Former President Trump will return to the site of his attempted assassination earlier this year with a rally in Butler, Pa., his campaign announced Wednesday.
The Oct. 5 visit will mark Trump’s first return to the site where his ear was grazed by a bullet and a rally attendee died in a July shooting just ahead of the Republican National Convention. Trump pledged later that month to return to the site after the incident cut the event short.
“President Trump’s return to Butler will stand as a tribute to the American spirit. In America, we do not let monsters like that evil assassin have the last word,” the campaign said in a release that framed Trump’s survival as “what the world has recognized as an act of divine providence.”
“After not one, but two attempts on his life in the past nine weeks, President Trump is more determined than ever to see his mission through to the end,” the campaign added.
The Butler shooting is one of two apparent assassination attempts against Trump this cycle. Earlier this month, a suspect was charged with gun crimes in an incident on Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla., though the former president was unharmed.
The FBI said in late August that it wasn’t ready to draw conclusions about a motive in the Pennsylvania shooting, and a motive in the Florida incident also remains unclear. Trump and other Republicans have blasted Democratic rhetoric.
“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out,” Trump told Fox News Digital earlier this month.
During the planned return visit to Butler next month, Trump is also set to thank law enforcement and honor the late Corey Comperatore, the rally attendee who was killed.
