What happened
The 20-year-old gunman who grazed Donald Trump's ear and fatally shot an attendee at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday appeared to have acted alone with no clear motive, the FBI said yesterday.
President Joe Biden urged America to "lower the temperature in our politics" in a Sunday evening televised Oval Office address. Trump told the Washington Examiner that following the assassination attempt, he reworked his upcoming "humdinger" of a Republican National Convention speech to "bring the whole country" together.
Who said what
"Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy," but "politics must never be a literal battlefield or, God forbid, a literal killing field," Biden said. "In America we resolve our differences at the ballot box." He said he'd had a "short but good conversation" with Trump after the shooting and was "sincerely grateful" he was "doing well and recovering." In a social media post minutes after Biden's speech, Trump said, "UNITE AMERICA!"
The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was shot dead by Secret Service snipers, used an AR-style rifle legally purchased by his father, the FBI said. Crooks had no known mental health issues and wasn't on law enforcement's radar. He was a registered Republican who had donated $15 to a liberal political group in 2021 and belonged to a shooting club near his Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park, where he worked in a nursing home. Former high school classmates described Crooks as a bright, socially awkward loner who was not overtly political but appeard to be conservative-leaning. The man he killed, 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, died while shielding his wife and daughter, officials said.
What next?
Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday for this week's Republican National Convention. He is scheduled to accept the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
DHS preps for major ICE expansion, rankling local law enforcementIN THE SPOTLIGHT As the Trump administration positions ICE as the primary federal police force, its recruitment efforts have been met with a less-than-enthusiastic response
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
JD Vance rises as MAGA heir apparentIN THE SPOTLIGHT The vice president is taking an increasingly proactive role in a MAGA movement roiled by scandal and anxious about a post-Trump future
-
Congress should 'step in' to block Trump's White House ballroom makeoverInstant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring pushSpeed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additionsSpeed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein filesSpeed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
