On the one-year anniversary of the near-assassination of President Donald Trump, a journalist who was with Trump at the rally in Butler shares inside details about that fateful day – and how the president has been profoundly changed.  Pennsylvania journalist and author Selena Zito was not only with Trump at the Butler rally, but she spoke to him just before he went on stage. She was a first-hand witness to the bullet that nearly took his life, and spoke to him several times in the days that followed the attempt on his life.  Appearing on The Daily Wire’s Morning Wire podcast, Zito revealed her conclusions from her seven conversations with Trump in the days after his he nearly lost his life.  “There was definitely a change” in Trump, Zito said. “This is a man who understands that he has purpose, and he understands that God was there in that moment.” “Now, do I think he’s going to be someone that goes to mass every Sunday? No. But do I think God is ever present in his mind? Absolutely,” she continued. “You see it every day.” “In the days after the assassination attempt on Trump, he called me seven times,” Zito continued. “We talked a lot about, ‘What is my purpose?’ — about him and the hand of God in that moment. He said, ‘I have no explanation as to why I turned my head. I have no explanation as to why that chart came down. That can only be the hand of God.’ And that, ‘I have purpose outside of Donald Trump, the man. I am supposed to do the right things by the country.’” “And you see that every day in him,” Zito added. “You see that since the moment he was inaugurated, he has put his head down and gone straight forward. And even if something doesn’t work, he finds a way to get around that and make it work eventually. And that is that sort of purpose-driven life that I think I know he lacked before that. And you can see the difference between the first six months of 2017, and the first six months of 2025.” Zito recalls exactly where she was when Trump was nearly shot, and even what she was thinking. Shebeing ushered to the “buffer” area – the space between the podium and the rally attendees that’s typically for Secret Service agents and photojournalists – right before Trump took the stage.  “He gets to the podium,” Zito said. “And then he does two things that he never does, ever – I’ve covered dozens of Trump rallies.” WATCH: Trump’s Return To Butler “He decides to put a chart down, and I remember saying to my daughter (who’s a photojournalist), ‘Who does he think he is? Ross Perot? Why is there a chart?’” she said. “And then he does something else that he never does: he turns his neck away from the audience members.” Trump was looking at a chart detailing immigration numbers at the moment he was shot in the ear in Butler. The president has repeatedly called the chart “beautiful” and said he would have been shot “right in the head” if he hadn’t turned his head to look at the graphic.  “And why that is significant is, if you’ve ever been to a Trump rally or even if you’ve ever watched one, the relationship between the attendees and President Trump is very transactional,” Zito explained. “He feeds off of them and they feed off of him. So he may turn his body to face different audiences, different sections, but he never turns his neck away, never.” “And in that moment, the chart goes down, he turns his neck away, and I hear four shots,” she continues. “And I knew instantly what it was, I’m a gun owner. I could hear people say, ‘Is that firecrackers?’ But I knew instantly that there were gunshots. I knew instantly he was shot. I saw him grab his ear and I see this blood streak across his face.” “You can see him flinch, you know he’s hit,” the journalist recalled. “And he takes himself down, which was important – this is the first thing I’m noting in my head, okay, he’s not knocked down, he took himself down. This means he may not be gravely injured.” After Secret Service agents rushed on stage, Zito said she heard “the next four shots.” “I still don’t take myself down,” she said. “I’m in this moment believing that I have a purpose. There’s a reason I’m there. I’m not supposed to be there, and I need to chronicle this.” WATCH: Trump Rally VIP Recounts Heroism Amid Assassination Attempt Chaos Seconds after those shots were fired off, a campaign press advance man for Trump’s team, named Michel Picard, “literally tackles me to the ground and takes me down,” Zito said. “And he covers my body to make sure that I’m okay until it’s all clear. And I will never forget what that young man did.” Zito may have been the last person to speak to Trump before he took the stage, though it was just briefly. She was supposed to interview Trump before the rally, but the interview got pushed to after the event. Trump, though, still asked to speak to Zito just before he got on stage. Zito explained that Trump typically talks with people who want to meet him before his rallies, typically “state troopers and firemen and first responders.”  “I go around, and President Trump always says I have the best hair in America, and it’s pretty funny,” she recalled. “I get really embarrassed because there’s all these people around. There’s mostly state troopers and firemen and first responders – they’re back there to meet the president. He always does that. And he asks, he gives me a big hug. He asks about my grandchildren – he knows that I have a lot of grandchildren. We talk about each other’s grandchildren.” Trump then departed for the rally stage, and minutes later the shots rang out.  Zito has known Trump for years, and her journalism on the Rustbelt served as a bellwether for Trump’s 2016 upset win against Hillary Clinton. Zito is known for capturing his appeal with working class voters. “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally,” she once famously said.  “I remember him covering him coming down the escalator,” Zito said. While journalists were focused on his comments about “Mexicans” and “a wall,” Zito said she noticed how Trump talked about the forgotten Americans.  “I’m from Western Pennsylvania, so my coverage is very different. I’m not saying it’s better, it’s just different. And I heard him talk about the dignity of work, and how communities felt left behind,” she said. “And I cover the people that feel that way. And I thought, this is profound. This is really, really important. And so that was the beginning of covering him. Zito recalled interviewing Trump back in 2016 and noticing how he treated everyday Americans.  “After I did the interview with him, he said, ‘You want to take a walk with me, Zito?’ There were no cameras, we weren’t recording, and I just watched how he was so much more interested in talking to the people that were making the convention that he was speaking at work,” she said. “You know, the janitors, the people who were the caterers, the electricians, the plumbers, all those people who made that convention outside of the walls look beautiful. That’s where he was connecting with people. And he was asking them about their lives, and what they do, what’s your family like? And it was a really interesting glimpse into the curiosity that he has about people.”  Zito said she told Trump that he was straddling two different worlds. “Voters take you seriously, but they don’t take everything you say literally,” she said to Trump. “Where my profession takes everything you say literally, and they don’t take your candidacy very seriously.” “It was in that moment of understanding who he was, and the voter that people didn’t see – and more importantly, the voter that a lot of reporters didn’t respect – that I think that he and I developed a mutual respect for each other,” she continued.  Zito released a new book on July 8, titled, “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland,” which is available for order here.

ANTIOCH, Tenn. — Far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) decried the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration on Saturday, claiming that America was shocking people around the world because of ICE raids.  Omar made the comments during a town hall at Cane Ridge High School just outside of Nashville where she called for universal healthcare, reducing military spending, and for ICE agents to be banned from wearing masks while conducting immigration enforcement operations.  “The reality is when they come from one of us, they’re eventually going to come for all of us,” she said in front of a crow of several hundred seated in a school auditorium. “We’re seeing people be abducted and sent to dungeons in foreign countries and people disappearing with no accounting for where they’ve gone.” Organizers of the town hall made their opposition to ICE clear, posting a sign with the words “ICE not permitted on the premises” written in all caps on the doors to the venue. There were also flyers saying “Nashville stand with Ilhan” posted all over the publicly funded high school.    NEW: Covering far Left Democrat Rep Ilhan Omar’s townhall at a public high school outside of Nashville. ICE is not welcome, according to the organizers. pic.twitter.com/d9r9wofoE5 — Leif Le Mahieu (@leif_lemahieu) July 12, 2025 Omar also decried the recent passage of Trump’s signature spending and tax cut package, which she referred to as the “big ugly bill.” The legislation included billions of dollars in funding to hire more ICE agents and improve ICE facilities.  She asserted that ICE agents should not be allowed to conduct enforcement operations while wearing masks and that the people around the world were shocked to see videos and photos of ICE operations.  “When they see these kinds of images coming out of America. To them it is really shocking and it should be to all of us as Americans” she said. “That is not us.”  In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has reported a surge in assaults against ICE officers. In the last month, gunmen have opened fire on federal immigration agents in two separate attacks in Texas.  The rally drew many Nashville-area residents eager to show their opposition to Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) and the Trump administration.  Joy Guss, an employee with Metro Nashville Public Schools, said her main concerns with the Trump administration were its immigration policies and the government funding cuts recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency. She said that local ICE raids were “terrorizing our children” and that she had seen a dramatic drop in school attendance among Latino students.  Julia, a woman from California who moved to Tennessee eight years ago, said that she was “extremely distraught” about the state of the country under Trump and said that she was opposed to immigration workplace raids.  During the town hall, Omar repeatedly attacked Ogles, who represents the area. The high school is located in a predominantly blue area southeast of Nashville. Ogles was elected to a second term in 2024 with nearly 60% of the vote, drawing much of his support from the conservative rural and suburban counties that surround Nashville.  Omar was joined at the rally by Democrat state Rep. Justin Jones, an activist lawmaker who described ICE raids conducted in Nashville in early May as kidnappings and compared ICE to the KKK.  Of the 196 arrested during the raids referenced by Jones, 95 had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges and another 31 had previously been deported. Those arrested included those convicted of rape and serious drug charges.

President Donald Trump declared his support for Attorney General Pam Bondi on Saturday as she faced controversy over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Trump weighed in amid an uproar within the “Make America Great Again” movement after The Daily Wire reported on Friday that FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino threatened to quit the bureau if Bondi stays on as attorney general following the Department of Justice (DOJ) announcing there was no evidence to prove that Epstein had a client list, had blackmailed powerful people, or had been murdered. “What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘selfish people’ are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. NEW: POTUS finally weighs in on Bondi/Bongino dispute: “Kash Patel, and the FBI, must be focused on investigating Voter Fraud, Political Corruption, ActBlue, The Rigged and Stolen Election of 2020, and arresting Thugs and Criminals, instead of spending month after month looking… pic.twitter.com/rTerqDfckQ — Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) July 12, 2025 Trump later declared, “LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE’S GREAT! The 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen, and they tried to do the same thing in 2024 — That’s what she is looking into as AG, and much more. One year ago our Country was DEAD, now it’s the ‘HOTTEST’ Country anywhere in the World. Let’s keep it that way, and not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Bongino, who has not commented publicly on the matter as of press time, was not mentioned by name in Trump’s post. But a source previously told The Daily Wire that Bongino had effectively issued an ultimatum, saying he won’t work alongside Bondi. FBI Director Kash Patel broke his silence on Saturday amid rumors that he might also consider leaving if Bondi stayed, saying in a post to X that the “conspiracy theories” were not true and that he would continue to serve under Trump as long as the president wanted him to be there. Bondi, a former GOP attorney general of Florida who helped defend Trump during his first impeachment trial, was picked to lead the DOJ after the president’s earlier nominee, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), withdrew from consideration.

Director of the FBI Kash Patel broke his silence on Saturday over the controversy surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein files, asserting that related “conspiracy theories just aren’t true.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced there was no evidence to prove that Epstein had a client list, had blackmailed powerful people, or had been murdered. The revelations have come under fire from some politicos and others online who suggest government officials are not revealing the full trust or misled the public with past statements. Additionally, it’s been rumored that Patel, along with FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, do not want to work with Attorney General Pam Bondi and were considering leaving if she remains at her post. “The conspiracy theories just aren’t true, never have been,” Patel said Saturday on X. “It’s an honor to serve the President of the United States [Donald Trump] — and I’ll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me.” Patel has said numerous times publicly that he believes Epstein committed suicide in the Metropolitan Detention Center. The conspiracy theories just aren’t true, never have been. It’s an honor to serve the President of the United States @realDonaldTrump — and I’ll continue to do so for as long as he calls on me. — Kash Patel (@Kash_Patel) July 12, 2025 Patel also re-posted a message from his girlfriend, country singer and conservative activist Alexis Wilkins. False rumors began circulating about the 26-year-old following the DOJ’s announcement about Epstein, she says. “I’ve spent my career saying no to anything that would compromise my character and working to restore America,” Wilkins wrote on X. “It’s disappointing to see people with no real contribution to political discourse spin ridiculous conspiracy theories out of thin air.” “These accusations are obviously insanely ridiculous and coming from accounts that are farming because their engagement dried up after Trump’s win,” she charged. “I would encourage anyone interested to actually research the facts of my life — they’re readily available. My happy relationship, my work, my Christian Faith, and my integrity speak for themselves.” I’ve spent my career saying no to anything that would compromise my character and working to restore America. It’s disappointing to see people with no real contribution to political discourse spin ridiculous conspiracy theories out of thin air. These accusations are obviously… — Alexis Wilkins (@AlexisWilkins) July 9, 2025 The heat over the handling of the Epstein files has been largely targeted on Bondi. Bongino is reportedly furious over Bondi’s handling of the files, and allegedly stormed out of a closed-door meeting on the matter. A source told The Daily Wire on Friday that Bongino has threatened to not return to his post if Bondi remains as attorney general. Related: Details Emerge From Bongino’s Reported Tense Meeting With Bondi, Trump Chief Of Staff

Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, had a tense meeting with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, according to a new report. Bongino is furious with Bondi over the handling of the files, The Daily Wire reported Friday. A source close to the deputy director said that he’s effectively issued an ultimatum, saying he won’t work alongside Bondi. During a closed-door meeting on the Epstein matter this past week, Bongino raised his voice while speaking to Wiles and stormed out, sources told Fox News. Bongino also allegedly exchanged “heated words” with Bondi during the same meeting. Another source agreed that Bongino was “enraged” during the meeting, but said the deputy director never yelled at either woman. A White House official similarly said Bongino did not yell at Wiles, per Fox News. The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced there was no evidence to prove that Epstein had a client list, had blackmailed powerful people, or had been murdered. Bondi has been criticized for suggesting she had Epstein’s client list “sitting” on her desk months ago. “In February, I did an interview on Fox, and it’s been getting a lot of attention because … I was asked a question about the ‘client list’ and my response was, ‘It’s sitting on my desk to be reviewed, meaning the file, along with the JFK, MLK files as well,” Bondi said during a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, when asked about those past comments. “That’s what I meant by that.” Bondi also said the missing minute from the released Metropolitan Detention Center footage was standard. “We learned from the Bureau of Prisons that every night they redo that video,” she said on Tuesday. “So, every night the video is reset, and every night should have the same minute missing.” Bondi added that the DOJ is looking to publish additional footage to prove the video reset happens every night. Despite criticism and allegations that Bongino wants her gone, sources close to Bondi say she has no intention of stepping down. And the White House so far seems to be backing the idea that no one is leaving their post. “President Trump has assembled a highly qualified and experienced law and order team dedicated to protecting Americans, holding criminals accountable, and delivering justice to victims. This work is being carried out seamlessly and with unity,” White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields told Fox News on Friday. “Any attempt to sow division within this team is baseless and distracts from the real progress being made in restoring public safety and pursuing justice for all.” Related: BONDI OR BONGINO: Bongino Won’t Remain At FBI If Bondi Keeps Job, Source Says