On Saturday evening, former President Donald Trump will take the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, the very spot where a gunman tried to end his life, killing a father and injuring two others. It is a bold, defiant gesture from a man who survived not one, but two recent assassination attempts — and it’s a gesture that his supporters intend to match.
“That man stood there and took a bullet for us and stood up and told us to fight, and that’s exactly what I plan on doing,” Devin Dashnaw told The Daily Wire in a phone interview ahead of the rally. “If I could stand on stage right behind him, that’s where I would be.”
The Daily Wire has learned that dozens of the rally goers who stood behind Trump as bullets flew are determined to once again flank the former president. Some of these supporters said they have been selected by the Trump campaign to sit behind the former president and to meet him after the rally. Some are excited, others are anxious, dwelling on the tragic death of Corey Comporatare on July 13, or scanning news reports about updated safety measures for Saturday.
All of them echo Dashnaw’s sentiment: they are going on Saturday, worried or not, to stand behind the man who stood up for them.
Images of that historic and tragic day show Trump speaking to the massive crowd surrounded by dozens of his supporters. Looking more closely, the “tight shot” of Trump in the moments before he got shot shows about 20 Trump supporters listening and clapping.
Paige Eritz and her girlfriends were some of those standing right behind Trump: Eritz, tanned with long blonde hair, can be seen in photos wearing a camouflage “Make America Great Again” hat. She told The Daily Wire she and her friends, all in their mid-twenties, were delighted when they were offered the opportunity to sit behind Trump at the July rally after waiting in line for hours.
Minutes later, they were diving to the ground as the secret service piled upon Trump to protect him from the shooter. Eritz and her friends hid under the bleachers and lay there, hearts pounding, wondering what was going on and if they were about to be killed.
I just started thinking about everything, back home, my family, my friends, if we were to not make it out of that, because at that point I didn’t know if it was a mass shooting,” she explained. “I didn’t know that their target was just one person.”
She’s going back on Saturday with her friends, and they’ve been given VIP tickets, she said. They’re hoping to sit in the exact same spot, right behind Trump.
“I was talking to my neighbor who was also back there,” she shared. “It’s one of those things where I could not miss this rally, because I feel like after the [July] rally, the point of it was to make everyone scared. And more than anything I just wanna go, and sit in the same seat, and not be scared.
Renee White is another July rally goer heading back to Butler. She spoke to The Daily Wire on her 14-hour drive to Pennsylvania from North Carolina, where her town has been underwater since Hurricane Helene made landfall late last month.
“USA, USA, USA,” the crowd chanted back at Trump, as he left the stage surrounded by secret service.
“It was a true American moment,” he said quietly. “I consider myself honored to be there. I just can’t wait for Saturday.”
“We’re going down to support Donald Trump,” chimed in his friend, Paul Passino, another member of THeMAGABOYZ. “We’re going to be there for Corey. We’re going to be there for everyone else. We’re going to help register some voters, flip [Pennsylvania] red, and help Donald Trump into the White House.”
A lot of people might be afraid to go back to Butler after July 13, Hooker acknowledged. But the July 13 rally-goers are different.
“These are American patriots we are talking about,” he said. “We’re not talking about normal people.
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