Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he was shot at a rally in July.

The event, in which Trump did his utmost to capitalize on the shooting, took place exactly a month before the November 5 presidential election.

Security at the rally was extremely tight: Trump took the stage behind bulletproof glass, sniper squads were stationed on surrounding buildings and a surveillance drone was deployed.

One person – firefighter Corey Comperatore, whose family attended Saturday’s rally – was killed in the July shooting and three people, including Trump, were injured. The 20-year-old gunman was also killed by secret service agents.

A notable presence at Saturday’s event was tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has become an outspoken Trump supporter.

What did Trump say?

“Exactly 12 weeks ago this evening, a cold-blooded assassin tried to silence me on these very grounds,” Trump told tens of thousands of supporters.

Responding to cries from the crowd for “fight, fight, fight” — the words he uttered while pumping his fist right after a bullet hit his right ear in the July incident — Trump vowed he would “never give up…never bend…”never break.

The Republican did not shy away from suggesting that his political opponents, whom he described as an “enemy within,” may have been involved in the assassination attempt.

He said they not only pushed to impeach him for attempts to undermine the 2020 election he lost, but “who knows, maybe they even tried to kill me.”

“I shouldn’t have made it,” he said.

Trump began his stage appearance by saying, “As I said,” while pointing to an immigration card, picking up where he left off when the bullet hit.

Trump, the keeper of “democracy in America”: Musk

Musk also took the stage alongside Trump as he jumped and pumped his fists in the air.

He called the upcoming election “the most important election of our lifetime.”

Without offering any evidence, the billionaire told the crowd: “The other side wants to take away your freedom of speech. They want to take away your right to bear arms.”

They want to disenfranchise you,” he added, saying: “President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution. “He must win to preserve democracy in America.”

“If not, this will be the last election. That is my forecast,” he said, repeating the messages he has often posted on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

Musk’s words contrast with critics’ accusations against Trump that he tried to undermine the Constitution to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.

Filming in July is an unprecedented moment

The July 13 shooting gave the Trump campaign a huge boost, and the photo of the bloodied former president making a defiant gesture after the shooting became an iconic image for his supporters.

In fact, many supporters on Saturday wore T-shirts emblazoned with the defining image, and some were even adorned with ear coverings in a nod to the bandage Trump wore after the shooting.

However, less than a week after the attack, much of the wind was taken out of Trump’s sails when President Joe Biden, whom Trump had defeated in a televised debate, dropped out of the race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Harris has managed to significantly improve Democrats’ poll numbers and gain an age advantage over Trump, who often derided Biden as too old for the White House job.

tj/rm (AFP, AP, dpa)