Trump says RNC speech will be ‘a lot different’ since shooting at Pennsylvania rally – live | Donald Trump

Pippa Crerar

Keir Starmer was initially advised to send Donald Trump a note after the shooting, but wanted to speak to him directly, the Guardian understands.

The UK prime minister got in touch with Trump through the UK’s ambassador in Washington, Karen Pierce.

The former president’s team responded swiftly and the two men then had a short conversation lasting five or ten minutes.

In Bethel Park, where the man who is suspected of opening fire at a Donald Trump campaign rally on Saturday lived with his mother and sister, the houses are small and built of brick, Walmart and Target form central social hubs, and moms watch over their children at a junior league baseball park next to a tributary of the Allegheny River.

The attempted assassination of the Republican former president just 45 miles north has put a focus on Bethel Park, as investigators attempt to establish the motivations of the 20-year-old shooter.

Authorities on Sunday identified the suspect as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Officials said they believe Crooks acted alone. But so far, they have not been able to uncover a motivation that drove the young man to unleash a hail of bullets at Trump, wounding the former president and killing a former fire chief who was shielding his daughters.

The FBI said Crook had not been on their radar. Since his identification, a fragmentary portrait has emerged, almost by virtue of its omissions. He was employed as a dietary aide at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. The nursing home’s administrator Marcie Grimm said Crooks “performed his job without concern and his background check was clean”.

Nor have there been significant clues found in his political affiliations. He had registered Republican but had also donated $15 to the liberal ActBlue political action committee on Joe Biden’s inauguration day. He had no past criminal cases against him, according to public court records.

Read the full story: Focus on Bethel Park as classmates describe suspected Trump gunman

The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, has described the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on Saturday as “a failure” of security.

Mayorkas, speaking on ABC News this morning, said:

A direct line of sight like that to the former president should not occur.

He denied reports that the Secret Service had rebuffed requests from Trump’s security detail for greater resources before the shooting.

“An incident like this cannot happen,” Mayorkas said in an interview on CNN, noting that Joe Biden has directed an independent review.

We are going to analyze through an independent review how that occurred, why it occurred and make recommendations and findings to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I couldn’t be clearer.

Video footage posted on social media shows the man who targeted Donald Trump in an assassination attempt on Saturday crawling on to the roof of a building from where he shot at the former president, as multiple onlookers frantically pointed him out to nearby police officers.

The video on X, reported by New York Post, shows several people pointing at Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, as he climbed on to the roof of a manufacturing plant about 400 feet from where Trump was speaking at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“Look they’re all pointing,” a person is heard saying in the video, as several people point and watch Crooks, who can be seen rolling on the roof and crawling forward on his hands and knees.

“Yeah, someone’s up on the top of the roof. There he is right there,” the person says. Others are heard saying: “Right here, right on the roof.”

One person is heard shouting “officer” and others say “he’s on the roof” while pointing.

Trump can be heard giving his remarks in the background. During the video, police officers appeared largely unresponsive to the onlookers’ concerns.

Milwaukee mayor Cavalier Johnson has said he is feeling “pretty confident” in the level of security at the Republican National Convention in his city.

Johnson, at a Monday morning briefing, said:

The folks on the ground here have confidence in the work that they’ve put in over the course of the last 18 months. I have faith and confidence as well in the Secret Service and the police and fire departments and other agencies providing security today.

Wisconsin is an “open carry” state which does not restrict the carrying of unconcealed, loaded firearms in public, so individuals will be allowed to have firearms within the soft perimeter outside Fiserv Forum that is not under Secret Service jurisdiction, CNN reported.

Johnson said his concern about gun safety goes beyond a single event. He said:

There are far too many people who have access to deadly weapons who should not have access to deadly weapons.

Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin has ordered US and state flags to be flown at half-staff to honor Corey Comperatore, the Pennsylvania volunteer firefighter chief who was shot and killed amidst an assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Saturday.

The flags will be lowered at noon ET and remain at half-staff until sunset on Tuesday. Youngkin’s statement reads:

Virginia stands in solidarity with and extends prayers to all Pennsylvanians, especially those who remain in critical condition and their families.

Comperatore, 50, was shot at Trump’s rally as he shielded his family to protect them as gunshots rang out. In a Facebook post, his daughter, Allyson Comperatore, wrote:

He shielded my body from the bullet that came at us. He loved his family. He truly loved us enough to take a real bullet for us.

Two other rally attendants were wounded: 57-year-old David Dutch of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and 74-year-old James Copenhaver of Moon Township, Pennsylvania.

Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, has issued her first major statement since the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, in which she said the agency was increasing security for the former president and the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

The statement reads:

I would like to start by extending my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Corey Comperatore, who was killed during the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday, as well as those who were injured during this senseless act of violence.

Secret Service personnel on the ground moved quickly during the incident, with our counter sniper team neutralizing the shooter and our agents implementing protective measures to ensure the safety of former president Donald Trump.

Since the shooting, I have been in constant contact with Secret Service personnel in Pennsylvania who worked to maintain the integrity of the crime scene until the FBI assumed its role as the lead investigating agency into the assassination attempt. I have also been coordinating with the protective detail for former President Trump and have briefed President Biden on the details of the incident.

The Secret Service is working with all involved Federal, state and local agencies to understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent an incident like this from ever taking place again. We understand the importance of the independent review announced by President Biden yesterday and will participate fully. We will also work with the appropriate Congressional committees on any oversight action.

The incident in Pennsylvania has understandably led to questions about potential updates or changes to the security for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The U.S. Secret Service, in conjunction with our Federal, state and local law enforcement and public safety partners, designs operational security plans for National Special Security Events (NSSE) to be dynamic in order to respond to a kinetic security environment and the most up-to-date intelligence from our partners.

I am confident in the security plan our Secret Service RNC coordinator and our partners have put in place, which we have reviewed and strengthened in the wake of Saturday’s shooting. The security plans for National Special Security Events are designed to be flexible. As the conventions progress, and in accordance with the direction of the President, the Secret Service will continuously adapt our operations as necessary in order to ensure the highest level of safety and security for convention attendees, volunteers and the City of Milwaukee. In addition to the additional security enhancements we provided former President Trump’s detail in June, we have also implemented changes to his security detail since Saturday to ensure his continued protection for the convention and the remainder of the campaign.

The Secret Service is tasked with the tremendous responsibility of protecting the current and former leaders of our democracy. It is a responsibility that I take incredibly seriously, and I am committed to fulfilling that mission.

Donald Trump arrived yesterday in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention, where he is due to accept his party’s formal nomination with a speech later this week after being the target of an attempted assassination at his campaign rally on Saturday.

“The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,” the former president told the Washington Examiner in an interview published on Sunday evening.

In his newly revised nomination acceptance speech, Trump said, he will call for a new effort at national unity, noting that people from different political views have called him. He said:

This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago.

Republicans will gather today in downtown Milwaukee to Thursday, where they will officially annoint Trump as their presidential nominee. He is also expected to announce his vice-presidential pick, who will be expected to deliver a speech of their own on Wednesday night.

In an interview Sunday, Republican Party chairman Michael Whatley said this weeks convention’s programming wouldn’t be changed after the shooting. The agenda, he said, will feature more than 100 speakers overwhelmingly focused on Trump’s plans.

Associated Press quotes Whatley saying “We have to be able to lay out a vision for where we want to take this country. We are going to have the convention that we have been planning for the last 18 months. We are a combination of relieved and grateful that the president is going to be here and is going to accept the nomination.”

Dan Milmo and Jasper Jolly report

Shares in Donald Trump’s media company surged by 50% in pre-market trading after the attempted assassination of the former US president, potentially adding nearly $3bn (£2.3bn) to the valuation of the business behind the X rival Truth Social.

Trump Media and Technology Group, which uses Trump’s initials DJT as its ticker, has been a volatile stock since its debut on 26 March this year.

However, traders are set to push the share price back towards levels not experienced since May after the attack on Saturday night appeared to increase Trump’s chances of winning November’s presidential election.