Trump 'extremely lucky' to have survived assassination attempt, former special forces soldiers say
Former President Trump is "extremely lucky" to be alive after a deadly assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, according to two special forces soldiers.
"He is extremely lucky to be alive," James Pechi, a Marine veteran who later served as a Green Beret, said of the former president in an interview with Fox News Digital.
"I was trying to look at this, trying to figure out what was the shot, what was going on," he added. "It sounded like he shot five times, and then it looked like he grazed [Trump's] ear or something. … It obviously did some damage."
Pechi – who took part in the Special Operations Target Interdiction Course (SOTIC), now known as the Special Forces Sniper Course, during his tenure in the military – insisted "there's no ifs, ands or buts about" the fact that Trump could have lost his life at the rally if the bullet had come into closer contact.
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Echoing Pechi, Gary Seideman, a former Green Beret chief warrant officer, said Trump was the beneficiary of "good fortune" after surviving the shooter's attempt to take his life.
"The biggest thing is the way he turned, the way it hit his ear and everything, it was just good fortune, and that's all it was," Seideman said. "It's unfortunate the other person was killed there."
"So basically, how Trump was [positioned], if it was at a different angle ... Trump's head would have exploded," he added.
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Regarding the shooter – identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old man from western Pennsylvania – Pechi said, "This was someone that has, obviously, some serious mental health issues."
Crooks reportedly shot at Trump from a rooftop perch some 130 yards away during a rally in the small town, striking the upper part of Trump’s right ear while the former president was speaking to rallygoers ahead of this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
One attendee was killed and two others were injured during the incident, the agency said, and Crooks was shot dead.
The Pennsylvania State Police identified the victims on Sunday: 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, who was killed; 57-year-old David Dutch, who is in stable condition; and 74-year-old James Copenhaver, who is also in stable condition.
"Regardless of what anyone says, how mentally unhealthy they are, you would never shoot into a group of people like that and not expect to kill someone," Pechi said.
"It almost sounded like it was a .22 style instead of a .223, 5.56, almost like a range gun," Pechi added, speculating about the type of weapon that Crooks may have used. "But with the audio and everything else going on there, you know, it could have been bigger."
Crooks was from Bethel Park, which is a Pittsburgh suburb about an hour south from where the assassination attempt took place.
Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022. He was one of nearly two dozen students from the school to earn a $500 "star award" from the National Math and Science Initiative.
An online recording of his graduation ceremony shows him walking the stage to minimal applause and briefly posing with a school official, the New York Times reported.
Fox News' Andrea Vacchiano and Scott McDonald contributed to this report.