Pa. Senate candidate David McCormick, in front row at rally: Trump ‘lucky to be alive’

David McCormick, the GOP nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, said in a live phone interview on Fox News that he was in the front row at former President Trump’s rally when shots rang out. Just minutes before the apparent attack, Trump had told the crowd that he would bring McCormick up on stage.

“There were seven or eight shots,” McCormick said. “It’s hard to tell whether they came from one direction or from two different weapons. It wasn’t clear.”

“Sadly, someone behind me up in the bleachers was — was definitely wounded, and there was a lot of blood,” McCormick said.

“I was sitting to President Trump’s right as he was facing the crowd,” McCormick said. “It sounds like some of the shots came from his left side, which would make sense because someone behind me was hit. It sounds like at least some came from that side of the crowd.”

“I’m no expert on this, but it felt — it sounded like a small caliber weapon of some sort,” McCormick said. “Initially, I thought it might be fireworks or something, but then the succession of the shots, I think it was clearly a weapon, a firearm.”

McCormick said it looked like the person in the crowd who was injured was a man, and that he had shirts wrapped around him to try to stop the bleeding. Some police officers came in and carried the man out of the stands, he said. McCormick could not tell if others were wounded.

Asked if Trump was lucky to be alive, McCormick said: “I think so. Yeah, absolutely, I think so.”

“When you’re in the middle of a crisis, you don’t want to draw too many conclusions. But it felt to me like he’s very lucky to be alive. And I hope others who are injured are going to survive this. It was a very scary moment,” McCormick said.

Tags Dave McCormick David McCormick Donald Trump

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.