After rally shooting, Trump arrives in Milwaukee ahead of Republican National Convention
CBC
Former U.S. president Donald Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday for the Republican National Convention, a day after he was injured at a campaign rally in what the FBI is investigating as an attempted assassination.
Trump had said earlier Sunday that he was going to delay his trip because of the shooting but then decided he didn't want it to force a change in his schedule.
Trump is not expected to speak at the convention, where the party will formally make him their presidential nominee, until Thursday night.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said he had ordered a review of 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 U.S. Secret Service.
Trump, 78, was holding a campaign rally in Butler, Pa. — one of the states expected to be the 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.
Trump is due to receive his party's formal nomination at the convention, which kicks off in Milwaukee on Monday.
Michael Whatley, who chairs the Republican National Committee, said on Fox News Sunday that authorities are working together to safeguard the venue, where officials have spent months making security preparations.
"I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin, and The Republican National Convention, by two days, but have just decided that I cannot allow a 'shooter,' or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else. Therefore, I will be leaving for Milwaukee, as scheduled," Trump wrote on his Truth Social site on Sunday.
On Sunday evening, Biden said in televised remarks from the Oval Office that the United States "must not go down" the road of political violence.
"It's time to cool it down," the U.S. president said of the rhetoric surrounding American politics. "We must never descend into violence.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Trump on Sunday, according to his office. Trudeau "condemned yesterday's appalling assassination attempt," the PMO said, adding he "wished the former president well and offered condolences to the shooting victims."
The FBI identified Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa., 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's political affiliation as they seek to cast the rival party as representing extremism.
"There is no place in America for this kind of violence," Biden said at the White House. "I urge everyone, everyone please don't make assumptions about his motive or affiliations."
