A Year Later, Butler Shooting Marks the Defining Moment of Trump’s Political Comeback

The painting hangs in the Grand Foyer. Basked in technicolor bravado, it depicts the iconic moment when Donald J. Trump, surrounded by Secret Service agents and with blood trickling down his face, pumped his fist in the air after an attempt on his life in Butler, Pa. As the ultimate symbol of Trump’s survival, the image encapsulates the central themes of his return to power: victimhood, strength, defiance. But for the President and his allies, it also serves as a lodestar for his revolutionary and combative second-term agenda. A year later, the Butler shooting remains the defining moment for Trump and the Make America Great Again movement he leads. Pictures and illustrations of the scene on July 13, 2024, have since been sold on Christmas ornaments, car magnets, and t-shirts. They have graced the covers of books and magazines. And they have become a staple of the MAGA mythology. “The MAGA movement sees this very simply and powerfully: the hand of Divine Providence interceded on the plains of Butler,” says Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist. “Trump was spared to do great things.” Even America’s most creative minds would struggle to conjure the twists of fate that saved Trump’s life. Just a slight turn of his head as the would-be assassin pulled the trigger—when Trump was pointing to a graphic on illegal border crossings—meant the bullet pierced his ear instead of his brain. “Holy sh-t, I got lucky,” Trump later told his family. After he ducked to the ground, and the Secret Service neutralized the shooter, Trump emerged from behind a wall of agents raising his fist and imploring the cheering crowd: “Fight Fight! Fight!”  People close to Trump say that the experience has emboldened him to embark on one of the most disruptive presidencies in American history: his first six months in office have been marked by a blitzkrieg of power grabs, assaults on opponents, market-moving tariffs, and even an armed confrontation with Iran. He has hobbled government agencies and departments and has waged war with central U.S. institutions, from universities and news organizations to law firms and museums. “It’s made him more aggressive,” says Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida. “It actually did define him in the presidency.” It was also a turning point in the campaign. After the assassination attempt, Trump gained the support of former critics and titans of industry. (Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has feuded with Trump in recent weeks, publicly endorsed him within an hour of the shooting, and donated more than $250 million to a super PAC supporting Trump’s candidacy.) To that end, Trump was able to break beyond his base and build a coalition that carried him into a second term and gave him a mandate to govern. “That was a big moment,” Trump told TIME in November. “That was a horrible day, it was a horrible moment in our country, but I think it did change a lot of a lot of minds.” What followed was still a roller coaster of a campaign season. Days later, Trump orchestrated a triumphant arrival to the Republican National Convention, brandishing a bandage on his ear before an electrified audience. Shortly after the GOP confab concluded, then-President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, still dogged by a halting debate performance weeks earlier. Despite an immediate surge of momentum and enthusiasm for his chosen successor, Vice President Kamala Harris could not surmount the inexorable force of Trump, who ran a more disciplined operation than previous iterations. The Butler shooting wasn’t Trump’s only brush with death. In September, the Secret Service thwarted another assassination attempt against Trump while he was golfing at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida. “This means I shouldn’t be playing golf,” for the rest of the election, he told his campaign manager Susie Wiles, saying he should be “devoting 100% of my attention” to the campaign. “His whole attitude after the attempted assassination, I think it was a difference maker,” Wiles told TIME last year.  It’s also been a difference maker in how he’s approached his second term, those close to him say. Opponents and supporters alike have been left stunned by the alacrity with which he has sought to upend American government and society. Critics say Trump has only become more dangerous, pursuing radical ideas without restraint. After two impeachments, an attack on the Capitol, four indictments, and two assassination attempts, they fear that Trump can operate in today’s Washington with near impunity.   Trump’s champions see his near-death experience as the moment he won over the country. “It’s Donald Trump being Donald Trump,” says Lara Trump, the President’s daughter-in-law who co-chaired the Republican National Committee last year. “Most people would have said this isn’t worth it. I’m not going to go through this. People have tried to kill me.” Now that he’s back in the White House, many in the MAGA movement see his ascent as a form of poetic justice, especially as he pursues his America First agenda in a governing environment with fewer checks on his power. “He is the one person who would have never quit no matter what,” says Lara Trump. “Obviously, it paid off in spades.”