U.S. President Joe Biden has condemned the assassination attempt on election rival Donald Trump and ordered an independent investigation into the shooting that took place the night before at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, as the search went on for a motive behind the attack.
"There is no place in America for this kind of violence or any violence, for that matter. An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for...as a nation. Everything," he said from the White House after being briefed in the Situation Room.
"We don't yet have any information about the motive of the shooter. We know who he is. I urge everyone, please don't make assumptions about his motives or his affiliations," Biden said.
Biden said he was ordering a review into security measures surrounding the attack as questions arose on how someone with an automatic rifle could get so close to the former president. The Secret Service is responsible for the security of U.S. presidents, former presidents, and other top officials.
Biden also said he had a "short but good" conversation with Trump following the shooting and that he was "sincerely grateful he is doing well and recovering," but he did not discuss details of the call.
The president said he would address the nation with extended remarks later on July 14 from the White House Oval Office, tentatively scheduled for 8 p.m. local time.
Throughout the day, U.S. authorities raced to identify a motive behind the assassination attempt on Trump, as officials blamed a 20-year-old man for the shooting at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
The alleged gunman, identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by Secret Service officers, and one other spectator also died, the agency said. Two other people were critically wounded.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro identified the slain rally participant as 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief from the area.
Trump said later he had been shot in the ear, and video from the July 13 rally showed blood visible on the right side of his head as Secret Service agents rushed him from the stage.
The 78-year-old presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 election had just begun to deliver a speech in the city of Butler when several gunshots were heard, prompting screams from the crowd.
Trump then reached for his right ear before he quickly crouched down behind the podium where he was delivering the speech.
Secret Service officers rushed the stage and surrounded him.
WATCH: Donald Trump responded with a defiant raised fist -- a startling image that, political analyst Robert Spitzer says, will be used to promote his candidacy.
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As he got up and was led off of the stage, blood was visible on Trump's right ear and cheek. He was whisked by the Secret Service agents into a waiting car and left the venue.
As he was being led off of the stage, Trump turned toward the crowd, pumped his fist in the air and appeared to yell, "Fight, fight, fight!"
"It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country," Trump said on his Truth Social platform following the shooting.
In a second statement issued about 12 hours after the shooting, Trump said he was looking forward to speaking at the Republican National Convention, which gets under way later this week.
"In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand united, and show our true character as Americans, remaining strong and determined," Trump said on Truth Social.
At a briefing for reporters late July 13, Kevin Rojek, the FBI agent in charge of the bureau's local office, said the shooting was being investigated as an "assassination attempt."
In a statement published on X shortly after the incident, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the shooter had fired "multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside of the rally venue." He also said the shooter had been "neutralized."
In a statement provided to RFE/RL, the FBI identified Crooks, 20, as the suspected gunman, and said he was from a town located about an hour south of Butler.
Several U.S. news outlets reported that state voting records showed Crooks was a registered Republican, but that he had also made small donations to Democratic campaigns.
Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and the Americas Program at Chatham House in London, told RFER/RL that it was too soon to tell how Crooks' background factored into the incident.,
"I've seen reporting that he is a registered Republican who, when he was 17, donated to Act Blue [a Democratic political campaign group], suggesting that he was at one point also a Democrat," Vinjamuri said.
"He's a young person. We have no information about motivation yet.... We know that many acts of violence are linked to mental health issues, to guns being in the hands of people who shouldn't possess them. And so I would be deeply reluctant to project on the basis of really very limited knowledge right now," she said.
Overnight on July 13, law enforcement officials blockaded the roads leading to the house identified as belonging to Crooks' family.
- RFE/RL
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was wounded in an incident at a campaign rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, in what is being investigated as an assassination attempt.
AP reported that police had recovered an AR-style rifle -- a lightweight, semi-automatic rifle similar to the U.S. military's M16 -- at the scene. The weapon is popular in the United States, and widely available for sale throughout the country.
Multiple U.S. media outlets quoted law enforcement sources as saying the gun used in the attack had been purchased by Crooks' father at least six months previously.
Law enforcement sources also told media outlets that bomb-making materials were found inside the suspected gunman's vehicle and also at his residence.
Trump was treated locally, before flying to his golf club in neighboring New Jersey. Video of his arrival released by a campaign official showed him being escorted to the club by heavily armed Secret Service agents.
The shooting comes two days before the opening of the Republican National Convention at which the businessman and former reality TV star is expected to secure the party’s nomination and less than four months before the November 5 election.
Trump said he would travel on July 14 to Wisconsin for the event.
Robert Spitzer, a professor of political science at State University of New York-Cortland, told RFE/RL that "I think Trump will want to return to the campaign stump partly to demonstrate that he is OK, partly to demonstrate that he's not deterred by this terrible event."
"You will see a bump for him [Trump] in the polls in the next couple of weeks. There will be sympathy for him," he said. "But I think in the space of a few weeks, the results on the relative poll standing of Trump and President Biden will even out to where they have been in the last month or two."
Matthew Dallek, a professor of political history at George Washington University, told RFE/RL said the shooting was likely to be a major theme of the Republican Convention.
"Oh, yeah, I think it will, it'll thrust it to the fore of the convention," he said.
Participants will “paint Trump as a martyr, and someone who…sacrifices…for the good of the country and for his supporters, he added.
Pennsylvania is considered one of the key swing states that will determine the election outcome. Vice President Kamala Harris was in the state campaigning on the same day as Trump's rally.
Map: Trump Assasination Attempt Location
Before his televised remarks, Biden, whom Trump is challenging in the November election, said in a statement he was grateful to hear that Trump was safe and well.
"I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information," Biden said in the statement.
"There's no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it."
Leading U.S. politicians rushed to condemn the shooting of Trump, who served as president from 2017 to 2021.
"Political violence has no place in our country," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a tweet, adding he was "horrified" by the news and "relieved" that Trump was safe.
"This horrific act of political violence at a peaceful campaign rally has no place in this country and should be unanimously and forcefully condemned," Mike Johnson, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, said in a post on X.
He also said Congress would schedule hearings to know the circ*mstances behind the shooting, and how someone was able to bring a weapon into the rally.
The Secret Service, which provides protection to leading political candidates such as Trump, also conducts security checks for political rallies.
While political violence is rare in the United States, several presidents or candidates have been shot over the country's history.
Most recently, President Ronald Reagan was shot and seriously wounded as he left an event at a Washington hotel in 1981.
In 1975, President Gerald Ford was unscathed in two separate assassination attempts.
Four presidents -- Abraham Lincoln (1865), James Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963) -- have been assassinated in U.S. history.
