NEW YORK – He was bleeding from the head after a barrage of bullets flew through his rally when Secret Service agents gave the go-ahead that it was safe to move from the stage.
But Donald Trump had something he needed to do.
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“Wait, wait, wait!” the former president could be heard telling his agents, who had encircled him in a protective bubble and helped him to his feet.
Trump, his face smeared with blood, forced his right fist through a tangle of agents’ arms. He raised it high into the air before pumping his fist.
“Fight!” he mouthed to the crowd and cameras as he pumped his arm sharply three times, in a sign of undeniable defiance and assurance that he was OK. The gesture sent the crowd cheering, with many rising to their feet.
“We gotta move, we gotta move!" an agent shouted.
The moment was an extraordinary illustration of Trump's raw political instincts and of how keenly aware he is of the images he projects. Even during unimaginable chaos, Trump stopped and delivered his message, creating iconic photographs and video that are sure to become an indelible part of history.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Trump said that when he looked up and saw that the crowd hadn't left, he felt he needed to offer assurance and project strength.
“The energy coming from the people there in that moment, they just stood there. It's hard to describe what that felt like, but I knew the world was looking, I knew that history would judge this and I knew I had to let them know we are OK,” he said.
Trump has always paid close attention to imagery, aware of his facial expressions, his clothing and camera angles during interviews.
The mug shot he took in Atlanta — in which he glared at the camera — was seared immediately into the collective memory and emblazoned on campaign T-shirts, posters and other merchandise.
During his criminal hush money trial in New York, Trump would mug for the cameras, looking stern and angry, when photographers were led in for a minute each day to document history. As soon as they left, his expression typically relaxed.
After he tested positive for the coronavirus in 2020, Trump refused to let on how sick he really was, according to a book by his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. And after his release from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he received intense treatment, Trump staged a dramatic return to the White House, emerging from Marine One and climbing the South Portico steps.
On the balcony, he removed his mask and gave a double thumbs-up to the departing helicopter at sunset, American flags arranged behind him.
In her book “Confidence Man,” New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman wrote that Trump had considered an even more dramatic scene in which he “would be wheeled out of Walter Reed in a chair” and, once outside, “would dramatically stand up, then open his button-down dress shirt to reveal” another with a “Superman logo beneath it.”
Trump said in a social media post Saturday night that he “knew immediately that something was wrong” when he “heard a whizzing sound, shots and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin."
A bullet had pierced the upper part of his right ear, Trump said later.
He crouched behind his lectern as agents rushed the stage and piled atop him.
When they gave the all-clear that the shooter was down, Trump could be heard telling his agents several times to “let me get my shoes” as they tried to quickly usher him to safety,
While he was led across the stage, he held his arm in the air and vigorously pumped it again — so violently one agent seemed to duck to avoid being hit by his elbow — before he was helped down the steps.
The crowd erupted into chants of “USA!”
As he climbed into his SUV, he raised it high one last time before his agents closed the bulletproof door behind him.
For supporters in the crowd, Trump's response gave them assurance that he would not back down.
Jondavid Longo, the mayor of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, who was sitting in the front row when the shots began, said he jumped to shield his wife, made sure no one in his immediate vicinity had a firearm, then started yelling for others to get down.
“I was making sure everybody was OK and then I kept looking at the president, of course, because I had just seen the president get shot,” Longo said. “I saw him grab his ear. Then I saw the Secret Service pounce on top of him. I saw them bringing him up. I saw blood on the right side of his head."
Soon after, he said, Trump “put his fist in the air. He let us know he was OK, and they escorted him away. It was just incredible."
Kristen Petrarca, 60, said she is a Democrat, but supports Trump and wanted to experience one of his rallies. She and a group of friends arrived early and she got a seat in the bleachers behind Trump.
Suddenly, she heard gunshots: “Pop, pop, pop, pop," she said during a Zoom interview from a nearby hotel hours after the attack.
She watched as Trump grabbed his ear and the Secret Service agents rushed the podium. She saw the former president raise his fist in the air as blood streamed from his ear.
“I didn’t feel that he was scared. He was angry, he was mad,” she said. “He wanted to fight, and he wanted us to fight.”
__ Associated Press writers Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.