Renee White, clad in a blue “Make America Great Again” hat and a “Mean Tweets 2024” t-shirt, arrived at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday at 5:30 a.m. after driving 14 hours from North Carolina, and waited another 12 hours to see the former president.
The rally — which would go down in history as the day former President Donald Trump narrowly escaped being assassinated at 6:11 p.m., avoiding death by mere centimeters — was the 32nd White had attended, with her spot in the center risers directly behind the 45th president. Breitbart News’s Washington Bureau Chief, Matthew Boyle, caught up with White for an interview in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the Republican National Convention, where White detailed the moment she saw Trump stand up and defiantly pump his fist in the air, showing the American people he survived and telling them to “fight, fight, fight.”
“It was right in front of me. If you go back and look at the video, as soon as he got up and did it, I got up and did it right with him,” White said. “I was like, ‘The fight’s on. He’s not done. He’s not down. This isn’t gonna stop him.’ And it gave me hope.”
White also detailed the terrifying moments before Trump stood back up, when shots rang out, Secret Service rushed in, and pandemonium broke out in the stands.
“The first shot came, and I immediately went right back, and I turned towards Trump. And then I heard the next two shots. I watched him grab his ear, and then I watched him go to the ground, still not knowing what was going on,” she said. “And [Secret Service] piled on him. There was, I don’t know, maybe five or six of ’em — Secret Service agents. They protected him,” she said, noting that she could see everything happening behind the podium from her vantage point.
White told Boyle the moment “felt very surreal” and “like an out-of-body experience” as she watched her fellow rally-goers drop into the stands to shield themselves from gunfire.
“I was tired. I was kind of in shock, and a lot of people around me are dropping. As soon as I heard the gunshots, they’re dropping. They’re in between the bleachers. I had like four girls next to me, and they’re all down, and they’re crying, and I had a big burly guy next to me, and he’s down trying to get in between the bleachers,” she said.
White said she heard three gun shots ring out before she heard return shots from Secret Service, taking out the shooter, later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. She said the reality of the situation hit her when she heard nearby law enforcement corresponding and saw Trump on the ground behind the podium.
“Like, I couldn’t hear the screaming, I couldn’t hear the crying. I couldn’t hear, you know, what everybody else was doing. It was like, I was tuned into [the law enforcement response] And that’s when I was like, ‘oh my God, this is real.’ And then I heard ‘shooter down,”‘ she said.
During the assassination attempt, one man was killed, and two others were injured. The man who was fatally killed while shielding his daughter from gunfire was later identified as former Pennsylvania fire chief Corey Comperatore. James “Jim” Copenhave, 74, and 57-year-old David Dutch have been identified as the two victims who were critically wounded. Officials have reported that both are now in stable condition.
White recalled Comperatore being in a riser to the right of her during the rally behind former President Trump.
“He was in the upper right hand corner of that stand when I seen [first responders] carry him off. I didn’t see him get hit. I did watch them carry him off,” she said, estimating that the men were located roughly 70 yards away from her.
Once the shooter was killed and Trump was on his feet, White said she remembers the former president saying “Let me get my shoes” and seeing Trump standing in his socks. Trump later told The New York Post: “The agents hit me so hard that my shoes fell off. And my shoes are tight.”
“I saw a shoe sitting on the stage and a towel when [Trump] went to go and leave. I saw those things sitting there,” White said. “And then that’s when I was like, ‘Man, this could be really different.’ That could have been my last image of him, you know, if they carried him off in a gurney or something — it would’ve been a whole different thing.”
White said the narrow miss shows that “God’s got him,” and compared him to Biblical figures like Noah and Moses, who were used by God even though they were “ordinary men.”
“And because they were obedient, [God] carried through for them. He did the things that needed to be done. And that’s what’s, going to happen with Trump,” she said. “I truly believe that he’s going to bring unity, and I believe that he’s going to carry us together. I believe he has that fight, and he has that hedge of protection because God’s got him.”
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