Donald Trump vowed on Sunday to attend the Republican convention, where his party will formally nominate him for president, after surviving an assassination attempt that exacerbated an already tense political divide in the United States.
It was unclear how a 20-year-old man carrying an AR-15-style rifle managed on Saturday to get close enough to shoot from a rooftop at Trump, who as a former president has lifetime protection by the US Secret Service, a unit of the federal Department of Homeland Security.
Trump, 78, was holding a Saturday campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — one of the states expected to be most competitive in the Nov. 5 election — when shots rang out, hitting his right ear and streaking his face with blood. His campaign said he was doing well and appeared to have suffered no major injury besides a wound on his upper right ear.
The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the suspect in what it called an attempted assassination. He was a registered Republican, according to state voter records, and had made a $15 donation to a Democratic political action committee at the age of 17.
Law enforcement officials told reporters they had yet to identify a motive for the attack. Both Republicans and Democrats will be looking for evidence of Crooks’ political affiliation as they seek to cast the rival party as representing extremism.
Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden are locked in a close election rematch, according to most opinion polls including those by Reuters/Ipsos.
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