Elon Musk plans to attend Donald Trump’s rally on Saturday at the site in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the former president narrowly avoided assassination in July.
“I will be there to support!” the tech billionaire replied to a post by Trump on Musk’s social media platform, X, saying he was returning to the Butler Farm show grounds.
Trump’s decision to hold the rally in the same open-air venue came after a series of harsh reports into Secret Service security failures that allowed a gunman to open fire from a rooftop on the outskirts of the fairgrounds.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, injured the former president, killed rally attender Corey Comperatore and severely wounded two others as he got off clear shots with an assault rifle before he was killed by federal snipers.
The Pittsburgh Gazette said crowd estimates for Saturday’s planned event ranged from 15,000 to as high as 100,000. The Secret Service is expecting as many as 60,000 people.
“There is a pilgrimage sense at all the rallies, but this is going to be the one,” said Jen Golbeck, a University of Maryland professor, told the newspaper. “There are definitely people who feel like – and say to me – the hand of God has touched Trump.”
Trump said, “I had God on my side” in surviving the shooting and the “providential” moment, which also produced one of the 2024 presidential campaign’s – and any election in US history – most potent images, with Trump rising from a Secret Service huddle, blood streaked across his face, raising his fist and shouting “Fight!”
Religious interpretations aside, the assassination attempt was the first of two Trump has now faced. Last month, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh allegedly aspired to shoot the former president on Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump has also faced ongoing death threats from Iran, which is also blamed for hacking into his campaign.
Trump has accused the Biden administration of intentionally denying security resources to help Kamala Harris, the US vice-president and his Democratic opponent in the November election, by preventing him from addressing large crowds, a signature of his political life.
“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 Fox News interview.
Changes have been made to what he can do on the campaign trail and Trump staffers are on edge, the Associated Press reported. There have been death threats directed at his aides, and his team isn’t as able to quickly organize the mass rallies he prefers.
Armed security officers 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 Secret Service lacked the resources to safely secure them. Even with the use of glass barricades to protect Trump on stage, there are concerns about holding additional rallies outdoors due to fears about drones.
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 is staying there.
The Secret Service spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi, said that Trump “is receiving heightened levels of US Secret Service protection” and that “our top priority is mitigating risks to ensure his continued safety at all times.”
Leslie Osche, Butler county commissioners chair, told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 that officials were “confident” about security at Saturday’s event.
Musk has endorsedTrump for another term in the White House. On Friday, the tech billionaire also retweeted a post calling Saturday’s event “HISTORIC!”
