AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
The country was shocked last night and the political landscape shaken by an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. At a rally in Pennsylvania, shots were fired at Trump as he spoke on stage. He was quickly whisked away, bleeding from his ear. A spectator was killed, so was the gunman, and two others were left in critical condition. The FBI has identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Penn. As the investigation continues, law enforcement officials say that establishing motive is a top priority. NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben was at the rally last night and saw it all unfold firsthand. She joins us now from Pittsburgh International Airport. Hi, Danielle.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Good morning, Ayesha.
RASCOE: First of all, we're so glad that you're safe. Tell us what...
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you.
RASCOE: ...You saw.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah. So Trump started talking at around 6:05 P.M. Eastern, and about 10 minutes into his speech, suddenly there was a series of loud pops. Now, I and most other reporters were in a central penned-in area called the press pen. And we all and plenty of people in the crowd as well dropped to the ground and waited for the pops to stop. Now, once they did, and I stood up, I saw a cluster of secret service agents around Trump trying to lead him away from the lecturn. But he was kind of struggling back a little bit. He held up a fist to his crowd as they were trying to pull him away, and I heard the crowd cheer loudly as he did that. Now, after that, it didn't take long for people to start leaving en mass, which was hard because this was a packed rally in a somewhat rural area. Butler is a town of about 13, 14 thousand. So you had a lot of people in a place that's just hard to get out of quickly.
RASCOE: And you talked to people right after all of this happened. What did you hear?
KURTZLEBEN: Fear and anger, as you might expect - now, there was an immediate desire, I found, for people to try to find someone to blame. Immediately after the shooting, one of the first things I saw was a small crowd of rally goers in front of that press pen. They turned around and yelled at the press. And it was a level of anger that I have not seen at a Trump rally. Some immediately leapt to blaming the press.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Hey. You, this is your fault - your fault.
KURTZLEBEN: And if you couldn't hear that, what they're saying is, this is your fault, to members of the press. And really, after something so frightening, you could feel people groping for an explanation. And that was the case with Erin Autenreith, who is a rally goer I talked to from Pittsburgh.
ERIN AUTENREITH: I think they're so scared, they just - the only way they could beat him is to kill him.
KURTZLEBEN: So she didn't have specific people she blamed, but just a nebulous they that was coming after Donald Trump, which does echo a narrative that Trump uses a lot, that there are a mass of enemies who are coming after him and his supporters.
RASCOE: You spent a lot of time with Trump supporters covering his campaign. How do you anticipate this all playing out?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, his supporters are loyal above all. So first and foremost, they're going to rally around him. You already heard some of this last night. And also, you've already seen some of this this cycle. They've rallied to his defense when they perceive he has been attacked, for example, in his various court cases. That mug shot of him is so important to his supporters. You see it on all sorts of shirts at rallies. Now those powerful photos of Trump with blood on his face and his fist raised, you can bet those are now going to be very symbolic to them. Now, none of this is to cheapen or be cynical about an act of violence that could have killed the former president, but it is to illustrate that his supporters feel a deep connection with him. And I can imagine that this event is going to continue to deepen that connection.
RASCOE: That's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Thank you so much, Danielle.
KURTZLEBEN: Thanks, Ayesha. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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