On July 13, 2024, Donald Trump, the then-former president of the United States and then-presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in the 2024 presidential election, survived an assassination attempt while speaking at an open-air campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.

[5][6] Trump was shot and wounded in his upper right ear[7][8][9] by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania,[2][10] who fired eight rounds from an AR-15–style rifle from the roof of a nearby building.

[16][17] The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, faced bipartisan calls for her resignation when she testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on July 22; she stepped down the following day.

[38][39][40] The acting Iranian minister of foreign affairs rejected this claim, stating that Iran wanted a "legal path to bring [Trump] to justice" for ordering the assassination of Qasem Soleimani.

[41] U.S. Representative Mike Kelly said he had contacted the Trump campaign to recommend holding the rally in an area that could handle a larger crowd than the Butler Farm Show Grounds, and that their response was, "We appreciate your input, but we've already made up our minds".

[46] On July 7, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks visited the Butler Farm Show grounds, the site of a future campaign rally announced by Trump four days earlier.

[63][64] Multiple local law enforcement officers identified Crooks and believed that he might have been acting suspiciously near the event's magnetometer weapon detectors;[65] they expressed their suspicions over radio, and the Secret Service was informed of this at some point.

"[88] Police bodycam footage captured the movements and responses of some of the law enforcement officials at the rally to the detected threat on a rooftop, which the BBC would later describe as "moments of frustration, confusion and miscommunication".

[99] As he was walked off the venue stage, Trump told the Secret Service agents to wait and then raised his fist, pumped it at the crowd, and mouthed the words "Fight!

[175] The FBI is leading an investigation with the United States Department of Justice National Security Division, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

[190] FBI's Office of Public Affairs released a statement on July 27 saying "What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subject's rifle.

[92] During a Senate hearing, Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe was unable to answer how Crooks got his rifle onto the rooftop of the AGR International warehouse in Butler; the BBC described it as a "remaining mystery" of the ongoing investigation.

[202] Also on this day, the Congressional Task Force released its final report, which concludes, among other findings, that Thomas Crooks "exploited gaps in protection because of a lack of assets and staff.

[205][133][137] Another line of thinking proposed by authorities is that Crooks may have intended to carry out a larger mass-casualty attack or mass shooting at the rally, rather than singularly target Trump.

This is based on discoveries made on Crooks's phone, including internet searches about the 2021 Oxford High School shooting and a photo of its perpetrator, Ethan Crumbley, on the device.

[222] Several prominent politicians and officials, including Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Cory Mills of Florida, argued that DEI hiring of more women by the Biden administration had compromised Secret Service training.

[227][228] On July 22, Cheatle testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability; the New York Times reported that she failed to answer basic questions about the assassination attempt.

[231] The Pennsylvania State Police commissioner testified that officers at the event were busy responding to over 100 heat-related emergencies, and handling multiple reports of suspicious individuals at the rally, which was not considered unusual.

[232] The photojournalist Evan Vucci of the Associated Press captured widely praised images of a bloodied Trump pumping his fist in the air, surrounded by Secret Service members, with an American flag in the background.

[252] The shooting led to widespread sympathy for Trump on social media,[253] and public figures across the political spectrum both domestically and internationally[254] urged a decrease in tensions, condemning the assassination attempt.

[260][261] Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson pledged to open an investigation into the shooting, seeking testimony from federal law enforcement and national security officials.

[273][274] Steven Woodrow, a Democratic member of the Colorado House of Representatives, posted on Twitter in response to the assassination attempt: "The last thing America needed was sympathy for the devil but here we are.

[286][287] Mark Webb, a bishop of the Global Methodist Church—the Christian denomination in which Corey Comperatore held church membership—stated that the assassination attempt was a "senseless act of violence and hatred" and implored all to "comfort those who mourn and boldly offer the promise of resurrection and new life through Jesus Christ".

[291][292] The prime minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, issued a statement on social media that he was sickened by the attack, adding "my thoughts are with former President Trump, those at the event, and all Americans."

[293] In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Keir Starmer led condemnation of the shooting saying that he was appalled by the attack on Trump, stating that political violence had "no place in our society".

[298] Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India strongly condemned the incident, stating that "violence has no place in politics and democracies" and wished Trump a speedy recovery.

[302] Other European leaders to condemn the shooting included Viktor Orbán of Hungary,[292] Simon Harris of Ireland,[303] Giorgia Meloni of Italy,[304] Luc Frieden of Luxembourg[305] and Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine.

[310] The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen issued a statement saying that she was "deeply shocked" by the events at the rally, and offered condolences to the family of the deceased audience member, Corey Comperatore.

[311] Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Russian president Vladimir Putin, condemned the event, adding that the shooting took place in an atmosphere created by Biden's leadership, in the context of what he argued to be attempts to remove Trump from the political arena.

[316] Tweets about the event gained millions of views in the first hour;[317] "Trump" was the top trending topic, with over 228,000 posts;[317] one livestream had hundreds of thousands of people in its audience.