BUTLER, Pa. — Minutes after his scheduled remarks, Donald Trump paused for a moment. “It’s 6:11 p.m.,” the former president declared. “Twelve weeks, to the minute, since the shooting started.”
Trump called for a moment of silence in memory of Corey Comperatore, the attendee who was killed at the Butler rally on July 13. The silence was broken with the sound of a bell, and soon after with music: an opera singer took the stage to sing “Ave Maria.” Trump stood by in silence.
“We’re here for a reason, and that’s to win and to honor Corey,” Trump said. “But Corey also wants us to win.”
Trump returned for the first time on Saturday to the same spot where a would-be assassin tried to take his own life on July 13. There was again a sizeable crowd, this time with extra security measures – snipers on the roof, drones overhead, a bulletproof device. -glass barrier surrounding the lectern. He devoted the first part of his speech to honoring Comperatore and the others who were injured in July, and he spoke in a subdued, hushed manner.
It was a moment unlike any other at a Trump rally, yet utterly familiar: a reminder of that time in late July when Trump, having just survived an assassination attempt, seemed on his way to certain victory at the presidential elections.
In the days after the last Butler rally, Trump reached his electoral high-water mark. Democrats were embroiled in an internal battle over President Joe Biden’s candidacy. Trump shot up in the polls. At the Republican National Convention he was given a hero’s welcome and seemed invincible both physically and electorally.
In Butler on Saturday, it was as if the election had been frozen at that moment. Trump, as he did at the RNC, spoke of unity and goodwill: “To all Americans, whether you are Republican, Democrat, independent, conservative, liberal, or have no label at all, it makes no difference.” he said. “It’s yours.”
When he invited SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to the stage, Musk made a veiled attack on Biden but made no reference to Kamala Harris. Trump almost declared victory, saying he already had “enough votes.” He was saved, he said, “by the hand of Providence and the grace of God” – just as speaker after speaker at the RNC declared. And he invited the opera singer back on stage to sing “Nessun Dorma” as the crowd dispersed, just as he did at the end of the convention.
But the tone of making elections great again — a throwback to that time in July when things, at least electorally, seemed better — could not last. After a 20-minute tribute to Comperatore and the other victims of the July 13 shooting, Trump delved into his usual rally speech, slamming immigrants, decrying the Biden administration’s emergency aid and calling Harris the “most incompetent and extremely left-wing candidate’ once mentioned. walk.
However, according to Lara Trump, the co-chair of the RNC and Trump’s daughter-in-law, the election is not about Trump versus Harris. “This is no longer a fight between Republicans and Democrats, between left and right,” she said shortly before Trump took the stage. “It’s good versus evil. And good will win this battle.” To avoid leaving any questions about who is good and who is bad, she clarified: “We got our answer here on July 13, right here in Butler, Pennsylvania.” She paraphrased the Old Testament: “Donald Trump was made for such a time as this.”
Lara Trump was hardly the only one to suggest that Trump was saved by God, or that God intended for Trump to win the election. Senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, called Trump’s survival a “miracle” and quoted the Bible: “America learned the truth of the verse that day – ‘though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear I will do no harm, for You are with me’ – I truly believe God saved President Trump’s life that day.”
But if God saved Trump, and God intends for him to win, what happens if he loses? Trump has yet to say whether he will accept the outcome of the election, and when Vance was given the same opportunity during this week’s debate, he dodged the question. On Saturday, Trump suggested that his victory was already a foregone conclusion, and that implicit fraud would be the cause of a loss: “Stop the stealing,” he said. “Because we have many voices. We have enough votes.”
Trump’s followers seem to believe him. “God wants Trump to win,” said Tim Weckerly of Parker Pennsylvania as he left the meeting. If Trump loses, he added, “I think this country is done.”
