President Donald Trump launched into a bizarre and at times flattering rant Monday about Thomas Crooks, the man who attempted to assassinate him in 2024 during a rally in Pennsylvania.
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Calling into Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” Trump was asked about a recent report documenting the failings of the Secret Service on the day of the attempted assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania. While telling “Fox & Friends” that the Secret Service “blew Butler,” he also praised the Secret Service agents who shielded him with their own bodies after Crooks had fired his first of at the president.
“They were on top of me pretty quickly, I had a lot of people on top of me, and they were very brave,” Trump said. “Secret Service was very brave, they were on top of me very, very fast. I knew exactly what was happening, I mean it was amazing how I understood exactly.”
Trump then pivoted to Crooks, his would-be assassin, praising him for his academic achievements.
“He was a very strange cookie, this one,” Trump said of Crooks. “Very academically smart but very disturbed, he was a very disturbed person. His boards, he had almost perfect boards, he was a great student. But he was a person who was very tormented, he was a tormented person.”
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The Trump administration has faced scrutiny regarding its investigation into Crooks and the assassination attempt, including from notable conservative figures, such as prominent conservative commentator Tucker Carlson.
Last month, Carlson claimed that former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino had admitted that Trump had “shut down the investigation” into Crooks after a panicked and “hysterical” exchange of text messages.
Crooks has received renewed attention after recently obtained FBI records revealed that the would-be assassin exchanged two emails with a Butler County Sheriff deputy ahead of the assassination attempt, a revelation that sent MAGA world into a frenzy.
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