Donald Trump Raised Fist Photograph

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Part of a series on 2024 Donald Trump Rally Shooting. [View Related Entries]

About

Donald Trump Raised Fist Photograph, also known as Donald Trump Fist Pumping After Assassination Attempt, refers to a viral photo of United States presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump taken immediately after a failed assassination attempt on his life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July 2024. The exploitable image, in which a bloodied Trump is seen raising his fist as he is rushed off the stage by members of his Secret Service, achieved virality and inspired numerous memes, edits and redraws in the following days.

Origin

On July 13th, 2024, a failed assassination attempt on United States former President and presidential candidate Donald Trump was taken at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.^[1] During the incident, one of the bullets (fired by an AR-15^[9]) grazed Trump's ear before he was rushed off the stage by the Secret Service. As Trump left the stage, he raised his fist in the air in defiance and shouted, "Fight!"

The photograph (shown below), which depicts the bloodied Donald Trump raising his fist with a U.S. flag waving in the background, was taken by Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci along with multiple other photographs of the moment. On that day, Vucci posted another photograph^[2] from the same sequence, with the post garnering over 4.9 million views, 11,000 reposts and 57,000 likes in one day.

Spread

Immediately following the news about the failed assassination attempt, the photograph went viral on social media, with users commenting on its quality and historical importance. On July 13th, 2024, X^[3] user @dvdaltizer posted an analysis of the photograph that received over 12,000 reposts and 57,000 likes in a day (shown below, left). Entrepreneur Elon Musk made one of the earliest viral posts of the photograph, with his tweet garnering over 176 million views, 436,000 reposts and 3 million likes on X^[4] in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

In the hours following the assassination attempt, multiple users on 4chan, X / Twitter, Reddit and other sites posted caption memes, edits, redraws and fan art based on the photograph.

On July 13th, X^[5] user @uncledoomer captioned the photograph, "me being escorted out of buffalo wild wings after two domestic light beers," with the post garnering over 1,100 reposts and 23,000 likes in one day (shown below, left). Later that day, X^[6] user @Comrade_Waluigi posted a Fallout New Vegas edit that garnered over 1,200 reposts and 18,000 likes in one day (shown below, right).

On July 14th, 2024, X^[7] user @tulpapilled reposted a Soyjak edit that received over 2,100 reposts and 43,000 likes in one day (shown below, left). Redditor Otherwise-Moment-699 posted a Warhammer 40,000 redraw of the photograph featuring Fulgrim, the primarch of the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion, that received over 580 upvotes in the /r/grimdank^[8] subreddit in six hours (shown below, right).

Donald Trump's Reaction

On July 14th, 2024, the New York Post^[10] published an interview with Trump in which he commented on the photograph.

“A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen. They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.”