Trump supporters near rally shooting blame mental illness, not Biden

On the internet, meanwhile, some of his favorite GOP stars claimed that Biden’s words had motivated the would-be assassin. Donald Trump’s newly minted pick for vice president, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), said the rival campaign’s rhetoric “directly led” to eight bullets flying toward the former president.

“As much as I don’t like the Democrats, I don’t know if I can blame them,” said Curt Hunka, 29.

How could anyone know, he wondered aloud, what inspired the 20-year-old gunman from a nearby Pittsburgh suburb? The FBI hasn’t established a motive. Hunka understood the pressure that public figures face to speak “now, now, now,” he said, but he wished his party would wait until the facts emerge.

As far as he’d read, authorities had unearthed no manifesto thus far from Thomas Matthew Crooks. The assailant simply looked unstable, Hunka said — like any other “crazy” who’d shot at a crowd in America.

“You’ve got to blame the individual,” he said.

In this western Pennsylvania swath of Trump country, people aren’t afraid to slam Biden, interviews with dozens of voters show, but many of them hesitate to link their political foe to the attack that killed a former volunteer fire chief, injured two spectators and wounded Trump’s ear Saturday at the Butler fairground.

The brother of the deceased, 50-year-old Steve Warheit, told The Washington Post that “an extremely poor choice made by a young individual” triggered the tragedy, and the victim’s wife echoed that sentiment.

In conversations with The Post, several residents here said they support the First Amendment. They don’t believe Trump had incited a mob to charge the U.S. Capitol in 2021, and they didn’t believe Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) when she declared Saturday, “The Democrats and the media are to blame for every drop of blood spilled today.”

They don’t know why the blood spilled — or what would have stopped it — but said they’ve noticed people are under enormous stress, struggling to shoulder the cost of rent and groceries and gas. Like many conservatives nationwide, many of those who spoke with The Post said flimsy access to mental health care is a bigger concern than the easy availability of guns.

“That young man was picked on,” Debbey Cherry, a 77-year-old caretaker for senior citizens, said of the shooter.

She said she’d imagined him isolated and stewing.

“We need more programs to get kids like that outside,” the lifelong Republican said, motioning Monday afternoon toward the cloudless sky. “Get them less depressed. Get their blood flowing.”

Personal responsibility, she said, is a cherished value in Butler, a former steel hub that has struggled to rebound from the downswing in manufacturing jobs over the last half-century.

Cherry voiced the questions she said were on everyone’s lips: How could security miss someone climbing onto a neighboring factory roof? How could Crooks — who had driven in from Bethel Park and was shot dead at the scene — crouch there undetected with an AR-style rifle?

Faith is another pillar of life here, several residents said. One common sentiment: The devil — not Biden — more likely fueled the horror at the venue beloved for showing prize cows and rabbits.

Some found it disingenuous when Republicans condemned Biden for asserting that Trump must be thrust into “the bull’s eye.” (The president apologized for that private-call remark, saying he’d meant Democrats should laser-focus on Trump’s flaws.)

“Joe Biden sent the orders,” Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) posted on social media, linking to the “bull’s eye” comment.

Eric Shiever, owner of a farmers market near the rally site, scoffed at that.

“The only thing Biden inspires is sleep,” the 54-year-old Trump supporter said.

Rick Olszewski, 43, had headed to church to help process what he’d survived. It felt like a bad dream now — though his sunburned face proved that, yes, he’d actually baked in the July heat at the rally before Trump took the stage. Yes, he’d hit the ground when everyone started screaming.

“We see evil things,” his pastor was saying as he settled into the pews the next morning, “and we wonder: What is going on?”

Olszewski had a few ideas. A devout Christian, he’d accepted that the devil compelled all kinds of evil.

Biden calling Trump a “dictator” didn’t help, though.

“If someone is already losing it,” he said, “that ‘dictator’ comment could send them over the edge.”

But he didn’t blame Biden for the fact that they were already on the edge. Life was hard. He knew it. He’d been homeless once after his apartment burned down. He worked long hours at a window-manufacturing plant. He’d rather have joined the military, he said, but his history of seizures had blocked that dream.

He found comfort with God, but not everyone turned to God. Someone else could be stuck in their rage at that very moment, he said, about to snap.

What didn’t help: The billboard blaring “DEMOCRATS ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION.”

“That could promote the same kind of hate,” Olszewski said, “the same kind of violence.”

Two rows ahead at the Butler Assembly of God, Paula Arnold bowed her head in prayer. As a nurse, she couldn’t count how many people she’d seen over the years in clear mental distress. Sometimes they lacked insurance for medical care. Sometimes they couldn’t afford counseling. Sometimes, at home, no one was around to prod them to take their pills.

“We’re the greatest nation in the world,” said Arnold, 58, “and our health-care situation isn’t where it should be.”

So, no, she won’t fault Democrats for what she, too, had witnessed at the rally. Both sides hurl insults, she said. Vance, a former Trump opponent, once referred to his running mate as “America’s Hitler.”

Arnold was more concerned for those who’d seen or heard their neighbors getting shot. That form of trauma, she knew, could require pricey therapy.

In her view, Washington mudslinging has been heated since forever. Democrats couldn’t blame Trump for the rioters who’d broken into the Senate chambers on Jan. 6, 2021. It’s not his fault if they took it literally when he’d said, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

Spangler bristled at what she saw as calls to suppress free speech.

“If they try to censor politicians,” she said, “that trickles down to everybody.”

She preferred that folks speak freely, like Trump does — the American way.