The woman who witnessed the assassination attempt against Trump
9 The iconic image of Pres. Trump standing after he had been shot, blood pouring from his ear — but insisting on continuing the fight onward.
AP
Zito was hardly new to being in such close proximity to the president. A longtime chronicler of his unlikely political ascent, they enjoyed an unexpected camaraderie fueled by an affection for family. 'Salena, it's so great to see you. How are you doing? How are all those grandkids?' Trump said to Zito just before he took that fateful Pennsylvania stage. 'I love my grandkids, too. I love being around them,' he concluded.
Advertisement
Within minutes, in a typical Trumpian display of patriotism, country star Lee Greenwood was singing 'God Bless the USA'; minutes after that, Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight rounds at Trump, nearly killing the president and sparking nationwide shock and history-making.
'I knew as soon as I heard those first shots, I had an obligation to be calm,' Zito says, 'because what I was covering wasn't just a tiny thread of modern history. It was an event that was going to change everything.' Here, in an exclusive excerpt from 'Butler,' Zito describes the day she stood alongside history in the making.
9 Thomas Matthews Crooks, who shot Pres. Trump, during his high school graduation.
Obtained by NY Post
Advertisement
——–
I felt the velocity in the same split second that I heard the four gunshots. My eyes were fixated on [then] former president Donald Trump, who stood a mere few feet away from me on an outdoor stage in front of the podium. It was July 13, 2024. I was in the buffer zone with my daughter, Shannon Venditti, and my son-in-law Michael.
Shannon looked over at me and asked, 'Why are there fireworks?' I knew they weren't fireworks and, subconsciously, she did too. We are gun owners. Shannon didn't want to think this could be happening; a mother of four, she didn't want to believe we were in the line of fire. I heard her yell to Michael, 'Did you trip on the speaker wires and cause them to spark?'
My gaze never left the president. Everything happened simultaneously, seemed to happen in split-second layers. I saw him flinch. He grabbed his ear. I saw the blood streak on his face as the bullets cut across the stage, and he ducked down below the podium.
Advertisement
'Get down, get down, get down!' a male voice shouted from behind me, directed at the president.
9 Crooks was quickly neutralized by officers after he attempted to kill Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania just over a year ago.
Obtained by NY Post
My initial thought was that the podium would not protect him — please, someone get there to protect him. Please let no one be hurt. It never once occurred to me that I might be one of them. I was frozen, still staring at the president seconds later, when we heard a second round of four shots. By then, President Trump was surrounded by a sea of navy-blue: at least a half dozen Secret Service agents formed a protective shield around him.
From the huddle, I could hear a female agent say, 'What are we doing? What are we doing?' Then, 'Where are we going . . .' and the sound of her voice was muffled.
Advertisement
Michael shouted as the second four shots went off: 'Those were gunshots!' He tackled Shannon to the ground and dropped on top of her. The next thing I knew, I was knocked off my feet and shoved to the ground by lead Trump press advance man Michel Picard III. Hovering over me, he held me down, his knees pressed against my shins. My face landed in the dirt and gravel, and the rest of my body covered my daughter.
'Are you okay? Are you okay?' Picard shouted at the three of us. Then he lowered his voice and took a deep breath. I could hear him slowly exhale to regain control.
9 Trump campaign advance person Michel Picard and members of the press take cover following the attempted assassination against Trump.
Getty Images
'Stay down. I got you. Stay still, stay calm,' Picard said. His voice was soothing, but his hands told a different story; he was shaking hard. I watched him look down at his hands as he tried to stifle the adrenaline.
I was still just feet away from the president. From my vantage point, I could see the huddle of blue suits surrounding him; I saw his bloody face between the gaggle of men and women around him. An agent said, 'Go around to the spare, go around to the spare . . . hold, hold, when you're ready, on two.'
Or maybe he said, 'When you're ready, on you.' I wasn't sure.
Time seemed to stop. Everything occurred in slow motion. The crowd, eerily, was not screaming, not really. In fact, it sounded like they were still cheering. On the ground, with gravel digging into my legs and arms, I could hear only one woman screaming. Her screams were primal — I don't know if she was hurt, if someone she loved was hurt, or if the trauma was too much for her. It seemed like she was moving around in the stands behind me, moving toward something that was across from me. Her screams were gut-wrenching.
9 Confusion and chaos at the scene of the Trump shooting, which spared Trump's life, but caused the death of a young father who was caught in the crossfire.
Shannon Venditti
Advertisement
One or two of the last four shots sounded like they came from a different-caliber gun.
I could hear President Trump talking back and forth with members of his detail, who were still tightly circling him. At least three male voices were talking. One said, 'Ready. Move up.' A different one said, 'Go, go, go!'
But they remained crouched down. Another agent said, 'Hawkeye's here, moving to the spare.'
'Spare, get ready. Spare, get ready,' said the agent who, from my vantage point, seemed to be the lead. At least two, maybe three of the agents then shouted, 'Shooter's down. Shooter's down — are we good to move?'
Advertisement
A male voice answered, 'Shooter's down. We're good to move.' A female agent asked, 'Are we clear?'
Someone said yes, they were clear to move. Their protective circle became mobile as they stood up with Trump, keeping a circle around him. I heard Trump say, 'Let me get my shoes, let me get my shoes.'
9 Pres. Trump approaches the stage to address his supporters on that fateful day in Butler, PA.
Shannon Venditti
An agent said something like, 'I got you, sir,' and Trump said again, 'Let me get my shoes on.'
Advertisement
I could see Trump's silhouette, and it looked like he was trying to put on his shoes, which one of the agents had knocked off. An agent told him, 'Hold on, sir, your head is bloody.'
Trump was insistent. 'Let me get my shoes.' A female agent relented. 'OK.'
As they slowly started to move, I heard Trump say, 'USA! USA! USA!'
The detail raised him to face the crowd. He lifted his fist, pumping the air: 'Fight. Fight. Fight.' His voice was raspy. The crowd erupted in joy and relief.
Advertisement
An agent urged, 'We got to move, we got to move.'
9 Barely days after he was shot and almost died, Trump returned to Pennsylvania where he rallied his voters during as his re-election campaign carried on through last summer.
Shannon Venditti
They exited the stage, and I saw him raise his fist again three times. The crowd was shouting now: 'USA! USA!' as he and the agents headed toward where I was lying on the ground. A Secret Service agent in full camouflage crouched over me, looking into my eyes, and aimed his AR-style rifle directly at me as the president made his way toward me. The agent and I exchanged glances, but I was oddly not afraid.
Trump and all the agents moved past me. I could barely see his face, but I saw enough to notice the blood running down his cheek. Press Secretary Picard hadn't moved. He was still on top of me, in a protective stance, and I could feel his knee digging into my calf. I thought, That's going to leave a mark. My daughter, Shannon and son-in-law Michael were still underneath us.
Shannon and I both tried to take photos, but Picard and Michael were having none of it. 'We don't know if there is another shooter,' Picard said firmly, so we didn't move.
Trump did not have his MAGA [Make America Great Again] hat on as they moved him past me. I saw his hat fall at some point while they were huddling. An agent miraculously grabbed the hat before it touched the ground and was still holding onto it while holding onto the former president.
I turned just enough to see past the loudspeaker that was behind us and watched the agents help Trump get into a vehicle, which they then surrounded. The motorcade paused for a moment, and then he was gone.
9 Author Salena Zito walking with Pres. Trump when he returned to Butler, PA in October of last year. Zito says that she and Trump enjoy chatting about their grandchildren
Graeme Jennings
I thought back to the early morning. None of what had been planned that day had placed the three of us in the buffer zone by the president. I let out what I thought was going to be a deep sigh, but it somehow turned into that kind of little laugh you have when your day has gone haywire.
Shannon said, 'Are you okay?'
I laughed just a little bit again; it felt like the only release I had in me at that moment. 'Yeah, I'm okay. Remember when the thing I was most worried about this morning was getting here on time?'
Excerpted from Butler by Salena Zito. (Copyright 2025) Used with permission from Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time Magazine
12 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
Colbert Is Practically Daring CBS to Shut Him Down Early
'Over the weekend it sunk in that they're killing off our show,' Stephen Colbert reflected at the top of The Late Show on Monday, following a tempest of outrage over CBS's suspiciously timed cancellation of the program that had only gained strength over the weekend. 'But they made one mistake: They left me alive!' The audience responded with chants of 'Stephen! Stephen!'—which, in retrospect, was the first clue that the host's taunt was not entirely a joke. Since then, Colbert has been ripping into Donald Trump with renewed relish, often while also flaying CBS and its parent company, Paramount. By doubling down on attacking his most powerful enemy, at a time when network execs are facing such intense scrutiny for what many believe was a politically motivated firing, he isn't just making the most of the 10 months he has left—he's essentially daring his bosses to kill the show sooner. (Think an expensive contract would be enough to keep a host judged to be a liability on the air? Kindly recall NBC's Megyn Kelly debacle of 2018.) If they take the bait, Colbert will have his most damning evidence yet that what they called a 'purely financial decision' was, at least in part, political. For those who don't keep daily tabs on late-night talk shows—which, let's be honest, is the vast majority of us these days—it's worth reviewing this week's Late Show highlights. On Monday, Colbert devoted his whole monologue to Trump. First he addressed his cancellation ('Cancel culture has gone too far'), expressing relief that 'I can finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump—starting right now,' then feinting in the direction of understatement: 'I don't care for him. Doesn't seem to have, like, the skillset to be President. Just not a good fit, you know?' He moved on to reports claiming that his show, despite winning its broadcast time slot, was losing some $40 million a year: 'I could see us losing $24 million, but where could Paramount have possibly spent the other 16… oh yeah.' In an instantly viral soundbite, Colbert responded to Trump's social media posts calling him talentless and gloating over his show's demise by asking: 'Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism?: Go f-ck yourself. ' Then he prefaced a riff on the Wall Street Journal 's Epstein birthday letter bombshell with: 'The President was buddies with a pedophile.' 'It's a great day to be me because I am not Donald Trump,' Colbert greeted the audience on Tuesday, before discussing reports that FBI agents were ordered to scour the Epstein files for Trump mentions. 'All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't hide who Dumpty humped with his friend,' he quipped. Also: 'It's not a great look when you fly on the pedophile's plane enough times to earn diamond pervert status.' In response to Trump's apparent fixation on arresting Barack Obama, Colbert wondered aloud: 'What the f-ck is wrong with this guy?' Finally, he seemed to pivot away from the President with a bit about soaring beef prices. But then he brought Trump into that story as well, suggesting that his tariffs were partly to blame. Wednesday's Late Show opened by poking fun at Coca-Cola's plans to oblige POTUS by manufacturing cane-sugar-sweetened soda in the U.S. with a faux advertisement for cocaine-enhanced 'Don Jr. Coke.' A monologue that kicked off with a few jokes about the impending heatwave soon segued to a familiar subject. 'One person who's already sweating is Donald Trump,' Colbert said, before pausing to let the audience boo. To no one's surprise, the host made a meal out of the news that the Justice Department had, in May, informed the President that his name was in the Epstein files. 'He's in the file! He's in the file!' Colbert chanted, rubbing his hands together and approaching the camera with a gleeful grin. 'You know how they say there's no such thing as bad publicity? They're not talkin' about this.' He went on to show a greatest-hits collection of Trump-Epstein photos, casually drop 'Micropenis DJT' into a list of fictional Trump nicknames, and roast Trump for the mathematical impossibility of his promised prescription-drug-price reductions. And then he circled back to 'how [Trump is] making my network crawl,' citing the President's claim that he would secure another $20 million in free airtime from CBS. 'By bending the knee, they lost like $40 million this year,' Colbert said. 'They better watch out. They might get canceled for purely financial reasons .' Colbert ended his show's four-day week, on Thursday, with more than eight minutes on the Epstein saga. First there was a cold open skit that used a montage of Three Stooges eye-poking clips to mock Attorney General Pam Bondi for citing a torn cornea as her reason for missing an awkwardly timed speaking engagement at a summit on sex trafficking. In his monologue, Colbert tore through the latest Trump-Epstein headlines ('What are you gonna tell me next—that the Pope is in the Catholic files? That a bear is on the cover of this month's Modern Woods Pooper ?'), from Epstein's evasiveness on Trump in a 2010 deposition to Mark Epstein's claim that his brother dumped Trump after deciding he was 'a crook' to the Ghislaine Maxwell of it all. When he finally moved off the topic, it was for a bit lampooning the President's recent statements on artificial intelligence that mostly seemed to be an excuse to direct viewers to Wednesday's already-notorious season premiere of South Park (also a Paramount property), which included an extremely NSFW parody PSA starring an uncanny, AI-generated Trump. I'd call this a mic drop, but I have a feeling Colbert will have plenty more to say come Monday. When you consider how litigious Trump has been with regard to practices that legal precedent supports as protected speech—of which satire and commentary are two—Colbert's stand is a risky one. But whether you think his response to The Late Show 's cancellation is brave or foolish, you can't deny that he's playing his cards perfectly against Paramount and CBS. If the powers that be pull him off the air before May 2026, he'll have all but proven that their decision to dump him was about more than the cost of making his show. And if they resign themselves to letting him say whatever he wants for the next 10 months? Well then, he'll get to say whatever he wants for the next 10 months. I can't imagine either option making his bosses jump for joy.
UPI
12 minutes ago
- UPI
Ghislaine Maxwell set for second meeting with Deputy AG Todd Blanche
Ghislaine Maxwell, a longtime associate of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is speaking with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche for a second day. File photo by Rick Bajornas/UN Handout Photo/EPA July 25 (UPI) -- Ghislaine Maxwell, associate of child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, is meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche Friday to answer more questions about her knowledge of Epstein's crimes and who may have associated with him. The two met Thursday and spoke for six hours at a federal courthouse in Tallahassee, Fla. Friday's meeting is a continuation of the questioning. Blanche is a former defense attorney of President Donald Trump. Before leaving for Scotland Friday, Trump brushed off questions about Epstein. "I have nothing to do with the guy," Trump said of Epstein. He socialized with Epstein for years before falling out with him in the mid-2000s. Trump said reporters should focus on those who allegedly spent time with Epstein, such as former President Bill Clinton and ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who was also once the president of Harvard. People "don't talk about them. They talk about me," he complained. "You should focus on Clinton. You should focus on the president of Harvard, the former president of Harvard, you should focus on some of the hedge fund guys," CNBC reported that Trump said. "I'll give you a list. These guys lived with Jeffrey Epstein, I sure as hell didn't." When asked if he would pardon Maxwell, who has served five years of a 20-year sentence for finding and grooming young girls for Epstein's abuse, Trump said, "It's something I haven't thought about." "I'm allowed to do it," he added. Maxwell's attorney David Oscar Markus said Maxwell was "hoping for another productive day." "Ghislaine has been treated unfairly for over five years now," he added. "If you looked up scapegoat in the dictionary, her face would be next to the definition next to the dictionary definition of it," he said. "So, you know, we're grateful for this opportunity to finally be able to say what really happened, and that's what we're going to do yesterday and today." "We just ask that folks look at what she has to say with an open mind, and that's what Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has promised us, and everything she says can be corroborated, and she's telling the truth," Markus said. "She's got no reason to lie at this point, and she's going to keep telling the truth." Markus refused to comment on the nature of the questioning. On social media, Blanche said he would reveal what he learned from Maxwell "at the appropriate time." The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that a recent review of Epstein-related documents by the Justice Department and FBI allegedly found that Trump's name appeared several times in the files. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., during a press conference on Wednesday, said making the Epstein files public needs to be done in a way that protects the victims mentioned, some of whom are minors.
The Hill
13 minutes ago
- The Hill
In the US, a factual National Archives still exists — but for how long?
When I arrived in New York City two years ago — a Russian journalist fleeing my country after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — I was routinely asked: 'Do all Russians support Putin?' A good question, perhaps, but I'm unable to provide a fact-based answer. When a regime like Russia silences the press, takes control of all branches of government and installs loyalists to oversee historical records, the truth quickly disappears, becoming accessible only to the ruler's inner circle. Since Trump's inauguration, conversations in the U.S. have changed. Now, when I meet Americans, they rarely mention Russian politics outside of the Ukraine war. Instead, they share their anxieties about their own country, often with a nervous laugh. I recognize that laugh. In Russia, independent journalists and human rights activists spent years laughing over worst-case scenarios — until every single one of them came true. My Ukrainian friends have become masters of gallows humor. Then Americans ask: 'What should we do? What advice do you, who have seen this happen in your country, have for us here in the U.S.?' This again makes me laugh, given we weren't exactly successful in stopping our own dictator. Still, hindsight does provide some clarity, and while I don't have immediate solutions, I do have two urgent suggestions: Safeguard your independent media and defend your national archives. The war in Ukraine shows how, without a strong independent press and by employing a warped version of history, a dictator can act however they please. While outsiders struggle to understand how Russians accept Putin's justification for the invasion as a mission to 'de-Nazify' Ukraine, a country led by a Jewish president, or as the reclamation of historically Russian territory (a claim that quickly unravels under serious historical scrutiny), the reality is that within Russia these narratives are now embedded in the national story. This is the result of a deliberate reshaping of the historical narrative by the government. Putin's first steps in controlling Russia's narrative was dismantling the post-Soviet independent media. It began with television, shuttering the independent NTV channel under the pretense of a business dispute. He then tightened his grip on the media through laws, including the ' foreign agent ' designation, jailing reporters he disagreed with. Three days after invading Ukraine in 2022, he imposed military censorship, forcing over 1,500 journalists into exile. Today, it is illegal for journalists to contradict the government's version of events. This is why, in 2023, a few fellow exiled journalists and I launched the Russian Independent Media Archive: to preserve the fact-based journalism the Kremlin was so intent on erasing. Today, the archive holds 3.5 million documents from 131 (and counting!) independent national, regional and investigative outlets dating back to Putin's first years in office. Designed to resist takedowns and censorship, with a powerful search engine, the Russian Independent Media Archive is open to all, empowering readers, researchers and historians to challenge propaganda about a particular era with truth, and to answer questions with verified facts. Others are better placed than I to say if a similar closing down of free speech and independent media is possible in the U.S.. The signs are certainly there in the Trump administration's accelerated book banning campaign, ending federal funding for NPR and PBS and shutting down Voice of America. Beyond that, Trump has unleashed a wave of chaotic actions that have directly harmed innocent people and disrupted businesses both in the U.S. and around the world — from mass deportations and abrupt firings to sweeping tariffs and threats of international conflict. Amid this endless barrage of harmful actions, one seemingly benign yet potentially extremely dangerous move risks slipping by unnoticed: Trump's bid to take control of the National Archives' leadership. Putin closed Russia's archives stealthily, cloaking his actions in language that maintained an illusion of transparency. In 2004, he signed a Federal Archives Law restricting access to anything labeled a 'state secret.' Today, that list includes 119 broad categories — enough to conceal almost anything from public view. As a result, we Russians no longer have access to a trusted record of our country's past. If Americans know the National Archives, it's usually as the home of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. But it's much more than a home for documents. It safeguards billions of records vital to government transparency, public accountability, historical preservation, veterans' services and the integrity of elections. These documents hold facts upon which a great many important decisions are made. If access were restricted or content altered or erased, as is already happening on numerous government websites, truth, as in Russia, begins to disappear. For as Orwell presciently wrote in 1984, 'he who controls the past controls the future.' Covering tracks, destroying evidence, blocking websites, interfering in elections, distorting history — it's hard to say who does it better, Putin or Trump. But there's still a crucial difference between my country and yours: In the U.S., your institutions are intact enough that if I ask, 'Do all Americans support Trump?' you could still answer based on facts. The question now becomes: For how much longer?
