More than 18 months after Thomas Matthew Crooks shot President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, questions central to understanding that event remain unanswered, according to a Republican U.S. senator who is not satisfied with that state of affairs.
Republican Sen. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, who attended the rally where Trump was wounded on July 13, 2024, says critical questions need answers, according to theNew York Post.
In July 2025,CBS Newsasked some of the questions: “Crooks left no known written explanation. His political leanings remain unclear. Was the Butler rally just a convenient option for a young man planning mass violence, or was he committed to shooting Mr. Trump? Did he have a plan for his bombs? Did he understand he was on a suicide mission?”
McCormick vented his concerns Wednesday on “Pod Force One,” a podcast hosted by New York Post columnist Miranda Devine.
McCormick has a unique perspective on the near tragedy. In the “Pod Force One” interview, he recounted that he was campaigning for his Senate seat at the time of the Butler rally and that Trump had actually invited him to come on stage just before the shooting. But Trump changed his mind almost immediately, when McCormick had gotten close to the lectern where Trump stood.
“He says, ‘I want to talk about the border,'” McCormick said, quoting Trump. “‘Dave, go sit back down. I’ll have you come up in a little bit.’
“Within a minute or so of sitting down, I heard the shots,” McCormick said.
As a man who was very nearly on stage with Trump at the time of the shooting and as a Pennsylvania elected official, it was clear that McCormick had given the incident a great deal of thought.
“I’m not satisfied about what happened because when you go to the place and you see how close it was, the idea that a lone gunman — I’m typically not one who’s prone to conspiracy theories — but the fact that a lone gunman could get up there at that distance,” McCormick told Devine.
“It was less than 150 yards … seems just hard to imagine such a breach — and such a breach in security, such a breach in protocol,” he said.
Source: VidNews » Feed
