“When you’re a reporter, there’s always this understanding that you are chronicling a thread of history.” So says author and long-time New York Postcontributor Salena Zito, whose new book “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland” details her experience standing mere feet from President Trump when he was shot on July 13.
Zito was hardly new to being in such close proximity to the president. A longtime chronicler of his unlikely political ascent, they enjoyed an unexpected camaraderie fueled by an affection for family. “Salena, it’s so great to see you. How are you doing? How are all those grandkids?” Trump said to Zito just before he took that fateful Pennsylvania stage. “I love my grandkids, too. I love being around them,” he concluded.
Within minutes, in a typical Trumpian display of patriotism, country star Lee Greenwood was singing “God Bless the USA”; minutes after that, Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight rounds at Trump, nearly killing the president and sparking nationwide shock and history-making.
“I knew as soon as I heard those first shots, I had an obligation to be calm,” Zito says, “because what I was covering wasn’t just a tiny thread of modern history. It was an event that was going to change everything.” Here, in an exclusive excerpt from “Butler,” Zito describes the day she stood alongside history in the making.
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I felt the velocity in the same split second that I heard the four gunshots. My eyes were fixated on [then] former president Donald Trump, who stood a mere few feet away from me on an outdoor stage in front of the podium. It was July 13, 2024. I was in the buffer zone with my daughter, Shannon Venditti, and my son-in-law Michael.
Shannon looked over at me and asked, “Why are there fireworks?” I knew they weren’t fireworks and, subconsciously, she did too. We are gun owners. Shannon didn’t want to think this could be happening; a mother of four, she didn’t want to believe we were in the line of fire. I heard her yell to Michael, “Did you trip on the speaker wires and cause them to spark?”
My gaze never left the president. Everything happened simultaneously, seemed to happen in split-second layers. I saw him flinch. He grabbed his ear. I saw the blood streak on his face as the bullets cut across the stage, and he ducked down below the podium.
“Get down, get down, get down!” a male voice shouted from behind me, directed at the president.
My initial thought was that the podium would not protect him — please, someone get there to protect him. Please let no one be hurt. It never once occurred to me that I might be one of them. I was frozen, still staring at the president seconds later, when we heard a second round of four shots. By then, President Trump was surrounded by a sea of navy-blue: at least a half dozen Secret Service agents formed a protective shield around him.
From the huddle, I could hear a female agent say, “What are we doing? What are we doing?” Then, “Where are we going . . .” and the sound of her voice was muffled.
Michael shouted as the second four shots went off: “Those were gunshots!” He tackled Shannon to the ground and dropped on top of her. The next thing I knew, I was knocked off my feet and shoved to the ground by lead Trump press advance man Michel Picard III. Hovering over me, he held me down, his knees pressed against my shins. My face landed in the dirt and gravel, and the rest of my body covered my daughter.
“Are you okay? Are you okay?” Picard shouted at the three of us. Then he lowered his voice and took a deep breath. I could hear him slowly exhale to regain control.
“Stay down. I got you. Stay still, stay calm,” Picard said. His voice was soothing, but his hands told a different story; he was shaking hard. I watched him look down at his hands as he tried to stifle the adrenaline.
I was still just feet away from the president. From my vantage point, I could see the huddle of blue suits surrounding him; I saw his bloody face between the gaggle of men and women around him. An agent said, “Go around to the spare, go around to the spare . . . hold, hold, when you’re ready, on two.”
Or maybe he said, “When you’re ready, on you.” I wasn’t sure.
Time seemed to stop. Everything occurred in slow motion. The crowd, eerily, was not screaming, not really. In fact, it sounded like they were still cheering. On the ground, with gravel digging into my legs and arms, I could hear only one woman screaming. Her screams were primal — I don’t know if she was hurt, if someone she loved was hurt, or if the trauma was too much for her. It seemed like she was moving around in the stands behind me, moving toward something that was across from me. Her screams were gut-wrenching.
One or two of the last four shots sounded like they came from a different-caliber gun.
I could hear President Trump talking back and forth with members of his detail, who were still tightly circling him. At least three male voices were talking. One said, “Ready. Move up.” A different one said, “Go, go, go!”
But they remained crouched down. Another agent said, “Hawkeye’s here, moving to the spare.”
“Spare, get ready. Spare, get ready,” said the agent who, from my vantage point, seemed to be the lead. At least two, maybe three of the agents then shouted, “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down — are we good to move?”
A male voice answered, “Shooter’s down. We’re good to move.” A female agent asked, “Are we clear?”
Someone said yes, they were clear to move. Their protective circle became mobile as they stood up with Trump, keeping a circle around him. I heard Trump say, “Let me get my shoes, let me get my shoes.”
An agent said something like, “I got you, sir,” and Trump said again, “Let me get my shoes on.”
I could see Trump’s silhouette, and it looked like he was trying to put on his shoes, which one of the agents had knocked off. An agent told him, “Hold on, sir, your head is bloody.”
Trump was insistent. “Let me get my shoes.” A female agent relented. “OK.”
As they slowly started to move, I heard Trump say, “USA! USA! USA!”
The detail raised him to face the crowd. He lifted his fist, pumping the air: “Fight. Fight. Fight.” His voice was raspy. The crowd erupted in joy and relief.
An agent urged, “We got to move, we got to move.”
They exited the stage, and I saw him raise his fist again three times. The crowd was shouting now: “USA! USA!” as he and the agents headed toward where I was lying on the ground. A Secret Service agent in full camouflage crouched over me, looking into my eyes, and aimed his AR-style rifle directly at me as the president made his way toward me. The agent and I exchanged glances, but I was oddly not afraid.
Trump and all the agents moved past me. I could barely see his face, but I saw enough to notice the blood running down his cheek. Press Secretary Picard hadn’t moved. He was still on top of me, in a protective stance, and I could feel his knee digging into my calf. I thought, That’s going to leave a mark. My daughter, Shannon and son-in-law Michael were still underneath us.
Shannon and I both tried to take photos, but Picard and Michael were having none of it. “We don’t know if there is another shooter,” Picard said firmly, so we didn’t move.
Trump did not have his MAGA [Make America Great Again] hat on as they moved him past me. I saw his hat fall at some point while they were huddling. An agent miraculously grabbed the hat before it touched the ground and was still holding onto it while holding onto the former president.
I turned just enough to see past the loudspeaker that was behind us and watched the agents help Trump get into a vehicle, which they then surrounded. The motorcade paused for a moment, and then he was gone.
I thought back to the early morning. None of what had been planned that day had placed the three of us in the buffer zone by the president. I let out what I thought was going to be a deep sigh, but it somehow turned into that kind of little laugh you have when your day has gone haywire.
Shannon said, “Are you okay?”
I laughed just a little bit again; it felt like the only release I had in me at that moment. “Yeah, I’m okay. Remember when the thing I was most worried about this morning was getting here on time?”
Excerpted from Butler by Salena Zito. (Copyright 2025) Used with permission from Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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