BUTLER TOWNSHIP, Pa.—From the moment people arrived for an Oct. 5 rally at the same site where former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt three months prior, it felt out-of-the-ordinary, attendees said.
“This rally was not like any other Trump rally,” said Blake Marnell, better known as “Brick Suit” or “Mr. Wall,” thanks to the standout attire he has sported at dozens of Trump events since 2019.
“You could say it transcended politics,” Marnell said, because the rally’s central themes were patriotism, unity, and healing from the trauma of the July 13 shooting—which Marnell witnessed from the front row.
Marnell and other Oct. 5 rallygoers told The Epoch Times going back to Butler touched them deeply and indelibly.
Several said the rally evoked a sense of “family” and reflected patriotism, echoing sentiments that the former president’s son, Eric Trump, expressed during his speech.
And some said this event drew such attention, it might influence undecided voters in swing states such as Pennsylvania. Trump, the third-time Republican nominee, is seeking victory over his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Twelve weeks ago, we all took a bullet for America,” Trump told the audience, “and all we are all asking is that everyone goes out and votes ... If you don’t get out and vote, it will all be for nothing.”
Michael McMahan, 52, of Monaca, Pennsylvania, near Butler, told The Epoch Times, “I’m a former Democrat.” McMahan said he was considering voting for Trump when he went to the July 13 rally, bent on seeing Trump first-hand, without a news media filter.
McMahan said Trump’s post-shooting reaction—fist-pumping and saying “Fight! Fight! Fight!”—struck him.
“That showed me who he is,” McMahan said.
He and his wife, Stephanie, 45, returned for the Oct. 5 rally. She said she had been undecided previously but now shares her husband’s views.
The couple was seeking “coming together, just strength and community,” Stephanie McMahan said, adding, “It’s overwhelming, but in a very good and positive way.”
Honoring Victim, Celebrating Survivors
Amid attention-getting features such as paratroopers, musicians, and billionaire Elon Musk, the gathering honored the life of Corey Comperatore, 50, who died while shielding his family from gunfire on July 13. The program also celebrated the survival of Trump and two others, attendees David Dutch and James Copenhaver.“Trump’s speech this time was more about Corey and his family,“ Marnell said, ”and about faith.”
With chants of “Corey!” echoing in the air, a slide bearing the deceased man’s photograph and the words, “In Loving Memory,” was shown on a screen.
When Trump took the stage, people were speculating how he would start his speech. Trump had previously joked that he might open his return-to-Butler speech with the words, “As I was saying,” since he was a few minutes into his speech when gunfire erupted on July 13.
When he started his Butler 2.0 speech that way, the audience burst into applause and laughter.
Trump also displayed the same immigration chart that had been projected onto large screens at the time he was shot. Trump has repeatedly credited the chart with saving his life because he turned his head to look at the data at the moment that a bullet whizzed past. That slight movement caused the bullet to graze his ear and avoid a possible direct hit to his brain.
Trump said on Oct. 5 he loves the chart because of what it stands for. A low point on the chart shows illegal immigration reaching its lowest level on Trump’s last day in office. “Today, it’s out of control,” he said.
“Tonight, I return to Butler in the aftermath of tragedy and heartache to deliver a simple message to the people of Pennsylvania and to the people of America: Our movement to Make America Great Again stands stronger, prouder, more united, more determined and nearer to victory than ever before,” he said.
As the clock struck 6:11 p.m., Trump said: “Exactly 12 weeks ago, this evening, on this very ground, a cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me.”
Mourning Comperatore
Trump called the site at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds “a monument to the valor of our first responders, to the resilience of our fellow citizens, and to the sacrifice of a loving and devoted father—a really great man.”
“I will never quit, I will never bend, I will never break, I will never yield—not even in the face of death itself,” the former president said.
Before and after taking the stage, Trump visited in private Comperatore’s wife and daughters, as shown in photos that his staff posted to social media. The grieving family made no public comments from the stage.
During his speech, Trump said the grieving widow told him that her husband had envisioned joining Trump onstage before the shots rang out on July 13.
On Oct. 5, the former president said he was sure that Comperatore was looking down on the crowd from Heaven. Trump also said that Comperatore became “immortal” in a sense; the public will always remember him for bravely sacrificing himself to protect his loved ones.
In homage to the slain retired firefighter, his turnout gear—including his coat emblazoned with “Comperatore"—was positioned high in the bleachers.
Seeing that display, surrounded by flowers, “was breathtaking,” said rallygoer Dorothea Ohlandt, who had traveled from her home in North Carolina. “It made me want to cry,” she told The Epoch Times.
Donna Jones and her husband, Brad Jones—western Pennsylvanians who were first-time Trump rallygoers at the disrupted July 13 event—said they were glad that they returned on Oct. 5.
“I felt a sense of being restored,” Donna Jones told The Epoch Times. “One, because the event was able to come to completion. And, two, because the message was unity and hope—that we are all Americans first.”
“Today was commemorative,” she said, “but there was also a message of urgency to commitment to help save our country.”
Brad Jones said that, for him, the word “family” kept coursing through his mind.
“Trump and the family of patriots needed to settle within our spirits that July 13th will be remembered as the day they tried to break the American spirit but failed,” Brad Jones said.
He said the ideal place to stake that claim was on the same ground where the shooting happened.
Donna Jones’s friend, Britney Pulliam of Leeds, Alabama, had never been to a Trump rally before. She came with her 13-year-old son and her husband to support the Joneses.
“Leaving the rally, I was overcome with a profound sense of hope and faith,” she told The Epoch Times.
The rally, which began with speeches and entertainment at 2 p.m., ended around 8 p.m. after Trump spoke for about 90 minutes. In between, there were many moments of poignancy and patriotism.
During one such instance, someone in the crowd took ill; Trump asked for “a doctor in the house” to step forward. He paused his speech as a doctor made his way to the patient and rendered aid. The audience filled the silence by spontaneously singing the National Anthem.
In addition, people who helped Trump and Comperatore after they were shot on July 13 shared their experiences; a paramedic who attended to Trump thanked him for loving America so much.
Trump thanked his supporters for standing by his side as he has endured a torrent of investigations, followed by impeachments, indictments, and a criminal conviction that leaves a long potential prison term hanging over his head for records-related violations. Then, he was shot.
He also focused on his vision for the nation’s future.
“We want an America where you can get ahead and be proud of life and provide for your family in a really decent way,” Trump said. That means a strong military, good schools, and strong borders, he said.
“You deserve a government that protects and respects its own citizens, that defends your sovereignty, your security, and your dignity, and your freedom,” he said.
Reclaiming a Community Place
As Jondavid Longo, mayor in nearby Slippery Rock, walked among the pre-dawn arrivals for the rally, he told The Epoch Times: “I think that everybody here is feeling a slew of thoughts today.”“It’s, of course, excitement. Anytime President Trump is on the ground in our community, and he’s been here a couple of times, it is just such a joyous occasion ... and that was the case on July 13,” Longo said. “That was stolen from us.”
That excitement was tempered by sorrow over Comperatore’s death and the trauma to so many others, Longo said.
Longo said he considers the Oct. 5 rally “part of the closure process for us here as a community, to remind folks that the Butler Farm Show, which has been a community staple for us for generations, is more than just the tragedy that was July 13. It’s still a community gathering place where good things happen and where we have beautiful sights and sounds.”
A few Oct. 5 attendees told The Epoch Times that their friends or relatives had discouraged them from coming to the rally, fearing there might be violence breaking out again.
Last month, Trump was subject to another attempt on his life. A second gunman targeted him at his Florida golf course on Sept. 15, but a Secret Service agent intervened and police later arrested the alleged aspiring assassin. Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, who lived in Hawaii and North Carolina, is jailed on federal charges.
Worries over safety at the Oct. 5 rally faded after people spotted extra Secret Service agents, muscular private security guards, and counter-sniper teams on rooftops. Some also commented that searches of people’s belongings seemed more thorough.
Rallygoers said they were relieved to see that large white storage containers blocked the roof where the July 13 gunman had perched. In addition, a glass barrier surrounded the speaker’s podium, which was in the would-be assassin’s direct line of sight.
A shot from a Secret Service counter-sniper killed the gunman identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Investigations continue into security failures that led to the attempted assassination.
Crowd-Pleasers
Among the attention-getting flourishes at the Oct. 5 rally were paratroopers descended from the sky, one trailing a huge American flag; artist Scott LoBaido speed-painted a flag on a canvas that revealed an image of Comperatore onstage as “God Bless America” played.At Trump’s invitation, Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men, bounded onstage wearing all-black clothing, topped with a black MAGA hat.
He urged the audience, in-person and online, to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” and “Vote! Vote! Vote!” Musk said people should pester their friends to register and vote because the next election will determine America’s future trajectory.
Musk, who has 200 million followers on the X social media platform he owns, also changed his longtime profile photo; it now shows him in a black MAGA hat.
Musk said Trump will turn America in the right direction and will help the nation soar to new highs.
“President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution. President Trump must win to preserve democracy in America. This is a must-win situation.”
Musk, who has developed SpaceX rockets, wore a T-shirt that read, “Occupy Mars” in white letters. Trump said that, if he wins reelection, he would strive for the United States to reach Mars by the end of his presidential term—with Musk’s help.
Trump told the crowd that Americans deserve a nation that “builds things,” commands worldwide respect, and “aims for the stars once more.”
