‘One-in-a-million shot’: Sniper’s incredible act
The shot that killed the man who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump was a “one-in-a-million shot”, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
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A day after former President Donald Trump accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency, US President Joe Biden has vowed to stay in the election race, despite mounting pressure to bow out.
Speculation that Mr Biden would drop out hit fever pitch this week, with some reports stating he would be “gone” by Sunday.
As the 81-year-old continues to push forward, authorities are continuing to investigate the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last weekend.
Follow our live coverage of the US election campaign and the attempted assassination below.
‘One-in-a-million shot’: Sniper’s incredible act
The shot that killed the man who attempted to assassinate Trump was a “one-in-a-million shot”, according to a source familiar with the investigation into the shooting.
Fox News learned from the source the kill shot was a single shot taken by a Secret Service counter sniper whose view was obscured.
A local tactical team also took a shot at the would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, but missed.
The Secret Service sniper who killed Crooks could only see Crooks’ gun scope and the top of his eye and forehead because the lip of the roof was blocking the sniper’s view.
The source described the shot to Fox News as a “one-in-a-million shot”.
Fauci downplays ‘superficial’ Trump wound
Dr Anthony Fauci has downplayed Trump’s injuries during last weekend’s assassination attempt, calling the ear wound he received when he was grazed by a bullet “superficial”.
Dr Fauci, the embattled former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who advised both Trump and President Biden during the Covid pandemic, was asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about Trump’s injuries.
“I don’t think there is much more to it,” Dr Fauci said on Friday night.
“I mean, from what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard, it was a bullet shot that grazed his ear and injured his ear, according to the physicians who examined him. There was no other further damage.”
Dr Fauci said he thinks Trump is “in the clear” based on his physician’s report and seeing Trump’s actions since, including arriving at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee just two days later and delivering a record-breaking speech on Thursday.
“It seems to have been a superficial wound to the ear, and that’s all,” he said.
Mark Zuckerberg calls Trump ‘badass’
Mark Zuckerberg called former President Donald Trump “badass” over his response to last weekend’s assassination attempt, although the tech billionaire stopped short of endorsing him for the 2024 election.
The boss of social-networking giant Meta – who has a net worth of $US167 billion ($250 billion) according to Forbes – applauded Trump’s strength after surviving an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend that left him bleeding from the ear.
“Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life,” Zuckerberg said on Thursday during a Bloomberg interview.
“On some level as an American, it’s like hard to not get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight, and I think that that’s why a lot of people like the guy.”
The praise comes despite years of bad blood between the social media titan and former President.
Trump’s Facebook posts were often flagged for containing misinformation and breaking Meta’s rules. Then the company suspended Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts for two years after the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots – prompting him to create Truth Social, a Trump-centric remake of X.
Back then, Mr Zuckerberg posted that Trump was using his account to “undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power” to President Biden.
But now Mr Zuckerberg said he’s “not planning” to be involved in the election and wants to depoliticise Facebook.
“The main thing that I hear from people is that they actually want to see less political content on our services because they come to our services to connect with people,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
He said Facebook has already started showing users less political content.
“I think you’re going to see our services play less of a role in this election than they have in the past,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
Mr Zuckerberg joins a growing number of business bigwigs and Wall Street titans clapping Trump on the back.
Elon Musk issued a last-minute Trump endorsement just 30 minutes after the Pennsylvania shooting, and has since pledged $US45 million ($52 million) monthly to a Trump super PAC. Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz also reportedly have plans to donate to a Trump PAC.
Trump shooter’s true motive revealed
Thomas Matthew Crooks may have been more interested in attacking a high-profile target and less politically motivated when attempting to assassinate Donald Trump.
CNN reports the 20-year-old, who would often go shooting at a firing range, did not appear to exhibit strong views which indicate a politically driven assassination, referencing interviews with law enforcement and a review of notes from a briefing to Congress.
According to the notes, Crooks searched for the location of the Pennsylvanian rally, an hour drive from his home, and discovered Trump had planned to deliver a speech.
This act had led officials to speculate Crooks may have been intending to carry out a high-profile shooting, with the nearby rally offering an accessible opportunity.
“Even though he didn’t get his primary target, the shooter was successful in a lot of ways because he got closer to doing something no one has done in decades,” a source told CNN, referring to the assassination of a presidential candidate.
Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI profiler, also suggested the rally was “very appealing” to Crooks in part because it “fell in his backyard.”
“This gave him incredible attention and catapulted him to a point where I think that’s why he chose this,” she told CNN.
Authorities are continuing to price together the motive behind Saturday’s attack, which left Trump with a grazed ear, one person dead, and two others injured.
Shooter flew drone over fairgrounds
Crooks reportedly flew a done over the site of the rally before he attempted to assassinate Trump.
The 20-year-old managed to fly the drone on a programmed flight and get aerial footage of Pennsylvania fairgrounds on July 13, shortly before the former president took to the stage, law-enforcement officials said, per the Wall Street Journal.
Officials said the programmed flights suggest Crooks likely flew the drone multiple times to gather intel on the site.
It comes amid reports the ladder purchased by Crooks and backpack that allegedly belonged to him have been located.
Law enforcement sources told CNN, a workman discovered the ladder and the backpack lying on the side of the road near Crook’s home. He reportedly turned the ladder into authorities, having observed it on the road for several days.
‘Stabbed in the back’
Joe Biden’s campaign team has aggressively pushed back against suggestions he should drop out of the 2024 US presidential election.
Mr Biden, the incumbent, has faced what’s been described as a slow-moving “attempted coup” after his disastrous debate performance against former US president Donald Trump, who was officially nominated as the Republican candidate yesterday.
Mr Biden, who is currently self-isolating in Delaware after catching Covid, is digging in his heels and vowing to get “back on the campaign trail next week” despite mounting calls from Democrats for him to stand down, the New York Post reported.
A former Biden aide told Politico: “People who have known this man for 30, 40 years are stabbing this man in the front and the back.
“They are JULIUS CAESAR-ing this man,” the aide said, referring to the infamous murder of the Roman dictator on the Ides of March, 44BC.
A Biden source told NBC News: “Can we all just remember for a minute that these same people who are trying to push Joe Biden out are the same people who literally gave us all Donald Trump?
“In 2015, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer pushed Biden aside in favour of Hillary; they were wrong then, and they are wrong now.
“How did all this work out for everyone in 2016? Perhaps we should learn a few lessons from 2016; one of them is polls are BS — just ask Secretary Clinton. And two, maybe, just maybe, Joe Biden is more in touch with actual Americans than Obama-Pelosi-Schumer?”
Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz slammed Trump in a lengthy memo, as reported by Fox News.
“Donald Trump and Republicans – despite claims of a ‘new tone’ – their message is the same: Revenge and retribution,” Mr Munoz said in a memo released Friday evening highlighting why Mr Biden should stay in the race.
“Their convention focused on bowing down to [President of Russia Vladimir Putin], mass deportation, and inflicting their Project 2025 agenda on the American people.”
He attacked Trump’s policies as well as his recently-announced vice-presidential candidate JD Vance following the Republican National Convention that concluded on Thursday (local time) in Milwaukee.
“Attendees brandished signs calling for ‘Mass Deportations Now,’ while an architect of Trump’s cruel family separation policy took centre stage during the convention’s prime time slot,” Mr Munoz said.
“JD Vance, the poster child for Project 2025’s extremism, was unveiled as Trump’s running mate and, in becoming Trump’s vice presidential nominee, doubled down on a future of abortion bans, worse access to health care, and higher costs for middle-class Americans,” Mr Munoz added.
Mr Biden himself lashed out on Twitter writing, “I’m stuck at home with Covid, so I had the distinct misfortune of watching Donald Trump’s speech to the RNC. What the hell was he talking about?”
In a long thread, Mr Biden blasted Trump’s record on Covid, Social Security and Medicare, tax cuts and immigration policies.
I’m stuck at home with COVID, so I had the distinct misfortune of watching Donald Trump’s speech to the RNC.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 20, 2024
What the hell was he talking about?
Pressure builds on Biden
The pressure on Mr Biden has soared in the last 48 hours, with reports that former president Barack Obama, ex-House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the party’s congressional leaders had all expressed concerns behind the scenes.
Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries was evasive on Friday, saying that the “ticket that exists right now is the ticket we can win on” but saying it was Mr Biden’s “decision to make.”
The scene could now be set for the most crucial weekend of Mr Biden’s presidency, with media speculation that the US leader is using his time hunkered down in Rehoboth Beach to consult family members and mull over the path ahead.
The NBC report said it could involve a “carefully calculated plan” to step aside based on his own timing, to give some dignity to what would be a historically late decision by a sitting US president not to run.
Any decision by Mr Biden to step aside less than four months from the election would also have to try to avoid chaos in the Democratic Party over his successor as nominee.
Mr Biden beat Trump in 2020, becoming the oldest president in US history in the process.
But a series of polls have shown him trailing Trump in the 2024 race despite his rival being a convicted felon, while some polls show Ms Harris as more competitive.
Trump assassination attempt updates
Meanwhile, musician Billy Ray Cyrus and hundreds of other people have gathered in rural Pennsylvania to honour Corey Comperatore, who died during the attempted assassination of Trump.
Mr Comperatore served 10 years in the US Army Reserves and served as the chief of the Buffalo Volunteer Fire Department in Pennsylvania in the early 2000s, Fox News reports.
Two men who sustained wounds when gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday (local time) are now listed in serious, but stable condition, according to hospital officials.
– with New York Post, Fox News and AFP
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