Butler: The Rally That Reshaped a Presidency

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Georgia Howe: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm Georgia Howe.

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Georgia Howe: Today, we're joined by political journalist Selena Zito, who was in Butler, Pennsylvania, when an assassin's bullet tore through Donald Trump's ear, nearly ending his life and his quest for the White House. Selena, thank you so much for coming on.

Selena Zito: Oh, thank you guys so much for having me. I'm really honored to be here and I'm really excited to talk about the book.

Georgia Howe: You had probably the best closest seat to one of the most memorable moments in political history, just in living memory. And now you've written a book about it. You wrote this book, Butler, the untold story of the near assassination of Donald Trump and the fight for America's heartland. Tell us a little bit about what that was like and what your book is about.

Selena Zito: Being there in that moment, right? When you're a reporter, it's really interesting. You tend to turn off what would be natural instincts to get yourself out of danger, which is what I did. That day started with me, with the plan was I was going to interview President Trump for five minutes before the rally. That soon changed to five minutes after the rally. That then changed to a call from Susie Wiles asking me if I would fly to Bedminster and do the interview on the plane, and then they would get me back home. So when you're a reporter, you sort of have to adapt to those kinds of things.

Georgia Howe: Usually it means you're not getting the interview, but it just turned out to be better that day. And if listeners aren't familiar with me, I grew up in Western Pennsylvania. My family was one of the founding families of Butler County in the 1750s. So I really have an understanding of place and rootedness. I understood the importance of him showing up in Butler that day because he was reaching a broad amount of people, even though it's a very out of the way county, the political implications were important for him in winning the state of Pennsylvania.

Selena Zito: And about five minutes before the president is supposed to go on the stage, the campaign press advance man, his name was Michelle Picard III, comes rushing back and says, it's go time, we're doing it now. I'm like, okay. So we rush through and we get to the back of the stage and I ask him, like, where are we doing this interview? My daughter was with me. She's a photo journalist. In fact, she took the photo of the cover of Butler. And the poor Michelle he said I actually have no idea where you're interviewing him so he goes around the bend which is where President Trump is and he comes back and he says we're not doing the interview right now he just wants to say hi to you so so I go around and and President Trump always says I have the best hair in America and and uh it's pretty funny and I get really embarrassed because there's all these people around.

Georgia Howe: There's mostly state troopers and firemen and first responders. They're back there to meet the president. He always does that. And he gives me a big hug. He asks about my grandchildren. He knows that I have a lot of grandchildren We talk about each other grandchildren And then he says okay well looking forward to doing the interview about Pennsylvania Well at that point I can hear the beginning of Lee Greenwood song right? So I know he's ready to go out on stage. So they decide to just put myself and my daughter inside the buffer. The buffer is an area between the stage that the president is on and the rally attendees. And it's usually used by photojournalists and Secret Service. So they put me there and say, okay, we can't get you back to the press riser in enough time.

Selena Zito: After the president goes out, just sort of make your way over to the other side, get your photos, whatever you want to do, and just be ready to leave with the motorcade. So that's exactly what we do do. And we go around, he gets to the podium. I have lots of video, but you know, if people were following me that day, I was chronicling the whole thing. And then he does two things that he never does ever. I've covered dozens of Trump rallies. He decides to put a chart down. And I remember saying to my daughter, what does he think he is, Ross Perot? Why is there a chart? And then he does something else that he never does, and he turns his neck away from the audience members. And why that is significant is if you've ever been to a Trump rally, or even if you've ever watched one, the relationship between the attendees and President Trump is very transactional. He feeds off of them and they feed off of him. So he may turn his body to face different audiences, you know, different sections, but he never turns his neck away. Never.

Georgia Howe: And in that moment, the chart goes down, he turns his neck away and I hear four shots go right over my head. And, and I knew instantly what it was. I'm a gun owner. I knew, yeah, I could hear people say, was that firecrackers? But I knew instantly that there was gunshot. I knew instantly he was shot. I saw him grab his ear and I see this blood streak across his face. And you can, if you go back and watch it, I can't watch it. But if you go back and watch it, you can see him flinch. You know he's hit. And he takes himself down, which was important. This is the first thing I'm noting in my head. Okay. He's not knocked down. He took himself down. This means he may not be gravely injured. He's surrounded by a sea of Navy blue suits, the Secret Service. And then I hear the next four shots. I still don't take myself down. I'm in this moment believing that I have a purpose. There's a reason I'm there. I'm not supposed to be there. And I need to chronicle this. And it's not until a couple seconds after the last four shots where Michelle Picard literally tackles me to the ground and takes me down. And he covers my body to make sure that I'm okay until it's all clear.

Georgia Howe: And I will never forget what that young man did. I mean, that's an amazing story. And I'd love to hear even more about it. But there were other things that you touched on that make me feel like you have a sort of a deep knowledge that hopefully you went into in your book, but I want to talk about. So just from your description, it sounds like you have a somewhat close relationship with the president. You've been following him for years now. Can you tell us how you got, became close to the president and how you first got involved with covering his movement?

Selena Zito: I remember him coming down, covering him coming down the escalator. And I remember everyone else talking. I can't remember. I think it was like Mexicans or something, right? Like he was talking about a wall and every reporter thought like really paid attention to that. And I, you know, I'm from Western Pennsylvania. So, so my coverage is very different. I'm not saying it's better. It's just different. And I heard him talk about the dignity of work and, and, and, and, and, and how communities felt left behind. And I cover the people that feel that way. Right. And, and I thought, oh, this is profound. This is really, really important. And, and so that's the, was the beginning of covering him I followed that election you know I followed it from my home state of Pennsylvania But I also covered I also cover Ohio which if people remember Ohio voted for Obama twice So it wasn a red state I also was in Wisconsin and Michigan, also Iowa. Iowa went for Obama. I believe that the heart of that election cycle was the Great Lakes Midwest, right? That sort of Appalachia Midwest area. And that's where the election was going to be decided. And he was making inroads with voters that would not normally vote for a Republican alongside with traditional Republican voters.

Georgia Howe: And so I saw and understood that movement. When the first time I interviewed him was in Pittsburgh in September of 2016, I had lost my job the day before. They had offered buyouts and it was pretty clear I had to take the buyout. And so I wrote the story for The Atlantic. And I said in that story to him, two things were important about that story. After I did the interview with him, he said, you want to take a walk with me, Zito? I'm like, okay. And we were not, there was no cameras. We weren't recording. and I just watched how he was so much more interested in talking to the people that were making the convention that he was speaking at work, you know, the janitors, the people that were the caterers, the electricians, the plumbers, all those people that made that convention outside of the walls look beautiful. That's where he was connecting with people. And he was asking them about their lives and what do they do? What's your family like? And it was a really interesting glimpse into the curiosity that he has about people. And that was really important about that interview.

Selena Zito: But also I said to him, you know, I feel like I straddled two different worlds. You know, voters take you seriously, but they don't take everything you say literally, where my profession takes everything you say literally, and they don't take your candidacy very seriously. And so it was in that moment of understanding who he was and the voter that people didn't see, and more importantly, the voter that a lot of reporters didn't respect, that I think that he and I developed a mutual respect for each other.

Georgia Howe: Selena, you obviously have covered the Great Lakes region better than any reporter out there. I'm interested in your take in the future. Do you think that the turn we saw from those Rust Belt states towards Republicans is lasting? Or do you think this is something that could fade away if there's no more Donald Trump on the ticket? So there'll never be another one like him. Obviously. However, there are the Democrats have done absolutely nothing to earn those voters back and even attempt to in in the in the in almost years since he's won this election cycle. And I think, at least for a generation, that in the same way that FDR had a broad impact on the American electorate in the way that Teddy Roosevelt did as well, this is a longer-lasting period. And this is not a coalition that is easily going to chip away. Think about New Deal Democrats. They lasted for 60 years. This is a generational coalition. And at the heart of it is the middle class. And while my profession often talks about white working class, what they missed, and that's what this book really covers after Butler, is the galvanation of black working class, Hispanic working class. Like all working class have now become part of the Republican coalition. And you cannot win a statewide election without the working class.

Georgia Howe: You been on the ground in Pennsylvania and it sounds like you have very deep roots there Pennsylvania specifically has seen one of the most dramatic political realignments of any state in recent political history So just of the people you know and people that you kind of seen over the past decade or even more, what are the issues that really matter to them? And I know, of course, you talked about the dignity of work, but there are also a lot of culture war issues and other kind of economic issues. What is really resonating with Pennsylvanians?

Selena Zito: My state has changed dramatically. And Biden's win, I remember writing this in 2020, that was a fluke and that was caused by COVID. This state was already becoming very Republican. People just didn't notice that. And it was from the ground up. But the issues that are really important in particular in a state like Pennsylvania, are tariffs. That impacts the steel worker, that impacts the farmer, and they're very supportive of it. And what's really interesting is they know that even the energy worker, they know that there are times that there's going to be a pinch from it if it doesn't work the way that initially the president wants it to, but will in the long term. And they're willing to ride it out because these voters, because they're so rooted, right? Eight out of 10 people in Pennsylvania live within 50 to 100 miles of where they grew up. They want something better for the next generation, which will be their children and grandchildren. So they're willing to wait it out if it's better for the next generations. And border security, that is incredibly important to Pennsylvania voters. If there's any one state that is the it state that tells us what's going on in the rest of the country, I don't say this vainly because I'm from Pennsylvania. I'm saying this realistically. Pennsylvania is the state that tells us everything.

Georgia Howe: One final question, Selena, and thank you so much again for your time. Bringing it back to Butler, was there any change that you saw in the president after that attempt on his life? Is there a line of demarcation, a before and after that you've noticed, or is he still the same man?

Selena Zito: Oh, no, definitely a change. And this is a man who understands that he has purpose and he understands that God was there in that moment. Now, do I think he's going to be someone that goes to mass every Sunday? No. But do I think God is ever present in his mind? Absolutely. And you see it every day. You know, in the days, in the day after the assassination of Trump, President Trump called me seven times. We talked a lot about what is my purpose, not meaning me, but him and the hand of God in that moment. Because he's, I have no explanation as to why I turned my head. I have no explanation as to why that chart came down. That can only be the hand of God. And that I have purpose outside of Donald Trump, the man. I am supposed to do the right things by the country as I see the country should look. And you see that every day in him. You see that since the moment he was inaugurated, he has put his head down and gone straight forward. And even if something doesn't work, He finds a way to get around that and make it work eventually. And that is that sort of purpose-driven life that I think I know he lacked before that. And you can see the difference between the first six months of 2017 and the first six months of 2025.

Georgia Howe: Well, Selena, thank you so much for making time for us today.

Selena Zito: Oh, my goodness. Thanks so much for having me.

Georgia Howe: Now, where can people get your book?

Selena Zito: Oh, you can get it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, independent bookstore. I'm really proud of the cover. My daughter took that photo. And I think that photo is really powerful because it shows that transactional relationship between him and the people at the rally. And it just sort of puts an exclamation point on that he turned his head away and he normally doesn't.

Georgia Howe: That was author and journalist Selena Zito, and this has been a weekend edition of MorningWire.