Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for the US presidential elections, spoke from behind a bulletproof glass at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. This is the same site where Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in July, wounding his right ear.
This time, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was also present at Trump's rally in Butler. After Trump welcomes him on stage, Musk said, “The true test of someone's character is how they behave under fire.”
Tech billionaire Musk added, "We had one president who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist-pumping after getting shot… Fight, Fight, Fight! Blood coming down the face. American is the home of the brave…So who do you want representing America?”
After the assassination attempt, pictures of Trump – with a blood-streaked face, pumping his fist and shouting "fight, fight, fight" – became defining images of the campaign.
Clad in a black-on-black cap bearing the “Make America Great Again” slogan of Trump’s campaign, Musk said, “As you can see I am not just MAGA — I am Dark MAGA."
Trump had survived an assassination attempt in July in Butler, Pennsylvania. Later in September, the FBI called an incident at Trump's golf course in Florida another attempted assassination.
Trump on Saturday suggested his opponents had “maybe even tried to kill me”. He also vowed he would “never quit... never bend ... never break.”
His much-hyped return to Butler, Pennsylvania, came exactly one month before the November 5 presidential election, the outcome of which President Joe Biden suggested on Friday might not be peaceful.
Trump's return to Butler, a deeply conservative community in the key swing state of Pennsylvania, was marked by noticeably tighter security.
Supporters knelt and others bowed their heads as Donald Trump led a moment of silence at 6:11 pm, the time when shots rang out at a rally in the same rural Pennsylvania showground exactly 12 weeks earlier.
The crowd in Butler periodically erupted into chants of "fight, fight, fight" – echoing Trump's rallying cry just after the July 13 shooting that grazed his ear and briefly upended the campaign for November's election.
"I love the fact that he came back... He said he'd come back to finish his speech, and to me (that takes) guts," Robert Dupain, 53, a local construction worker who was at the July rally, was quoted by news agency as saying.
"There's a lot going on that's unnerving," said Heather Hughes, 43, who had traveled from New Castle in Pennsylvania. “Do I think he's safe? No, I think there's going to be another attempt. But I think he's going to make it through,” he added.
(With inputs from AFP)
