Donald Trump has revealed for the first time what his youngest son Barron was doing during the assassination attempt almost two months ago.
The former president told Fox News’ Mark Levin the 18-year-old was ‘outside having a tennis lesson’ when the terrifying scene unfolded at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The GOP presidential hopeful claims Barron, 18, found out because someone ‘ran up’ to him yelling: ‘Barron! Barron! Your father’s been shot!’
Barron then ran after his mother Melania to ask her what had happened, Trump said, adding that his wife was ‘was actually watching it live’.
Trump, 78, was shot at the rally on July 13, with the bullet piercing the skin of his right ear. He says it was ‘miracle’ and act of God that he survived.
Barron, who Trump says is a ‘good tennis player’, was on the court when he was first told about the assassination attempt.
‘He was – he loves his father, he’s a good kid, good student, good athlete actually – and he ran, “Mom! What’s going on? What’s going on?”‘ Trump said of Barron’s initial reaction to the news.
He explained that Melania had been watching the rally live and was shocked when she heard shots ring out and saw him duck to the ground, behind the podium.
‘She couldn’t believe it. She was actually watching it live, can you imagine? And then I get up, and I let people know I was okay,’ he said, noting how he stood up, raised his fist in the air and shouted to the crowd: ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’
‘I let people know I was okay. But it was a hit, it was a big hit.’
Trump says he has asked his wife how she is ‘feeling’ about the situation, but says ‘she can’t even talk about it, which is okay because that means she likes me’.
He also shared how his oldest son Donald Trump Jr, whom he said is ‘great with the guns’, called him afterwards saying, ‘I can’t believe it. From that distance – I can’t believe it.’
‘From that distance it’s supposed to be, like, a sure thing. Like sinking a one-foot put,’ Trump said, adding: ‘If I turned around just a little bit less, or a little bit more. If I turned around more or less, it was still the end.
‘It’s God. I know people that have become believers in God because of it.’
Last week, the FBI revealed that investigators who have conducted nearly 1,000 interviews do not yet have a motive for why 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot at Trump during a July campaign rally.
They believe that Crooks conducted ‘extensive attack planning,’ including looking up campaign events involving both Trump and current President Joe Biden, particularly in western Pennsylvania.
The FBI analysis of his online search history reveals a ‘sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some event, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets,’ Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, told reporters last week.
Once a Trump rally was announced for July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, ‘He became hyper-focused on that specific event and looked at it as a target of opportunity,’ Rojek said.
Crooks’ internet searches in the days leading up to the rally included queries about the grounds where the rally was held, ‘Where will Trump speak from at Butler Farm Show?’ ‘Butler Farm Show podium’ and ‘Butler Farm Show photos.’
In the 30 days before the attack, the FBI says, Crooks did more than 60 internet searches related to Biden and Trump, including seeking the dates of both the Democratic and Republican national conventions.
FBI Director Christopher Wray has previously revealed that one week before the shooting, Crooks did a Google search for ‘How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?’
That’s an apparent reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963.
This image provided by the FBI shows Thomas Matthew Crooks’ rifle broken down as was likely done for transport and the backpack recovered at the scene in Butler, Pa., July 13, 2024
This image provided by the FBI shows Thomas Matthew Crooks’ rifle as recovered at the scene in Butler, Pa., July 13, 2024
This image provided by the FBI shows two improvised explosive devises as initially discovered in Thomas Matthew Crooks’ car at the scene in Butler, Pa., July 13, 2024
The new details add to an emerging portrait of Crooks as a highly intelligent and reclusive man who investigators say in the years before the shooting had taken an eerie interest in explosives, violence and prominent public figures but whose internet searches of Democrats and Republicans alike have frustrated efforts to assign a simple political motive or to establish why Trump himself would have been targeted.
‘We have a clear idea of mindset, but we are not ready to make any conclusive statements regarding motive at this time,’ Rojek said. The FBI has also not found that anyone else had advance knowledge of the shooting or that Crooks had conspired with anyone else.
The FBI found explosive devices in his car and home, and investigators say his internet searches revealed that since at least 2019 he had looked up information about bomb-making materials, including about how remote detonators work.
The FBI has said that Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet or a bullet fragment in the assassination attempt.
Crooks fired eight shots from an AR-style rifle. One rallygoer was killed and two others were injured before the gunman, who was positioned on the roof of a building less than 150 yards away, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.
Also last week, the FBI released images of the rifle Crooks used, his backpack and improvised explosive devices found in his car.