Republican candidate Donald Trump rallied his supporters at the site of his assassination attempt in July and returned to his headquarters in Pennsylvania, where a gunman’s bullet bloodied his ear and turned the presidential campaign upside down.
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(Bloomberg) — Republican nominee Donald Trump rallied supporters at the site of his July assassination attempt, returning to the Pennsylvania spot where a gunman’s bullet bloodied his ear and upended the presidential campaign.
“I return to Butler in the wake of tragedy and pain to deliver a simple message to the people of Pennsylvania and to the people of America,” Trump told the crowd on Saturday. He said that our movement is “closer to victory than ever before.”
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Trump invited billionaire Elon Musk to join him on stage, describing him as a “truly wonderful guy.”
“This is the most important election of our lives,” Musk said in his first appearance on stage with Trump on the campaign trail. “President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America.”
With a tight race for the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris exactly a month before Election Day, Trump touted his appearance in the swing state for several days.
Harris has trailed Trump’s lead in several battleground states, according to the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll. The race is very heated, with no candidate showing a clear advantage before Election Day on November 5.
“And if we win Pennsylvania, we win everything,” Trump said on Saturday.
The rally served as a pilgrimage for some of Trump’s allies and ardent fans. Dozens of lawmakers and prominent donors were scheduled to attend, along with thousands of participants who packed the fairgrounds, a place Trump aides say energizes him.
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John Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire who is a major donor to Trump and a potential Treasury secretary in a future administration, spoke briefly to the audience before Trump took the stage.
“When he is elected president, he will bring America the greatest economic prosperity we have ever seen,” Paulson said.
Brady Marnell, 59, of San Diego, who said he had been traveling to the East Coast to attend Trump rallies, called returning to Butler “bittersweet.”
“I feel like it’s important to get this over with,” he said. “This is more about reflecting and looking at the events of July.”
For Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc. SpaceX and the richest man in the world, this is his highest-profile moment yet as part of a political campaign. After years away from the political spotlight, he emerged in the 2024 elections as a major supporter of Trump.
Musk has been a favorite talking point for Trump in recent days as the former president praised the deployment of SpaceX’s Starlink equipment to help restore communications in US cities devastated by Hurricane Helen. He also criticized the Biden administration’s disaster response and made unsubstantiated claims about redirecting billions of dollars to support illegal immigrants.
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Musk launched a pro-Trump super PAC in May, and publicly endorsed the Republican candidate hours after the attempt on Butler’s life. Billionaire Bill Ackman joined him amid an outpouring of support for Trump after the attack, which killed one attendee and injured two.
Musk’s most visible support for Trump is on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter which he bought in 2022 for $44 billion. In August, he hosted a warm but delayed conversation with Trump on Channel X, in which the tech mogul pitched a role for himself should Trump win a second term in the White House.
Trump seized on the idea, offering Musk a role in his next administration and offering him a Cabinet position.
As the owner of X and the most followed account, Musk sets the tone for X and has shifted the entire site toward the political right.
His hands-off approach to what users post has drawn criticism in the United States and around the world for allowing misinformation to flourish, including recent lies by Trump that immigrants in an Ohio city were behind a local crime wave and were to blame for the disappearance of several people. Cats and dogs.
Trump spoke to the crowd at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds from behind protective glass, a security measure that underscores the heightened security measures imposed after the July 13 attack. Security drones were also seen, as well as a sniper behind Trump.
– With assistance from Michael Shepherd.
(Updates with Musk’s comments from third paragraph.)
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