Trump shooting: FBI searching for motive

Buckingham Palace has confirmed that King Charles wrote a letter to the former president. 

Charles' message was delivered to the UK embassy in Washington privately, the palace said, adding that its contents would not be revealed.

According to the British media, the king's sentiments likely mirrored those of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who expressed his condolences over the weekend and wrote on "appalled by the shocking scenes" at the rally.     

"Political violence in any form has no place in our societies," the premier said.

The shooting at Trump's campaign rally in Pennsylvania was "a shocking event definitely for the US but also the world," said Stormy-Annika Mildner, executive director at the Aspen Institute think tank in Berlin.

Mildner said the US is not only a vital partner for the European Union and Europe but also a pivotal actor for global stability and peace. 

"Whatever happens in the US is watched very closely," she said.

"There is great worry in Europe about what the situation in the US might mean — especially because we still very much depend on the US for our security," she told DW in an interview.

The European leaders are counting on the "US ability to govern and establish itself as the trustworthy actor in the international sphere," she added.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has decided to rewrite his speech for his Republican National Convention after Saturday's shooting at his election rally.

Trump told the Washington Examiner that he has rewritten his speech for the RNC, which he is due to deliver in Milwaukee on Thursday.

"The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger," he told the news outlet in an article posted on Sunday evening.

Trump said that he would now focus on national unity in the speech, noting that people from different political leanings have called him since the shooting.

"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," he said, adding that his original speech would have mostly addressed President Joe Biden's policies.

FBI officials have identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew C. as the suspected gunman to have opened fire at Trump's rally in Pennsylvania.

A former classmate of Thomas told NBC News that "he was bullied so much" in high school.

The classmate said the suspected shooter was a loner, adding that he could not say what provoked Thomas to shoot into the rally.

Investigators have said the suspected shooter acted alone. Authorities "have not identified an ideology associated" with the alleged shooter, FBI Pittsburgh Special Agent in Charge Kevin Rojek told reporters on a call on Sunday.

Thomas had no known history of mental illness, according to the FBI. His family is cooperating with investigators.

The 20-year-old was a registered Republican, according to state voter records. He also donated to a Democratic political action committee when he was 17. 

He was working as a dietary aide at a nursing home. The Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center said he "performed his job without concern, and his background check was clean." 

Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief who was at Trump's Pennsylvania rally along with his family, died saving his daughter and wife on Saturday when a gunman opened fire.

Comperatore, 50, used his body as a shield to provide cover for his family from bullets and lost his life at the rally.

"He's a literal hero. He shoved his family out of the way, and he got killed for them," Comperatore's neighbor Mike Morehouse told the Associated Press news agency.

US President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden also expressed their condolences to Comperatore's family in a speech earlier in the day.

"He was a father. He was protecting his family from the bullets that were being fired and he lost his life, God love him," Biden said.

At least two other people were injured in the shooting. Their condition is stable as of Sunday, according to the Pennsylvania State Police. 

US President Joe Biden gave a televised address from the Oval Office on Sunday evening, calling for calm and repeating that there was "no place" for political violence in the US. 

He repeatedly appealed for a less heated campaign and political atmosphere and said the attack was "contrary to everything we stand for as a nation." 

"All of us now face a time of testing as the election approaches. The higher the stakes, the more fervent the passions become," he said, before adding: "No matter how strong, our convictions must never descend into violence."

Trump's shooting "calls on all of us to take a step back," Biden said.

He called on people to "resolve our differences at the ballot box" and warned that "political rhetoric has gotten very heated." 

Biden also said "we need to get out of our silos," with partisanship a growing concern in both Congress and the wider public. 

He urged caution regarding details of the ongoing investigation of Saturday's attack, saying it was not yet clear whether the deceased presumed shooter "had help or support."

Biden said he was also ordering an independent security of how such an attack could have happened.

It was only the third time Biden has chosen to give a televised address from the Oval Office since taking office in 2021. 

He also spoke from there in the aftermath of Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel last year, and to announce breaking the latest budget deadlock between Republicans and Democrats in Congress in June 2023.

Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday evening ahead of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in the city, according to his son Eric. 

"Touchdown in Milwaukee with [Donald Trump]," Eric Trump posted on social media, showing a video of the cockpit as pilots landed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's plane. 

Trump had said earlier on Sunday that he would not delay his departure, but that he had considered postponing by a couple of days. 

"Based on yesterday’s terrible events, I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin, and The Republican National Convention, by two days, but have just decided that I cannot allow a 'shooter,' or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else," he wrote on his Truth Social account. "Therefore, I will be leaving for Milwaukee, as scheduled." 

The RNC is a four-day event — from July 15 until July 18 — where delegates of the Republican party will select the party's nominees for president and vice president for the elections on November 5.

Trump, who is set to officially accept his party's nomination to run for president a third time, is only expected to speak Thursday night.

Milwaukee is in the heart of Wisconsin, considered a key swing state for this year's vote. Trump won a shock victory there in the 2016 election, the first time a Republican won in Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984, and Biden narrowly reclaimed it in 2020.

The FBI said that it was investigating a shooting at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania as an attempted assassination and a potential act of domestic terrorism.

Former President Donald Trump, who was campaigning for the upcoming presidential election in November, was hit in the ear at the rally.

One person was killed and two were injured. The shooter was fatally shot by Secret Service agents.

The FBI said that it had found a "suspicious device" which was being examined by bomb technicians after it was found in the gunman's car.

FBI agent Kevin Rojek told reporters that the gun used in the shooting was an AR-style semi-automatic rifle which was purchased legally. Investigators believed it had been acquired by the shooter's father.

The FBI said that they had not identified an ideology associated with the shooter.

The FBI identified the man who fired shots at a campaign rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump as Thomas Matthew C., 20.

He was from the town of Bethel Park in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania.

The FBI said that it had not yet determined the gunman's motive, but it believed that he acted alone.

The agency is examining his social media and has so far not found any threatening posts.

One person was killed and two were injured in the shooting, according to the Secret Service.

The shooter was fatally shot by Secret Service agents.

msh,sdi/rm (Reuters, AP, AFP)