How the Butler shooting changed Donald Trump’s campaign

Image via AP.

Donald Trump was onstage at a rally on Long Island last month, talking about taxes, when he appeared momentarily spooked by something he’d spotted over his shoulder.

“I thought this was a wise guy coming up,” he explained, joking that he was getting his elbow ready to fight back.

“You know I got a little bit of a yip problem here, right?” he added to laughs, using a term familiar to golf aficionados to describe a phenomenon once blamed on performance anxiety where players suddenly lose the ability to make easy shots. “I was all ready to start duking it out.”

It was a fleeting moment passed off as a joke. But as he returns to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday for a rally at the site where a gunman opened fire in July, grazing his ear with a bullet, the scare underscores the lasting fallout for the candidate and his campaign even as much of the national attention has shifted to other crises.

Beyond the two attempts on his life in as many months, the former president and GOP nominee faces ongoing death threats from Iran, which has also been blamed for hacking top campaign officials and allies, exacerbating anxieties already heightened by a stepped-up security apparatus and new restrictions on how he can campaign.

Trump’s allies insist he was not fundamentally changed by the gunman who fired from an unsecured roof at the rally in July or the would-be assailant in September who shoved a rifle barrel through the fence at his West Palm Beach golf course.

The picture of Trump standing, with blood streaked across his face, as he raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” has become the indelible image of the campaign.

“When you almost lose your life, it stays with you. It stays with him,” said Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a close Trump ally. “But that doesn’t change his resolve. His resolve is just as strong as it ever has been.”

Trump staffers are on edge. There have been death threats directed at his aides, and his team isn’t as able to quickly organize the mass rallies that have always been the signature of his campaigns.

Armed security officers now stand guard at the campaign’s Florida headquarters, and staff have been told to remain vigilant and alert.

Events have been canceled and moved around because the U.S. Secret Service lacked the resources to safely secure them. Even with the use of glass barricades to protect Trump onstage, there are concerns about holding additional rallies outdoors due to fears about drones.

Trump has accused President Joe Biden’s administration of intentionally denying security resources to help Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent, by preventing him from addressing large crowds.

“They couldn’t give me any help. And I’m so angry about it because what they’re doing is interfering in the election,” he said in a recent Fox News interview.

U.S. Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement that Trump “is receiving heightened levels of U.S. Secret Service protection” and that “our top priority is mitigating risks to ensure his continued safety at all times.” Biden expressed concern for Trump after both assassination attempts, saying in September, “Thank God the president is OK.”

Trump also now travels with a larger security footprint, with new traffic restrictions outside his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, and a line of dump trucks and big guns on display outside Trump Tower in New York when he’s staying there.

As for Trump, he speaks more often publicly of divine intervention, musing that God saved him in order to save the country. He also often says that assailants only go after consequential presidents.

“Obviously, when you come within a half an inch of a very different outcome, that’s going to impact you,” said New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, another ally who said she spoke to Trump the morning after the Butler shooting.

“Of course, those moments really make you consider a higher power, why you are so committed to helping save this country,” she said. “I think it has further empowered and energized President Trump.”

Trump was recently asked by NewsNation if he’s concerned about his safety ahead of his return to Butler. “Well, I’m always worried,” he responded.

“I’m going back to Butler because I feel I have an obligation to go back to Butler. We never finished what we were supposed to do,” he said. “And I said that, when I was shot, I said, we’re coming back. We’re going to come back. And I’m fulfilling a promise; I’m fulfilling really an obligation.”

His most loyal supporters at his rallies, including the one on Long Island where he joked about the “yips,” haven’t been dissuaded from seeing him in person.

“I know some people are scared to come, but I’m not,” said Eileen Deighan, 63, a nurse from nearby Yonkers, New York, who said she was inspired by Trump’s decision to keep on campaigning given the threats.

“The fact that he didn’t give up, he’s willing to fight for our country, how could you not support that?’ she asked. “That will that he has — doesn’t give up. It’s very contagious.”

Trump told his supporters at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday that he would continue fighting “no matter what obstacles and dangers are thrown on our path.” But he had another point to make.

“I tell you what, I had a good life before I did this,” he said. “Nobody was shooting at me. I had a hell of a life.”

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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.