(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) President Donald Trump announced plans to continue holding outdoor rallies despite leftist claims suggesting otherwise.
“I will continue to do outdoor rallies, and Secret Service has agreed to substantially step up their operation,” Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday morning.
Trump’s statement follows an NBC News report citing two anonymous sources who falsely claimed that he sought to halt outdoor events as he campaigns for president. The report also suggested the possibility of small outdoor rallies.
Trump’s plan to continue his energetic outdoor rallies comes two weeks after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt at a field in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
The rally was abruptly disrupted when failed assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed onto the roof of a building adjacent to the stage and fired eight shots. Crooks shot parts of Trump’s right ear and killed Corey Comperatore, a Trump supporter and former fire chief.
Comperatore died heroically shielding his wife and daughter. “He threw my mom and I to the ground… [and] shielded my body from the bullet that came at us,” Allyson Comperatore wrote in a heartfelt message in Facebook.
Following the shooting, Secret Service Director Kimberley Cheatle took responsibility for the security failures at the rally.
“The buck stops with me,” she said during an interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt , ultimately resigning days later.
Trump pledged to return to Butler soon, undeterred by the attack. “No one can ever be allowed to stop or impede free speech or gathering!!!” he wrote.
