Donald Trump has revealed for the first time what his youngest son Barron did during the assassination attempt almost two months ago.
The former president told Fox News ’18-year-old Mark Levin was outside having a tennis lesson’ when the horrific scene unfolded at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The GOP presidential hopeful said Barron, 18, found out because someone ‘ran’ up to him shouting: ‘Barron! Baron! Your father was shot!’
Barron then ran after Melania’s mother to ask what was going on, Trump said, adding that his wife ‘was watching live’.
Trump, 78, was shot at a rally on July 13, with a bullet piercing the skin of his right ear. He said his survival was a ‘miracle’ and an act of God.
Donald Trump, during an interview with Fox News’ Mark Levin, has revealed how his youngest son Barron was outside of tennis lessons when a gunman tried to kill him. Trump was pictured moments after the shooting
Barron, who Trump said was a ‘good tennis player’, was in court when the assassination attempt was first reported.
‘He – he loves his dad, he’s a good kid, a good student, a good athlete – and he’s running, “Mom! What’s going on? What’s going on?”‘ Trump said of Barron’s initial reaction to the news.
He explained that Melania had watched the rally live and was shocked when she heard a gunshot and saw her duck to the ground, behind the podium.
‘He couldn’t believe it. He actually watched it live, can you imagine? Then I got up, and I let people know I’m fine,” he said, as he stood up, raised his fists in the air and shouted to the crowd: ‘War! fight! fight!’
‘I let people know I’m fine. But it’s a hit, it’s a big hit.’
Trump said he had asked his wife how she ‘felt’ about the situation, but said ‘she can’t talk about it, that’s fine because it means she likes me’.
She also shared how her eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, who she says is ‘great with guns’, called her, “I can’t believe it. From afar – I can’t believe it.”
‘From that distance it should be, like, it should be. It’s like sinking one foot,’ Trump said, adding: ‘If I turn just a little less, or a little more. If I turn more or less, it’s still the end.
‘It’s God. I know people who believe in God because of that.’
Barron, 18, found out because someone ‘ran’ towards him shouting: ‘Barron! Baron! Your father was shot!’ The teenager, who graduated high school in May (pictured), then ‘ran’ to her mother Melania Trump, saying: ‘Mom! What’s up? What’s going on?’
Trump explained that Melania had been watching the rally live and was shocked when she heard a gunshot and saw her duck to the ground, behind the podium. He is pictured with his wife and son Barron at Ivana Trump’s funeral on July 20, 2022 in New York City
Last week, the FBI announced that investigators who have conducted nearly 1,000 interviews do not yet have a motive for why 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump during a July campaign rally.
They believe that Crooks conducted ‘extensive attack planning,’ including seeking out campaign events involving Trump and current President Joe Biden, particularly in western Pennsylvania.
The FBI’s analysis of online search history showed ‘a continuous and detailed effort to plan an attack on several events, meaning they looked at several events or targets,’ Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, told reporters last week.
After Trump’s rally was announced on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, ‘He became very focused on that particular event and saw it as a target of opportunity,’ Rojek said.
Crooks’ internet search in the days leading up to the rally included a question about the background of the rally, ‘Where will Trump speak from the Butler Farm Show?’ ‘Butler Farm Show podium’ and ‘Butler Farm Show photos.’
In the 30 days before the attack, the FBI said, Crooks conducted more than 60 internet searches related to Biden and Trump, including searching for the dates of the Democratic and Republican national conventions.
FBI Director Christopher Wray had previously revealed that a week before the shooting, Crooks searched Google for ‘How far was Oswald from Kennedy?’
This is an obvious reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
This image provided by the FBI shows Thomas Matthew Crooks’ rifle damaged as it may have been for transportation and the backpack found at the scene in Butler, Pa., July 13, 2024.
This image provided by the FBI shows the gun Thomas Matthew Crooks found at the scene in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024
This image provided by the FBI shows two improvised explosive devices as found in the car of Thomas Matthew Crooks at the scene in Butler, Pa., July 13, 2024.
The new details add to the emerging portrait of Crooks as a smart, self-effacing man who investigators say in the years before the shooting sparked interest in explosives, violence and famous public figures, but Internet searchers for Democrats and Republicans were frustrated. an attempt to determine a simple political motive or to determine why Trump himself would be a target.
“We have a clear idea of the pattern of thinking, but we are not ready to make a conclusive statement about the motive at this time,” Rojek said. The FBI also did not find that anyone else had knowledge of the shooting or that Crooks conspired with anyone else.
The FBI found explosive devices in his car and home, and investigators said internet searches showed that at least as far back as 2019 he had sought information about bomb-making materials, including how remote detonators work.
The FBI said Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet or shrapnel during the assassination attempt.
Crooks fired eight shots from an AR-style rifle. One rallygoer was killed and two others were wounded before the gunman, who was positioned on the roof of a building less than 150 meters away, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
Also last week, the FBI released images of the rifle Crooks used, a backpack and an improvised explosive device found in his car.
