Former First Lady Melania Trump on Sunday issued a statement on the assassination attempt targeting her husband, former President Donald Trump, and offered her sympathy to the other victims who were shot during the incident.
The former first lady, who has been largely out of the public eye during former President Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, called on Americans to “ascend above the hate” and “simple-minded ideas that incite violence.”
At a rally on Saturday evening in Pennsylvania, a shooter opened fire from about 400 feet away as former President Trump was speaking. In a later statement, the former president said that a bullet pierced his right ear.
The U.S. Secret Service, who confirmed it killed the suspect, said that one other victim died and two others were seriously injured. The identities of those victims were not named.
“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,” Mrs. Trump said in her statement. “The core facets of my husband’s life—his human side—were buried below the political machine. Donald, the generous and caring man who I have been with through the best of times and the worst of times.”
Mrs. Trump also thanked people who reached out to her family “for remembering that every single politician is a man or a woman with a loving family.”
“We all want a world where respect is paramount, family is first, and love transcends. We can realize this world again,” her statement said. “Each of us demand to get it back. We must insist that respect fills the cornerstone of our relationships, again.”
She added: “Let us not forget that differing opinions, policy, and political games are inferior to love. Our personal, structural, and life commitment—until death—is at serious risk.”
The FBI identified the suspect as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Law enforcement officials have not publicly identified a motive for the shooting, and the FBI said that it is continuing to investigate.
In several statements, the former president and the Republican National Committee confirmed that he will attend the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, which starts July 15.
Michael Whatley, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, told Fox News Sunday that he is working with the Secret Service and “40 different law enforcement agencies” to provide security for the RNC.
The former president is scheduled to receive the Republican Party nomination during the event, which will end on Thursday.
Other Trump family members have released statements in the wake of the assassination attempt. Ivanka Trump, the former president’s daughter, wrote on social media that she is also “grateful to the Secret Service” for their quick response and is “pray[ing] for our country.”
His oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., posted an image of his father with his arm raised after the shooting. “He'll never stop fighting to Save America,” he wrote on social media. His second oldest son, Eric Trump, made a similar comment and posted the same image, writing that his father is “the fighter America needs.”
President Joe Biden and a number of both Republican and Democrat politicians condemned the shooting, while some called on members of both political parties to curb any incendiary political rhetoric. “There is no place for this kind of violence in America. It’s sick,” he told reporters Saturday in an emergency briefing in Delaware.
Saturday’s attack was the first major assassination attempt targeting a current or former president since President Ronald Reagan was shot and injured in 1981 in Washington.
