On July 13, 2024, Donald Trump, a former president of the United States and at that time the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee in the 2024 presidential election, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was speaking to the audience when he was shot by Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old man from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Crooks fired eight rounds with an AR-15–style rifle from the roof of a nearby building outside the rally venue, killing 50-year-old Corey Comperatore in the audience, and critically injuring two other audience members. Crooks was immediately killed by the United States Secret Service Counter Sniper Team.

After being shot, Trump took cover and was surrounded by Secret Service personnel before being helped to his feet by them with blood visible on his right ear and cheek. He pumped his fist in the air and mouthed,or shouted, the words “Fight! Fight! Fight!”, before being escorted to his motorcade and taken to a hospital. He was released a few hours later in stable condition. The shooting is being investigated as an attempted assassination and as a potential domestic terrorist act.

Public figures from the Democratic and Republican parties have called for an increase in security for the major candidates in the election. There are no known posts on social media websites or writings indicating Crooks’ ideology, and authorities have stated that it is unknown what his political views were, or whether the assassination attempt was related to them. Experts considered the shooting a sign of political polarization in the United States, and political figures called for a reduction in tensions. Soon after the shooting, misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories quickly spread on social media.