rang out. Images and videos captured at the event show Trump with blood streaming from his face and a fist raised in the air.
The Secret Service confirmed that “an incident” occurred at the rally and that Trump “is safe,” a spokesman said in a message on X. One attendee was killed, as was the shooter, the Butler County district attorney told The Associated Press.
GOP members immediately began sharing photos of the bloodied former president raising his fist in the air. Some used this as an opportunity to spread conspiracy theories and inflame political tensions.
“Someone just tried to ASSASSINATE President Trump,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said on X. “The Democrats and the media are to blame for every drop of blood spilled today. For years they have demonized him and his supporters. Today someone finally tried to take out the leader of our America First and the greatest president of all time.”
“Praying for President Trump,” Chairman Mike Johnson wrote on X.
“I have no doubt that this cowardly attempt to assassinate our candidate will further motivate the American people to support Donald J. Trump,” Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) wrote on X.
“We will overcome and DEFEAT EVIL! NEVER SURRENDER!” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) wrote on X.
“He will never stop fighting to save America,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote on the X next to the photo.
“God protect President Trump,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a message on X accompanying the photo. Rubio is also reportedly on Trump’s shortlist for vice president.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson posted the photo to X and pinned the post to the top of his account. In May, Carlson said that Trump “will win the election if he doesn't get assassinated first.”
The National Republican Senatorial Committee also posted the photo on X, but without a caption.
“I’ve been under fire many times,” retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who served as Trump’s National Security Council chief of staff, wrote of X. “It reveals your true character — when the president stood up with streaming blood and his fist clenched and said ‘fight,’ it revealed his.”
Some are already predicting that the photo will soon become a myth.
Simone Ledeen, a former Defense Department official under Trump, told POLITICO that the “iconic photos of him broadcast around the world show the true American spirit.”
“The Biden camp and the continued incendiary language of his supporters have increased pressure to assassinate a presidential candidate,” Ledeen wrote in a text message to POLITICO.
Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, wrote on X that the photo of the bloodied president would be “in every headline tomorrow.” And Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, said the photo will be the “defining image of the 2024 election.”
Meredith McGraw, Natalie Allison, Matt Berg, Kelly Garrity, and Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing contributed to this report.
