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Salena Zito, a veteran political reporter with more than 20 years of storytelling experience, is telling her own story in her book, “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland.”
Zito’s novel, released Tuesday, takes readers back to July 13, 2024, when a young shooter unleashed gunfire into the crowd at President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“I didn’t get down,” Zito told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview ahead of the release. “There was this inner voice that told me, ‘You have a job to do, continue doing it.’”
When 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks began firing toward Trump, Zito found herself in the Secret Service’s secure perimeter, right by the stage where Trump was delivering his remarks.
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“Time has these layers that happen,” Zito said. “It’s not remembering them. It’s experiencing them. It’s this interesting thing that happens. I see a sea of navy blue suits immediately surround him. Then, I hear the second four shots. I still didn’t get down.”
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As a gun owner, Zito recognized the sound of the gunshots right away. But as a journalist, she quickly began to commit the historic moment to memory as it was unfolding.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Zito described the scene she saw first-hand, that was caught on video by the network pool camera and watched across the world.
Just over eight minutes into Trump’s speech, Zito was standing in the “buffer” with her daughter, her son-in-law and a Trump campaign aide, Michel Picard. It was Picard who finally brought Zito to the ground.
“Michel Picard takes me down and lies on top of me and covers me,” Zito explained. “This young man didn’t have to do this. He will always be a hero in my heart. He lies on the top of my daughter. My son-in-law has already taken my daughter down.”
Zito said, even from that vantage point, she could still see and hear the situation unfolding as Trump shouted out for his shoes, someone called out for a medic and a woman screamed.
“I had my recorder on my phone because I thought I was going to be recording the rally, his speech. I wanted to make sure I got the nuance. I always do that. I could see, and I could hear everything that was happening.”
She said Trump was saying, “USA,” from the ground as the crowd began to chant. When the Secret Service helped Trump onto his feet, he shouted, “Fight! Fight! Fight,” Zito said she saw a different side of Trump, which is revealed in her book.
The journalist, who is a political reporter for the Washington Examiner, is a special contributor for the Washington Post and has been a columnist for the New York Post, said Trump must have called her seven times in the 24 hours after the shooting.
Zito was slated to interview Trump ahead of his rally in Butler, but such is the case with presidential campaign schedules, the interview time kept slipping. Zito was planning to fly with Trump to Bedminster, N.J., to interview him after the rally.
Trump recovered from his near assassination with little more than a bullet graze to the ear, thanks to the immigration chart he was turning his head to face. One rally attendee, firefighter Corey Comperatore, was killed, and two others were critically injured by Crooks’ gunshots.
Comperatore shielded his wife and daughters from the shots, saving his family. Trump honored their family when he returned to Butler to finish the rally later that year.
“This book is for everyone,” Zito told Fox News Digital. “First of all, it was a witness to history. And it’s told in a way that is very conversational and told in way that’s very real and authentic. I tell the story exactly the way that it happened.”
“But it’s also a book about understanding why place and rootedness [are] so important in American politics. There have been very few Republicans or Democrats that have understood that. It is part of America’s experience, no matter what happens next, that there’s a light shining on it, so that you understand people better.”
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