WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� President was somberly contemplative and unusually conciliatory after confronting what he saw as a in less than two years. He suggested that his personal politics had made him a repeated target, but he also called for unity and bipartisan healing in an increasingly violent world.
鈥淚t鈥檚 always shocking when something like this happens. Happened to me, a little bit. And that never changes,” a subdued Trump told reporters in a hastily organized news conference at the White House late Saturday. Only a short time before, a man with guns and knives tried to rush past the security perimeter inside the Washington hotel where the Republican president was about to address the .
Authorities are in the early stages of determining what happened and why. The shooting suspect was taken into custody and identified as , 31, of Torrance, California.
Trump said he was undoubtedly the target. The presidency is 鈥渁 dangerous profession,鈥� he said. Trump said violence associated with politics had escalated in the United states and around the world. 鈥漀o country is immune,鈥� he said.
He also suggested it was a sign of how successful his presidency has been.
鈥淚鈥檝e studied assassinations, and I must tell you the most impactful people 鈥� the people who do the most, take a look at Abraham Lincoln,鈥� Trump said. He added: 鈥淭he people that make the biggest impact, they鈥檙e the ones that they go after. They don鈥檛 go after the ones that don鈥檛 do much.鈥�
Trump called for Americans to put aside their differences and unite. That was a break from his usual gleefully combative political tack.
鈥淲e have to, we have to resolve our differences,鈥� the president said. 鈥淚 will say, you had Republicans, Democrats, independents, conservatives, liberals and progressives. Those words are interchangeable, perhaps, but maybe they鈥檙e not. But yet everybody in that room, big crowd, record-setting crowd, there was a record-setting group of people, and there was a tremendous amount of love and coming together. I watched, I watched, and I was very, very impressed by that.鈥�
Echoes of what Trump said after 2024 incidents
Trump has called for national unity before, only to quickly pivot.
By Sunday morning, Trump was using the incident to promote the White House ballroom project, a work in progress on site where the East Wing, which he ordered demolished, had stood. He said on social media that what happened Saturday night 鈥渨ould never have happened with the Militarily Top Secret Ballroom currently under construction at the White House. It cannot be built fast enough!鈥�
Trump also scoffed at a legal challenge against the construction, calling it the 鈥渞idiculous ballroom lawsuit.鈥�
After the shooting in 2024 , when Trump was wounded in the ear and a supporter was killed, the president strode into the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee two days later. Later that week, he gave a speech, in accepting the presidential nomination, that featured a , drawing directly from his brush with death.
鈥淭he discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it quickly,” Trump said then. 鈥淎s Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart.鈥�
Such calls were short-lived, though.
Trump used that same speech to veer back into the combativeness that has become his trademark. He repeated false claims about the 2020 election was stolen from him and assertions that Democratic President Joe Biden had done 鈥渦nthinkable鈥� damage to the nation.
The pattern played out anew in September 2024, when Secret Service agents who was armed with a rifle as Trump played golf at his resort club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Steve Witkoff, Trump鈥檚 golf partner when the second incident occurred, described Trump’s initial reaction as 鈥渃ourageous and stoic.鈥� It was not long before Trump was talking constantly about 鈥渞adical” Democrats and 鈥渓eft-wing lunatics.鈥� He branded Ryan Routh, the man for trying to kill him, a 鈥渟ick鈥� individual.
Unlike the first two incidents, Saturday’s occurred with first lady Melania Trump by his side.
The president seemed to describe his wife as being rattled but also 鈥渧ery cognizant, I think, of what happened.鈥�
鈥淚 think she knew immediately,” Trump said. 鈥淪he was saying 鈥業t鈥檚 a bad noise.鈥欌��
He added, 鈥淚t was a rather traumatic experience for her.”
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