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.
(Photo by Trump Campaign Office / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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.”
(Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
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.
White is noticeable in the July 13 photos due to her blue shirt with the words “Mean Tweets 2024” — a shirt she picked up that morning from a vendor, she said. Butler was the 32nd Trump rally that White had attended, and when she was making arrangements to go, she had a gut feeling that she “needed to be there.” She says she slept at the event the night before to secure a good spot in line. A Secret Service member helped her get into Trump’s “tight shot,” she said, pretty much right behind Trump, and she was thrilled.
“That’s where I like to be. I like him to know, I’ve got his back, he’s got mine,” she shared.
Saturday will mark White’s 47th Trump rally. After witnessing Trump survive that assassination attempt, White has enthusiastically traveled to many more events to voice her support for the Republican nominee. She said she even attended the Republican National Convention, where she sat a few rows back behind Trump and sobbed as he shared his perspective on the shooting for the first time since July 13.
(Photo by Trump Campaign Office / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
She was emotional as she described why she is heading back to Butler. She not only wants to support Trump, but to also give a voice to the suffering people of North Carolina who have lost homes, friends, family, and livelihoods in the flooding.
White and others stressed that going back to Butler is bittersweet. The rally-goers will commemorate Comperatore with members of his family invited by the Trump campaign. And a large group of those who were seated behind Trump on July 13 have been invited back by the campaign to sit behind him again, she said.
“I am feeling like this is going to be a big reunion.”
Jeremy Hooker is also heading back to Butler. He’s part of a group of men that goes by the name, “THEMAGABOYZ,” attending as many Trump rallies as they can to help register voters and bring more supporters to Trump.
Members of his group captured viral video footage of the moments before Trump was shot, he said — the video shows the crowd momentarily going silent as they all duck for cover when shots ring out, rally goers telling one another to stay down, and the moment when Trump got to his feet and shook his fist at the crowd.
“USA, USA, USA,” the crowd chanted back at Trump, as he left the stage surrounded by secret service.
🚨New video sent to us from Saturday at the Trump rally
Credit: @cryptopatriot11 @magapaulie @cryptoviking_19 @cryptopherpratt pic.twitter.com/PE4P6mYw5S
— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) July 17, 2024
Hooker reminisced about those moments, saying that everyone in the crowd was worried about helping one another and about making sure Trump was okay.
“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.”
