Donald Trump compared the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania, to the sacrifices made by multiple Purple Heart recipients as he honored several at a ceremony at the White House on Thursday
Donald Trump compared the attempt on his life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year to the sacrifices made by Purple Heart veterans as he honored several of them at a White House ceremony on Thursday afternoon.
“Last year, after an assassin tried to take my life in Butler, Pennsylvania, Thomas [Matteo] generously mailed me one of his Purple Hearts,” the president said.
“Many of the other veterans showed me the same gesture of unbelievable kindness, including three-time Purple Heart recipient John Ford and Gerald Enter Jr., who also came along with us and did us a great, great favor,” the president continued. “Gerald, John and Thomas, I want to thank you very much.”
The three veterans Trump mentioned were present at the event. They each, as he said, mailed him one of their Purple Hearts after he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, by gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Crooks, who was from Bethel Park an affluent neighborhood in the south of Pittsburgh ventured 53 miles to the Butler Farm Show grounds, where the rally took place, and opened fire from a nearby rooftop, wounding two attendees and killing a third.
Trump’s right ear was grazed in the process. Days later, he was at the Republican National Convention, where he officially accepted his party’s nomination after being voted in as its candidate for the presidency.
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“What a great honor to get those Purple Hearts,” Trump continued before likening his own experience to those that the three veterans endured to earn their Purple Hearts.
“I guess, in a certain way, it wasn’t that easy for me, either, when you think of it,” he said, before acknowledging: “But you went through a lot more than I did, and I appreciate it all very much.”
The medals gifted to Trump were presented to him during ceremonies held during the last few months of his campaign last year. Matteo, Ford and Thomas weren’t the only veterans who mailed Trump their Purple Hearts many others did, too.
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Trump invited several of the veterans who had mailed their Purple Medals to Trump to his campaign stops so he could give the medals back to their proper recipients.
The event Trump held at the White House on Thursday afternoon marked National Purple Heart Day, which is observed annually on Aug. 7. At the end of his speech which he appeared to read from a script, very seldom venturing off of it he signed a proclamation declaring Aug. 7, 2025, National Purple Heart Day making the holiday official.
The Purple Heart is the oldest military award still in use. It’s given to service members who are killed or wounded while engaging in enemy action or who become the target of acts of terrorism.
The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor contains more than 1.8 million medals presented since the award’s inception in 1782.
Trump himself is not a veteran. In fact, he went through five draft deferments after he was asked to serve in the armed forces during the Vietnam War. His first four deferments were related to education, as he was a college student at the time, while his fifth was for a medical exemption he highlighted alleged bone spurs in his heels.
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