“It’s horrifying”: Local political figures react to assassination attempt of Donald Trump

MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. (WKRG)- Shots fired Saturday at a Donald Trump Campaign rally in Bulter, Pennsylvania, while Trump was speaking in front of thousands of rallygoers.

Trump grabbed his ear as blood began to drip down and Secret Service agents dashed towards him yelling to get down.

In a statement issued shortly after the attack, officials say it was an apparent assassination attempt, Trump’s campaign said he was “fine.”

News 5 spoke to local political figures immediately after the shooting and both parties say they are disappointed in the trajectory of modern politics.

“There was a direct threat on his life, and we got to get to the bottom of it, why did they do it, were other people behind him, so we got to figure that out,” Former Congressman Bradley Byrnes.

Byrnes says that it is time to get back to the root of politics by focusing on the candidates, what they are saying, and their policies.

“It’s time for everyone to calm down. We’ve been through this hundreds of times. We know how to run elections. We have to quit going out there and doing the extremes. Some of the extremes are being done by democrats and some are being done by Republicans we need to get back to what American elections have always been”

Ben Harris is the Chair of the Mobile Democratic Party.

“It’s horrifying,” Harris said.

Harris says that the democratic party never condones violence, in society and certainly not in politics.

“It’s terribly, we certainly don’t want to see it as part of the political debate. This country is built on robust political debate but not on violence,” Harris said. “It just has no place.”

A district attorney in western Pennsylvania says the suspected gunman and a person attending the event were killed.

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