After ‘terrifying’ attempt on Trump’s life, NC delegate keeps coming back to one detail

North Carolina delegate Michele Woodhouse was walking with former Chief Justice Mark Martin in downtown Milwaukee taking in the early sights and sounds of the Republican National Convention when she started receiving messages that former President Donald Trump had been shot.

On Saturday evening, Trump was speaking on stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when, law enforcement say, 20-year-old Matthew Thomas Crooks fired shots from a nearby rooftop — striking Trump in the ear, killing Corey Comperatore, 50, and seriously injuring two other men attending the rally.

“I really hurried back to the hotel and we were in the lobby with the other delegates watching the replay of it and to see President Trump’s bloody face,” Woodhouse said. “Holding up his fist as Secret Service is trying to hold him down. You could hear the chants of ‘USA.’”

She said they all stood together trying to absorb what they had just seen. Among the group were North Carolina Republican Party Chairman Jason Simmons and NCGOP Finance Director Sarah Newby, daughter of Chief Justice Paul Newby.

“Just kind of watching and waiting, and at that point we didn’t know that there were any other casualties,” Woodhouse said. “It was really focused on Trump.”

She said they wondered together what happens to security at RNC.

The NCGOP already announced it will no longer welcome press at its events. Other state parties have done the same.

Woodhouse said when she first arrived in Milwaukee on Saturday it was relatively quiet from the airport to the site of the convention.

Woodhouse, of Hendersonville, serves as chairwoman of North Carolina’s 11th District Republicans. It’s a role she has previously served in but stepped down from in 2021 to run unsuccessfully for Congress. She also hosts a radio show in Raleigh.

Republicans had for weeks been worried about whether Trump would make it to RNC because of a scheduled July 11 sentencing on 34 criminal convictions for business fraud over hush money payments made in connection to an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels.

But when the sentencing was put on hold, Republicans had assurances that Trump could make the convention.

Now the delegates from North Carolina were staring at television screens concerned about the former president’s injuries.

And whether he was even alive.

“In hindsight, if someone asked me today, was I surprised, I’m not,” Woodhouse said of the shooting. “But it still doesn’t make it any less terrifying.”

She, herself, has been to many Trump rallies.

Now, knowing Trump survived, Woodhouse is grappling with what led the suspect to attempt to kill Trump.

And that inches meant life-or-death difference for the former president.

Political violence

She’s also annoyed by the political left, which she feels is watering down what happened by describing the shooting as “political violence.”

“I think it was 100% an assassination attempt, with someone murdered, and attempted murders on others,” Woodhouse said.

She said political violence describes a “protest” or “burning a flag,” but not this.

She also blames “partisan rhetoric” for the shooting.

“There’s years of language around ‘He’s a threat to democracy,’” Woodhouse said.

“You start to use that language over and over and over and you have Kathy Griffin holding a bloody head. I think when one side takes that on as their narrative, sadly something like this is destined to happen,” Woodhouse said.

In 2017, Griffin, a comedian, created a photo of herself holding a bloody, decapitated fake replica of Trump’s head. It led to the star being essentially canceled.

Trump’s strength and vulnerability

Since Saturday night’s shooting, Woodhouse has watched the clip of Trump several times and she keeps coming back to one detail: Trump’s shoes.

Trump and the Secret Service were still next to the podium when they were trying to move him from the stage, and that allowed the rally’s microphone to pick up some of what they were saying.

“Let me get my shoes,” Trump could be heard saying.

“We’ve all been in ... those moments where something really kind of horrible happens you go to something kind of silly, like, ‘get my shoes’ or the house is on fire and ‘is the door locked,” Woodhouse said.

But she also noticed Trump’s ability to show thousands of people at the rally that he was OK, when he raised his fist in the air.

“So I think you saw this really vulnerable part of Trump, balanced with a powerful part of Trump when he was sticking his arm up with the bloody face and people started chanting, ‘USA.’”

What it means for the convention

Woodhouse believes the shooting will become unifying for the Republicans attending the rally.

She believes speeches are being rewritten.

She wonders if the themes will change.

But she thinks North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will be the person to watch.

“He’s one who tends to be incredibly bombastic,” Woodhouse said. “What does he do?”

She also is interested in how Democrats respond in the coming days.

“When all of your advertisement is Donald Trump is the biggest threat to democracy and then someone tries to kill him,” Woodhouse said. “What is your messaging?”

But more than anything she wonders how she will respond to Trump when he speaks to the convention on Thursday night.

“I think it will be pretty emotional,” she said. “I think yesterday was emotional, but when he speaks on Thursday, I think it will be a different emotional response.”

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