POLITICS: Donald Trump and his supporters make a triumphant return to the scene of his first assassination attempt

It is a testament to the courage and fortitude of Donald Trump and his supporters that, on Saturday, tens of thousands returned to the scene of the first assassination attempt on the former president at Butler, Pa., to hear him speak.

With questions still unanswered about why he was ever placed in harm’s way on July 13, Trump stood in the same place and spoke at the same time as he did when an assassin’s bullet came within a hair’s breadth of killing him on live television, but miraculously only clipped the top of his ear.

His defiant return felt like a weighty moment in history, traced equally with awe and dread, but, this time at least, there was bulletproof glass in front of Trump as he stood on stage, counter-snipers were on every rooftop and giant containers shielded him from the roof of the unguarded building where 20-year-old shooter Thomas Crooks had taken aim. 

Many of the rallygoers were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the unforgettable words Trump uttered moments after the attack when he rose from the ground (right), his face streaked with blood, raised his fist, and said: “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as the crowd roared with relief. 

Choices

“America is the home of the brave, and there’s no truer test than courage under fire, so who do you want representing America?” said Elon Musk, the billionaire MAGA convert who was invited onstage by Trump Saturday. “We had one president who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist pumping after getting shot.”

In the bleachers behind Trump, a firefighter’s helmet and jacket were stationed as a memorial to volunteer fireman Corey Comperatore, 50, who was killed by one of the bullets that missed Trump. 

Trump opened his remarks by paying tribute to Comperatore, whose family he had just met with backstage, and hailing survivors David Dutch and Jim Copenhaver, who were badly injured by other bullets. 

It was a somber speech, marked by a moment’s silence for the fallen Trump supporter, the tolling of a bell and a beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria.” 

But the tragedy and solemnity of the occasion, with the same enormous American flag fluttering overhead as did when the would-be assassin struck, only underscored what everyone knew was the stark choice ahead for the country on Nov. 5.

“I’d like to ask you who would you rather have facing down Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping,” Trump’s running mate JD Vance asked the crowd, referencing Trump’s media-shy opponent Kamala Harris. “Someone who is afraid of interviews with the friendly American media or someone who faces down two assassins and returns triumphantly to the very place that he got shot.”

For all the brio of Trump and his valiant supporters on Saturday, an uncomfortable pall hung over the rally. Trump is lucky to be alive after being targeted at least twice by assassins in the past 12 weeks. How on earth did the Secret Service and the FBI get it so wrong?

That’s the question that Dr. ­Joseph Meyn has been asking himself every day since the first Butler rally. 

The obstetrician was sitting a few rows in front of Comperatore, and about 10 feet from Trump when the bullets started flying. He helped carry Comperatore’s body out of the bleachers and was among about three dozen witnesses detained by the Secret Service until past midnight. 

Meyn, 51, had a perfect view of the hit on Trump, and recorded reams of video on his phone as the shots rang out. 

But the peculiar attitude of the Secret Service and FBI agents who questioned him that night has given him grave fears for Trump’s safety. 

‘Problem is I saw it’

First, he says, a Secret Service agent who was leading him into the witness area took a call from what he assumed was her supervisor in which she downplayed the assassination attempt, saying only that “shots were fired,” there were “casualties in the crowd” and the “president was unharmed.”

Meyn could hear the voice on the other end ask: “The president was unharmed?” so he leant over towards the phone and said, “No, he was shot with a bullet in the right ear.”

The annoyed agent “moved the phone to her left ear and gave me a look,” he said.

Next, Meyn was questioned by the FBI and recalls that he got into a ridiculous debate with an agent who insisted Trump had not been shot.

“Yes, he was,” said Meyn. “He turned his head and the bullet clipped the very top of his right ear. I saw some blood and tissue squirt out into the ether.”

The agent told him “Stop. President Trump wasn’t hit . . . You don’t understand that that podium is armored. When the Secret Service tackled President Trump [to protect him after the shots] he hit his head on the podium.”

According to Meyn, “I said the problem is I saw it. I have a photographic memory. This is what I saw, and I have it on video.”

He says he heard another agent in the background say, “Oh, Jesus Christ.”

‘Schism’

Later that night he noticed a “schism” develop between the FBI and Secret Service agents at the scene, as he overheard snatches of FBI phone conversations.

“It was like, ‘uh oh, clearly this is a problem . . . This is a massive screwup. This is all on the Secret Service . . . We’re just here to process the crime scene,’” Meyn said.

Despite a statement from Trump’s doctor saying his ear injury was caused by a bullet, and a New York Times video reconstruction of the scene showing that he had been struck by a bullet, FBI Director Chris Wray chose to cast doubt on that fact in congressional testimony two weeks later.

“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray said, infuriating Trump, and forcing the FBI to issue a statement later confirming that it was indeed a bullet that had struck the former president’s ear.

The FBI and Secret Service denial of reality allowed left-leaning media to downplay the momentous news that Trump had nearly been assassinated and let a conspiracy theory take root on the left that the former president had staged the attack to boost his poll numbers.

Either way, it was despicable and calls into question the motivations of the people entrusted to protect Trump in the remaining month of this vicious presidential campaign.