Trump to attend FIFA Club World Cup final in New Jersey on anniversary of Butler assassination attempt

Yahoo

a day ago

President Donald Trump will attend the FIFA Club World Cup final on Sunday afternoon (July 13), on the first anniversary of the assassination attempt he survived in Butler, Pennsylvania, while campaigning in the 2024 election.
The president had no specific public plans to observe the date, though he did speak about it during a taped Fox News Channel interview with his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, which aired on her Saturday night show, My View.
'Well, it was unforgettable,' Trump told his daughter-in-law in their Saturday night interview. 'I didn't know exactly what was going on. I got whacked. There's no question about that. And fortunately, I got down quickly. People were screaming, and I got down quickly, fortunately, because I think they shot eight bullets.'
During the attempt on Trump's life on July 13, 2024, the gunman fired eight shots, one of which grazed the ear of the then-presidential candidate. Trump bled so much from the ear wound that top aides thought he had been shot 'four or five' times, according to a new book.
Retired firefighter Corey Comperatore, an attendee in the crowd, was killed, and two others were injured. A Secret Service counter-sniper opened fire on the shooter, 20-year-old Matthew Crooks, killing him.
That day jolted an already chaotic race for the White House and solidified Trump's iconic status in his party and beyond.
On Sunday, Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will travel from their golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to East Rutherford, 40 miles (64 kilometers) away, to watch the final of the U.S.-hosted tournament between Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea FC at MetLife Stadium.
Today's match will give Trump a preview of the world's premier soccer tournament that North America will host next year.
The president, who maintains a warm relationship with FIFA President Gianni Infantino, has said he plans to attend several matches of the World Cup tournament next year.
Sporting events have been the main reason for Trump's trips within the U.S. since taking office this year. Besides his visit this weekend to today's final, he's attended the Super Bowl in New Orleans, the Daytona 500 in Florida, UFC fights in Miami and Newark, New Jersey, and the NCAA wrestling championships in Philadelphia.
A series of Secret Service mishaps have been revealed in a new report out on the one-year anniversary of the assassination attempt.
The Government Accountability Office put the report together at the request of Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who said in a statement that what happened at Trump's rally on July 13, 2024, came after several 'bad decisions and bureaucratic handicaps.'
The agency 'failed to implement security measures' that could have prevented the assassination attempt, the new GAO report states.
Grassley's office released the report Saturday, hours before the one-year mark. It highlighted multiple shortcomings by the Secret Service, noting major communication mishaps as well as a 'lack of specific and complete guidance' for the agents at the rally.
The report found that senior officials at the agency were aware of a possible threat against Trump before the rally, Politico noted. However, the threat was 'not specific to the July 13 rally or gunman.'
Secret Service and local law enforcement were 'unaware of the threat' because of the agency's 'siloed practice for sharing classified threat information.'
In his interview with Lara Trump, Trump insisted on the Secret Service: 'I have great confidence in these people.'
'They should have had somebody in the building [from where the shooter fired], that was a mistake,' he said.
'They should have had communications with the local police; they weren't tied in, and they should have been tied in. So there were mistakes made … But I was satisfied in terms of the bigger plot, the larger plot.'
'And I have great confidence in these people. I know the people. And they're very talented, very capable. But they had a bad day. And I think they'll admit that. They had a rough day.'
The motivations of the shooter still remain something of a mystery.
With additional reporting from Gustaf Kilander and the Associated Press.