Salena Zito Was Four Feet Away When She Heard the Bullets

This episode provides a detailed account of an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a rally, as witnessed by reporter Selena Zito.

1. Assassination attempts on political figures highlight deep-seated divisions and the prevalence of violence in American politics.
2. The immediate response by the Secret Service and law enforcement at the rally was critical in preventing further casualties.
3. The media's rapid response and the narrative shaped around such events can significantly influence public perception.
4. Personal anecdotes from Zito provide insight into Trump's character and his interactions moments before the attack.
5. Discussions about gun control and mental health issues are recurrent themes following such incidents.

1. The Incident

Zito describes the terrifying moment shots were fired at Trump, detailing her proximity and the subsequent chaos. She provides a vivid account of the Secret Service's swift action to form a protective barrier around Trump. Selena Zito: "As soon as he sees me... we talked a little bit about Pennsylvania."

2. Aftermath and Reflections

Post-incident reflections on the implications for American politics and society. Zito discusses the rally's atmosphere, media reactions, and personal insights into societal divisions and the normalization of violence. Michael Moynihan: "It's a stark reminder of the depolarization of our politics."

3. Media and Public Response

Exploration of how the media and the public perceive and react to such incidents. The chapter delves into the role of rhetoric in politics and the potential consequences of divisive public discourse. Selena Zito: "I think likely all presidents want to project strength because America is seen as a symbol of strength and defiance."

1. Stay Informed: Always seek multiple sources to understand complex events like political violence.
2. Promote Dialogue: Encourage open and respectful discussions on political and social issues to bridge divisions.
3. Understand Media Bias: Be aware of how media framing can influence perceptions and stay critical of one-sided narratives.
4. Advocate for Mental Health: Support initiatives that address mental health to potentially prevent future tragedies.
5. Practice Safety Awareness: Be vigilant about personal safety and surroundings, especially in politically charged environments.

Yesterday, Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A few minutes into the rally, a gunman opened fire, and a bullet pierced the former president’s ear. He ducked to the ground, the Secret Service piled on top of him, supporters screamed, and chaos erupted through the crowd.

Trump suffered a superficial wound, but one rally attendee was killed and two others were critically injured. Moments after the shooting, images of Trump flooded the internet—fist clenched, blood running down his face, mouthing “fight” to a dazed crowd. It was the first time in over 40 years that an elected president was wounded in an assassination attempt. The gunman was immediately killed. He was later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.

The internet was, of course, soon overrun with speculation, conspiracies, over-the-top rhetoric, and the assignation of blame—most of which demanded that the shooter share responsibility for his evil actions with certain aspects of the media or certain politicians. It’s all a stark reminder of the deep polarization of our politics, and that political violence is something of a constant in American life.

On the ground at the rally, watching the mayhem unfold, was Salena Zito. Salena is a reporter for the Washington Examiner and a contributor to The Free Press. She was standing four feet from the president when the first shots rang out.

Today, we discuss what she witnessed at the rally. We discuss her interactions with President Trump immediately before the shooting, the shooter’s possible motive, what it means for the 2024 election, and more importantly, what it means for the country.

People

Donald Trump, Selena Zito

Companies

None

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

Selena Zito

Content Warnings:

Content includes discussion of violence and assassination attempts.

Michael Moynihan
From the Free press, this is honestly. I'm Michael Moynihan. Yesterday, Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A few minutes into the rally, a gunman opened fire. A bullet pierced the former president's ear. He ducked to the ground. Secret Service piled on top of him. Supporters screamed. Chaos erupted throughout the crowd. Trump suffered a superficial wound, but one rally attendee was killed and two others critically injured. Moments after the shooting, images of Trump flooded the Internet, fists clenched, blood running down his face, mouthing fight to a dazed crowd. It was the first time in over 40 years that an elected president was wounded in an assassination attempt. The gunman was immediately killed. He was later identified as 20 year old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The Internet, of course, was soon overrun with speculation, conspiracies, over the top rhetoric and the assignation of blame, most of which demanded that the shooter share responsibility for his evil actions with certain precincts of the media or certain politicians. It's all a stark reminder of the depolarization of our politics and that political violence is something of a constant in american life. On the ground at the rally, watching the mayhem unfold, was Selena Zitto. Selena is a reporter for the Washington examiner and a contributor to the Free Press. She was standing 4ft from the president when the first shots rang out. Today, we discuss what she witnessed at the rally, her interactions with President Trump immediately before the shooting, the shooter's possible motive, what it means for the 2024 election, and more importantly, what it means for the country. Stay with us.

Josh Hammer
Hey, guys, Josh Hammer here, the host of America on Trial with Josh Hammer, a podcast for the first podcast network. Look, there are a lot of shows out there that are explaining the political news cycle, what's happening on the hill, to this, to that. There are no other shows that are cutting straight to the point when it comes to the unprecedented law fair, debilitating and affecting the 2024 presidential election. We do all of that every single day right here on America on trial with Josh Hammer. Subscribe and download your episodes wherever you get your podcast. It's America on trial with Josh Hammer.

Michael Moynihan
Selena Zito, welcome to.

Selena Zito
Honestly, thanks for having me.

Michael Moynihan
So I just have to say first that I'm, I'm happy you're safe. And the reason I say that is not because you were just at the Donald Trump rally yesterday, but you were in very close proximity to the former president, you know, a handful of feet away when he was shot.

Selena Zito
I was. I had started the day attending the rally with the knowledge that I was going to be interviewing the president. For about ten minutes before the rally, I had two photographers with me. One was my daughter, who's a photojournalist, and my son in law, who I forced into bringing the lighting. And we were set to interview the president about ten minutes before. About an hour before the rally was set to begin, I got a phone call saying, would you like to join the president and fly back to Bedminster and do the interview then? And then you have more time to talk rather than be rushed off. I said, okay. So that's sort of how my day went, right? This was a day that started out being, for me, very exciting as a journalist. About six minutes before the president was set to speak on the stage, he had called me and my two photographers to come back and say hello. He was in a sort of a holding room right behind the stage, mostly with law enforcement, you know, getting their picture taken, talking. He's thanking them. He really feeds off of their energy in a positive way. And, you know, as soon as he sees me. Hey, Selena. So nice to see you. We talked a little bit about Pennsylvania. He said, I'm really excited to do this interview with you and talk about, you know, talk about the election, talk about the convention coming up next week. We maybe talked five minutes. I went back out, and within minutes he came. I went into the bumper. The bumper is sort of a well that goes across or around the stage. It gives access to journalists, mostly photographers, to be able to cover the president in a very intimate way, to be able to tell the story. I'm always very much about photojournalism and the importance of them being there. So I just went in the. Well, because I was supposed to, right afterwards, go right off into the motorcade. So I'm there with my two photographers, and we had been on his right flank, if I'm a stage right. And we went around, we followed him around, and then I went over on the other side of him along with the other two photographers, and he had put a chart up on the screen about the sort of flow and increase of illegal immigrants crossing the border. And it went from the 1970s until today. And he points to the biggest dip in the chart, saying, that's me. That's when it was the best. And then you see it spike after President Biden, as he turned his cheek, you hear pop, pop, pop. Had he not turned to face that chart, the president would not be alive today.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah, we'd be having a very different conversation right now.

Selena Zito
And I heard he turned and he's pointed and I'm looking at the chart. I hear, pop, pop, pop, and immediately you see sort of this red streak on the president's face. He is immediately then surrounded by secret service and other law enforcement. I would argue there were a lot of different law enforcement entities around him. They form a human shield. It's called a protective stance all around the president. He does not fall to his knees. I think some people thought that in the moment they brought him down to make sure to secure. I had also, in the interim, heard three more pops. Now, this was a different caliber gun. I'm not sophisticated enough to know the difference. I have been a gun owner, but I did know the second round was definitely a different gun. So you don't know if it's a second shooter. You know, I'm on the ground at this point. His advance man wasn't a secret service man. His advance name. His name is Michelle Picard. I will forever be grateful for his professionalism and his just protection. In that moment, he laid on top of me and my daughter and my sons very like a human pile, right? But I see the president go down with his protective force, and I hear him say something about his shoe. I can't remember what his exact words were, but I need my shoe. And I think before he rose up, he wanted to make sure his shoe was on. I'm sure when that protective force went around him, someone probably knocked his shoe off or slipped it off, you know, knocked it off a bit. He gets up and he's saying, fight, fight, fight, probably at least five times. And he faces the crowd, and there is, you know, people are calling it defiance. I'm not quite sure I would call it defiance, at least in the moment. It felt as though, and I think all presidents have this understanding, it's in their DNA to let people know, we're okay, we're going to be okay. I think he really thought it was important to project that, and he did. And you saw, you know, in the crowd, the crowd was being more defiant, and a lot of them were, you know, shooting the middle finger. And I think a lot of people thought they were doing that at the press. I think they were doing. My impression in that moment is they were doing at the shooter, like, come on, bring it on. And then they bring the president down right in front of me, and I'm on the ground at this point. And someone had his hat. I don't think his hat was on his head at that moment, but someone had his hat because his hat falls. And again, you hear people recount sort of traumatic or moments in their lives. And they say it felt like it was in slow motion. That's not a lie. Things did feel. You felt everything slow down in front of you.

Michael Moynihan
When did you realize what was happening?

Selena Zito
Immediately.

Michael Moynihan
Immediately. Because, I mean, you see people in the crowd, and I saw a few people interviewed that one of whom said, I didn't really know exactly what was happening until I went home and turned on Fox News. Cause of the chaos of it. They knew something was wrong. But you're in that close proximity, you're hearing this pop pop. You're hearing those return pop pop pops. And you immediately knew that somebody had taken a shot at the former president.

Selena Zito
Oh, yeah. I know exactly what a gun sounds like. And I know that a lot of people that are not familiar with Avenatt, everybody's a gun owner or goes target shooting, don't understand that sound. A lot of people think it's fireworks, firecrackers, you know, something of that center. But, you know, I immediately knew what it was. I mean, there was a brief second that I thought that I stepped on the cable and broke something, but that was just a momentary flash. Then they take the president past me into the motorcade, and he is walking. I mean, they do have that protective shield around him, but he is walking. It's just. I think people may have thought they were carrying him just because the awkwardness of moving a person in that moment.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah, I mean, it's also worth pointing out the unbelievable bravery of those people. I mean, I'd say your job is to put yourself between bullets and the president, which they do immediately. And also, in fairness, too, to the photographers who took some of those amazing and now already iconic images, they're running towards that. They're running towards where the gunfire is.

Selena Zito
They're running towards that. I'm trying to take photos, too. My daughter is underneath me and then underneath his advance man, so she can't move. And he's not letting us move, right? He's like, stay down, stay down. And in a good way. I will forever be grateful for the stance that he took. His name was Michelle Picard. He laid on top of us. He made sure that we were okay. I think that someone thought my daughter Shannon, had been shot because she was buried underneath all of us. My poor daughter. But she was fine.

Michael Moynihan
She was absolutely fine after the president was whisked away. And that was pretty quickly. Did you see the people in the crowd whisking away? The other person or the other? I think there were a few people that were shot, one of whom, unfortunately, passed away. Did you see any of that activity immediately after? And how far was that from the president? I mean, was that somebody that was hit that was basically in the line of fire? I couldn't quite figure that out from seeing the images on television.

Selena Zito
So I'm here. The president is here. The one that is shot. The three people that were shot are right past him.

Michael Moynihan
So they're bullets that went by the president and hit somebody behind him.

Selena Zito
Yeah, they hit him to his right. So I would have been on the president's left. And, yes, you saw people rushing to immediately help these people. There was blood everywhere. I have photos of the blood. It was everywhere. It was a very, it was very sad.

Michael Moynihan
I mean, it's, people do, as you say, describe the president of being defiant. But one of the things I noticed when I was watching that, and he had his fist clenched. And I think this is whether or not you love or hate the president or have no opinion, I don't think anyone does have opinion on him. But when he's clenching that Fisk and saying, fight, fight, fight, the thing that you do realize is that people who get shot don't know that they've been shot sometimes for many minutes after. That's why you cut people's clothes off and you look for bullet wounds, because it doesn't affect you in the way it does in movies. You immediately fall down. It can hit you. So he just got up and said, fight, fight, not really knowing what condition he was in. That struck me.

Selena Zito
That is true. And it goes back to what I said earlier. I think likely all presidents want to project strength because America is seen as a symbol of strength and defiance. I mean, you know, we had this little revolution, right? And you saw Reagan do that. You know, for those of you who weren't alive when, when Reagan was shot, there is this famous photo of him just hanging out the window, waving to people, letting. Yeah. You know, I think it was just like 24 hours after he was shotd.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah.

Selena Zito
And we didn't, you know, I'm also old enough to have remembered when. When President Kennedy was shot, we weren't able to do that. There was no one able to do that. And everything was solemn around that entire thing. LBJ never, ever came out in my recollection in those moments, and I'm old enough to remember all of that and projected that everything was very solemn and understandably so. But I think that you saw that with Reagan and you definitely saw that with Trump. He wanted the country to know we're strong. And we're okay. We're okay. Even if he wasn't okay, he wanted you to know that we were okay.

Michael Moynihan
Selena, you've been at this game for a long time. I mean, you were less than 24 hours ago next to a president who was hit by a assassins bullet and survived. It grazed him. But if you look back, you mention President Kennedy. There's George Wallace, squeaky from took a shot at President Ford. Ronald Reagan was shot in DC in 1981. I mean, this is kind of unfortunately normal in american politics in the sense that you also have people that aren't President Steve Scalise, et cetera. Did this surprise you in the immediate aftermath of this or did you, as you've covered the president since 2015, 2016, were you saying? Well, I mean, I kind of not expected, but I'm not surprised by this.

Selena Zito
I'm not surprised by this. So let's put this into context. From my experience, just as a person, not even a journalist, I grew up in an era where I literally thought everyone got shot. Let's think about this. JFK gets shot. Bobby Kennedy gets shot. Martin Luther King gets shot if George Wallace gets shot. This was part of my growing up. And I thought as a young kid, the presidents got shot. Like important people got shot. So its always been sort of in the back of my head. It didnt surprise me. People will point about guns and access to guns and well have that conversation over and over and over again. But if you look at, absolutely, if you look at everyone that has shot at presidents or would be presidents or political figures, and you look at people who do mass shootings, I think there's always this underlying unchecked or unresolved or untreated mental illness that we never ever discuss in a way that is meaningful in our political discourse. We talk about it, we say it, but we focus on the gun. And I said this in my story for the free press in that people, if they are determined to do something of this matter, they will find a way, whether it's through access, how he found access or through means. So it didn't have to be a gun. It could have been something else. But if that is where their brain was, I suspect they would have found a way to cause something awful.

Michael Moynihan
I'm wondering what you make of this. I mean, you left the rally, you live fairly close by, right? About an hour away from right.

Selena Zito
So that happened in Butler county. It's an hour, it's an hour drive. And, you know, there was a reason why President Trump picked Butler county. There's sort of this triangle of, you know, there's Pittsburgh, there's East Palestine, there is Erie. Like it's all in. You're at the Ohio state line. You're where Mahoning Valley is. This is. He was projecting something in that, you know, location. You know, he's a real estate developer. Location, location, location. Right. He picked that location for a reason, to project what his coalition looks like. Right? There's wealthy suburbs along the Butler County, Allegheny county line. I mean, on my drive out there on my left hand side, right before I get to the event, there is the sunny side up diner attached to a bowling alley on my left. And on the right hand side are 500, $600,000 homes just being built. Just built. So that shows you just what sort of an interesting mix of that area is. And I have covered western Pennsylvania forever. It's what my roots are. My family, years ago, were from Butler County. I had a great, great uncle who was the congressman from there. Ebenezer McJunkin. Yes. Evaneckin, who served in the American Civil War and was part of the Pennsylvania delegation that picked Abraham Lincoln to be the nominee in 1860.

Michael Moynihan
So you get home, and then you start consuming all the media. I mean, you're right there, and then you have to deal with all the people who weren't there talking about it. And you say, you know, people talk about guns, you know, after these horrible events happen, which they do. But in this event, it seemed to me that people were mostly talking about rhetoric and trying to assign blame, which is an unfortunate instinct that journalists have, and that maybe we all have to say, well, who is ultimately responsible for this? You have somebody on one end, like Lauren Boebert, who says, Joe Biden, you did this. And then on the other end, you have people saying that Trump's rhetoric is what creates these kinds of scenarios. I mean, on both sides, and I don't mean to both sides this, but right after this, it's rhetoric, rhetoric, rhetoric. What do you make of this conversation that says it is the hostile political rhetoric, it is the division in this country that creates this situation and the circumstances for a shooting like this to happen?

Selena Zito
Well, if people know history, they know that we've pretty much always been divided. And the times that we do come together, this is really sad to say, but the times we do come together is when we are being attacked or at war. You know, people think everything was happy between the American Revolution and the war of 1812. No, we were very divided. And people think everything was fine between 1812 and 1860, before the civil war. Happened? No, everything was awful. So I would say one thing consistent in american history is we've always been divided. And there have always, if you look back in history and you look at the rhetoric between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, there was some really awful, awful rhetoric in that moment or the rhetoric when Andrew Jackson ran. So I think that's always been part of our discourse. I think what is different is because we have so much access to it. You know, it was always there, but social media has just put it right in front of us. Anybody can go online and tweet at the president, right, and say whatever they want to. They have that much access to the president. It's an intimacy that they've never experienced before.

Michael Moynihan
Does that access make it more dangerous now that, you know, more people are exposed to more kind of hot rhetoric and over the top rhetoric and the idea that our democracy is at stake or that Donald Trump is the next Adolf Hitler? I mean, I've seen a number of people saying, making the argument that, well, this is the logical endpoint of this, because if you want to the conversation, I mean, how many times have you heard, if I could go back in time and kill Hitler, I would. Now you have the opportunity in real time because this is a Hitler. Do you think that that kind of rhetoric is dangerous, is absolutely normal and we should just blame the shooter? Only, what do you make of those kind of competing ideas about rhetoric?

Selena Zito
So I remember writing this. The congresswoman in Arizona that was shot, Gabby Giffords.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah.

Selena Zito
Yes. And I remember immediately, everyone blamed Sarah Palin.

Michael Moynihan
Correct.

Selena Zito
And I thought, oh, they've opened up the Pandora's box. I don't know that we can ever come back. I think this is now how we always react. And I feared at the time, turns out I was accurate, that it would get a lot worse. I don't see how we put the genie back in the bottle. How do you undo the impact that first started with cable news, then with the Internet, and then expanded with social media, you know, and what's next? Right. I don't know what's next in terms of access to each other and access into letting each other know exactly how we feel, no matter how deranged it can be. So I don't even pretend to know the answers to this, but I've been chronicling it, and none of it has been good. I mean, there was a reason why I left social media for three years. It wasn't good for my mental health.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah.

Selena Zito
And also, I didn't glean anything from it. Didn't make me a better reporter. What makes me a better reporter, and that's not the case for everyone, is to be in places like Butler. Right. And on a normal day and just going around and talking to people. I don't learn anything new from social media.

Michael Moynihan
How did the people at the Butler rally after the assassination attempt happened, how did they respond? Were you speaking to people and get a sort of sense of how people felt in the immediate aftermath?

Selena Zito
I had no access at all. They put us in a holding room. All of us who were ahead were in the buffer. And two of the five of us got Pulitzer winning photos of the moment. They never got down. They kept shooting, they kept chronicling it. And that's the thing about journalism that people forget that is so important. So I didn't get to, but I will tell you, they probably didn't let us out into an hour after. And we walked out and it was surreal. You just saw this massive, we're on farm fields at this event, and you saw clothing. There was a wheelchair just sitting there. It was dead silent. And just an hour earlier, there was at least 30,000 people there. I mean, it's a massive rally.

Michael Moynihan
Yeah. One of the reasons to follow the work of Selena Zito is that she has incredible contacts in Trump world. And as you explained, Selina, the president said hi and said something about your grandkids before he went on stage. He knows you. Have you spoken to people in Trump world since this has happened? And, you know, what is the kind of vibe you're getting from them? How are they responding to this internally?

Selena Zito
I haven't. I've tried to be respectful of the moment. I have left text and or voicemails just saying, I'm thinking of you. I'm praying for you. I'm praying for the president. But, you know, this might not be the instinct of every reporter, but I feel respect right now and a little bit of, I know what I feel like doing these stories and doing podcasts and I've done a numerous amount of television. It's probably a healing thing, but it's also very, it's hard to gather your thoughts. And I think in this moment, what people, especially those close to the president, there were several of them in tears in the back, just, you know, they love this guy. You know, you don't, you don't work this crazy schedule as a campaign staffer. You don't have a personal life. Most journalists don't either. You don't have a personal life. You have dedicated yourself to an aspiration, right, about being part of something bigger than yourself. And so they're very emotionally tied to him. And so I thought in the moment. So it's important to be respectful of that.

Michael Moynihan
One final question for you, Selena, and thank you for taking the time today. I know you have a very busy schedule, but I want to go back quickly to the media reaction to this, because for those of us who don't have a lot of information, we're following the media very closely from afar and saying, what do we know about the shooter? What do we know about the circumstances? What do we know about the security failures, which seem to be sort of massive, too. But in watching the media, you start noticing sort of patterns and odd things about how it's been covered. What is your take on what you've seen since you left that rally of how the media has covered this assassination attempt?

Selena Zito
So I haven't seen a lot. I haven't had much breathing room to really read it. I want to read the other journalists that were there with me. I often differ with them on how things are covered. I would love to believe that. I'm not going to in this moment. I think it needs to be said. This is not, you know, this is not about an ideological point of view. It is about, I thought it was so important that the president did what he did in that moment. And I cannot stress that enough because I think people already before this happened thought the country was falling apart. Right? They thought, we are so divided that we could not repair from this. That was before the assassination attempt. To be able to have that intuition, to say, we're okay, it's okay, we're gonna be okay. I thought it was probably the best characteristic that President Trump has displayed. That was an important moment. He has blood on him. He's been shot, and he has the wherewithal. There's going to be plenty of people who say, oh, he's being defiant. Oh, that's Trump. No, they're completely missing context. They're completely missing understanding that America needed that show of strength in that moment.

Michael Moynihan
Over at the fp.com comma, I was 4ft away when I heard the bullets by Selena Zito. I recommend everyone go over and read it and get the important context from somebody who was 4ft away from the president when an assassin's bullet nicked his ear. Selena Zito, thank you for joining us.

Selena Zito
Us on honestly, thanks for having me.

Michael Moynihan
Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, share with your friends and family and use it to have a conversation of your own. And if you want to support honestly, there's just one way to do that. Go to thefp.com and become a subscriber today. See you next time.