INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The campaign is predicting tens of thousands of people will attend it
Image: Shutterstock4 min read Last Updated : Oct 05 2024 | 11:43 AM IST
Former President Donald Trump plans to return Saturday to the
site where a gunman tried to assassinate him in July, setting aside what are now near-constant worries for his physical safety in order to
fulfil a promise really an obligation, he said recently to the people of Butler, Pennsylvania.
I'll probably start off by saying, 'As I
was saying ...' the Republican presidential nominee has joked, in a bit of black humour about a speech cut short when a bullet struck
JD Vance, also will be on hand at the Butler Farm Show grounds, as will billionaire Elon Musk, as the campaign elevates the
headline-generating potential of his return with just 30 days to go in their tight campaign against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris
Tim Walz.
The campaign is predicting tens of thousands of people will attend what is being pitched as a "tribute to the American spirit
Local hotels, motels and inns are reportedly full and some eager rallygoers were already arriving Friday, according to a local Facebook
page.
President Trump looks forward to returning to Butler, Pennsylvania to honour the victims from that tragic day," said Trump campaign
spokesperson Karoline Leavitt
"The willingness of Pennsylvanians to join President Trump in his return to Butler represents the strength and resiliency of the American
people.
Trump will use the 5 pm Eastern time event to remember Corey Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter struck and killed at the July 13
rally, and to recognise the two other rallygoers injured, David Dutch and James Copenhaver
They and Trump were struck when 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, opened fire from an unsecured
rooftop nearby before he was fatally shot by sharpshooters.
How Crooks managed to outmaneuver law enforcement that day and scramble on top
of a building within easy shooting distance of the ex-president is among myriad questions that remain unanswered about the worst Secret
Service security failure in decades
Another is his motive, which has never been determined.
Butler County District Attorney Rich Goldinger told WPXI-TV this week that
everyone is doubling down on their efforts to make sure this is done safely and correctly.
Mike Slupe, the county sheriff, told the
station he estimates the Secret Service which has undergone a painful reckoning over its handling of two attempts on Trump's life is
deploying quadruple the assets it did in July.
Butler County, on the western edge of a coveted presidential swing state, is a Trump
He won the county where turnout hovers around an impressive 80 per cent with about 66 per cent of the vote in both 2016 and 2020
About 57 per cent of Butler County's 139,000 registered voters are Republicans, compared with about 29 per cent who are Democrats and 14 per
cent something else.
Three months later, townspeople are divided over the value of his return
Heidi Priest, a Butler resident who started a Facebook group supporting Harris, said Trump's last visit fanned political tensions in the
city.
Whenever you see people supporting him and getting excited about him being here, it scares the people who don't want to see him
reelected, she said.
But Trump needs to drive up voter turnout in conservative strongholds like Butler County, an overwhelmingly white,
rural-suburban community, if he wants to win Pennsylvania in November
Harris, too, has targeted her campaign efforts at Pennsylvania, rallying there repeatedly as part of her aggressive outreach in critical
swing states.(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is
auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)First Published: Oct 05 2024 | 11:43 AMIST
