Trump rally shooting: attendee who was killed identified; ex-president urges Americans to ‘stand united’ – latest updates | Donald Trump Pennsylvania rally shooting

Hugo Lowell

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are receiving an updated briefing on the Donald Trump assassination investigation in the White House situation room, per the pool.

The investigation is being led by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, per people familiar with the situation.

The briefing is being provided by law enforcement and national security officials:

• Attorney general Merrick Garland

• Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

• FBI director Chris Wray

• National security adviser Jake Sullivan

• Homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall

• US Secret Service director Kim Cheatle

The man who was killed in yesterday’s assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania has been identified as 50-year old Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief, according to local outlets.

In a Facebook post, Dawn Comperatore Schafer wrote:

“The PA Trump Rally claimed the life of my brother, Corey Comperatore. The hatred for one man took the life of the one man we loved the most. He was a hero that shielded his daughters. His wife and girls just lived through the unthinkable and unimaginable.

My baby brother just turned 50 and had so much life left to experience. Hatred has no limits and love has no bounds. Pray for my sister-in-law, nieces, my mother, sister, me and his nieces and nephews as this feels like a terrible nightmare but we know it is our painful reality.”

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Comperatore’s wife, Helen Comperatore, writing on Facebook:

“Yesterday, what turned out to be such an exciting day for my husband especially, turned into a nightmare for our family… What my precious girls had to witness is unforgivable. What I had to was…He died the hero he always was.”

A GoFundMe page set up for the Comperatore family has raised over $27,530 as of Sunday noon.

Bomb-making materials were discovered in the home of the suspect involved in yesterday’s Donald Trump rally shooting, according to law enforcement officials speaking anonymously to the Associated Press.

Bomb-making materials were also reportedly found in the suspect’s car near the rally site.

Law enforcement officials also told the Associated Press they believe that the weapon the 20-year-old suspect used in his attempt to assassinate Trump was purchased by his father at least six months ago.

Mark Green, the Republican chairman of the House committee on homeland security, has issued a letter to the department of homeland security, demanding the secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, turn over the security plans of yesterday’s event site.

In the letter, Green wrote:

The seriousness of this security failure and chilling moment in our nation’s history cannot be understated … As the US Secret Service (USSS) investigates, the committee on homeland security … is dedicated to conducting rigorous oversight to ensure that the American people receive answers and presidential candidates receive proper and adequate protection.”

According to the letter, the requested documents include:

• Documents sufficient to show the security plan to secure the perimeter of the event site

• All documents and communications, including but not limited to, e-mail, text messages … between or among any office within the Department of Homeland Security or the US Secret Service, and the executive office of the president, referring or relating to any potential increase or addition of protective resources to President Trump’s security detail from November 15, 2022, to the present

• Documents sufficient to explain the US Secret Service’s rules of engagement or protocols to assess and neutralize threats towards a protectee, particularly for possible assassination attempts

• Documents sufficient to explain the coordination between the US Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, and state and local law enforcement to screen the July 13, 2024 presidential campaign rally attendees

• Copies of any and all briefing materials created by the Department of Homeland Security or the US Secret Service, to include talking points used by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or director Kimberly Cheatle, to brief President Joe Biden about the assassination attempt on President Trump

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press following Donald Trump’s assassination attempt, Bernie Sanders called for a move away from “radical rhetoric”.

Opening up his interview with calls for political unity, Sanders said:

I think in this traumatic moment it’s time for all of us to take a deep breath, remember what this country is about and what political campaigns are about, and they’re about serious discussions of serious ideas as to how we address these serious problems facing this country … If there’s any silver lining in this tragedy, it’s to figure out how we go forward peacefully, constructively and intelligently.

The Vermont senator went on to add:

The bottom line is, what we need as a nation, what a democracy, is about is not radical rhetoric. What it is about is a serious discussion of where we are as a nation and how we go forward. You know, in a certain way … politics should be kind of boring.

You know, our healthcare system is dysfunctional. How do we fix it? Well, it’s kind of a boring discussion. But we need a healthcare system that guarantees healthcare for all people. We have massive income and wealth inequality. Well, maybe a boring discussion. Should three people own more wealth than the bottom half of American society? So I think what we have got to see is serious discussion of serious issues, and not this kind of harsh rhetoric that we have heard for the last number of years.”

In response to whether the rally shooting will impact the debate surrounding Joe Biden’s fitness for the presidency, Sanders said:

No, I don’t. Look, I don’t. I mean, I think President Biden is the strongest candidate the Democrats have. I think he has a very, very effective record that he can run on.

Melania Trump has issued a statement calling for political unity after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump yesterday in Butler, Pennsylvania.

In her statement released on Sunday, she wrote:

“America, the fabric of our gentle nation is tattered, but our courage and common sense must ascend and bring us back together as one.

When I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and Barron’s life, were on the brink of devastating change. I am grateful to the brave secret service agents and law enforcement officials who risked their own lives to protect my husband.

To the families of the innocent victims who are now suffering from this heinous act, I humbly offer my sincerest sympathy…

A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to ring out Donald’s passion – his laughter, ingenuity, love of music, and inspiration. The core facets of my husband’s life – his human side – were buried below the political machine…

We are all humans, and fundamentally, instinctively, we want to help one another. American politics are only one vehicle that can uplift our communities. Love, compassion, kindness and empathy are necessities.

And let us remember that when the time comes to look beyond the left and the right, beyond the red and the blue, we all come from families with the passion to fight for a better life together, while we are here, in this earthly realm.”

Authorities handling security at the rally at the Butler Park Showgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, have dismissed claims that Donald Trump was denied a request for additional security.

The US Secret Service has called the claim “absolutely false”.

Secret Service chief of communications, Anthony Guglielmi, wrote in a post on X Sunday morning:

There’s an untrue assertion that a member of the former President’s team requested additional security resources & that those were rebuffed.

This is absolutely false. In fact, we added protective resources & technology & capabilities as part of the increased campaign travel tempo.

The pushback came after Florida’s Republican representative and army veteran Mike Waltz said he had “very reliable sources” telling him there were “repeated requests” for stronger secret service protection for Trump that had been denied by the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas.

US House speaker Mike Johnson has said “we shouldn’t be targeting people” as he urged Americans to treat one another with dignity and respect in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.

He said there has been no figure in modern American history – besides perhaps Abraham Lincoln – who has been so “vilified” by the media and the legal system, as he says Trump has.

Johnson made the remarks during an interview with NBC’s Today programme in which he acknowledged the country’s “heated” political environment.

“There is no figure in American history – at least in the modern era, maybe since Lincoln – who have been so vilified, and really persecuted by media, Hollywood elites, political figures, even the legal system,” Johnson, who said he sent Trump a text after the shooting, told NBC.

“And when the message goes out constantly that the election of Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy and that the republic would end. I mean it heats up the environment. We cannot do that. It is simply not true – everyone needs to turn the rhetoric down.”

“We’re all Americans, and we have to treat one another with dignity and respect. We can have heated political discourse and debates, but it shouldn’t be personal, and we shouldn’t be targeting people,” Johnson added.

He also confirmed that he was in contact with the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, about the investigation launched into the shooting and is seeking answers over what the Secret Service saw leading up to the shooting.

Here are some of the most striking images from last night: