American professional photographer Evan Vucci took photographs of Donald Trump with a raised fist shortly after an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. Having heard the initial barrage of shots, Vucci quickly rushed across the podium to take candid photos of Trump being rushed off stage by Secret Service.

The photos saw immediate widespread use across the internet, appraised as a resilient public image of Trump amidst the 2024 United States presidential election.

Background

At a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024, former US President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican Party nominee for president in the 2024 United States presidential election, was shot in an attempted assassination. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

Seeing United States Secret Service agents rushing towards Trump, Evan Vucci, the Associated Press's chief photographer in Washington, D.C., ran to the stage and began photographing. ^[1] Vucci had photographed hundreds of political rallies, and previously won a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 as part of an AP team covering the George Floyd protests. ^{[1] [4]} "I knew it was a moment in American history and it had to be documented", he said of the attempted assassination. ^{[1] [3] [5] [6]}

Composition

Evan Vucci's photographs depict Donald Trump moments after an assassination attempt. His right fist is raised in the air and there is blood on his face. He is surrounded by United States Secret Service agents, one of whom stares at the camera. A US flag waves in the background in front of a blue sky. ^{[1] [2] [4] [7] [8]} In some of Vucci's photographs, Trump's mouth is open as he yells "Fight!" ^{[2] [4]} In others, Trump's lips are pursed. ^{[1] [7] [8]} An uncropped version shows Trump holding his iconic MAGA hat in his left hand. ^{[7] [8]}

Reception

Republicans and Trump's allies circulated the photo immediately after the event; some had used the photo as "an opportunity to tout conspiracy theories and stoke political tensions". ^[2]

Writing in The Washington Post, Philip Kennicott described a closed-mouth photograph as "strongly constructed, with aggressive angles that reflect the chaos and drama of the moment, and a powerful balance of color, all red, white and blue, including the azure sky above and the red-and-white decorative banner below. Trump seems to emerge from within a deconstructed version of its basic colors." Kennicott wrote that "It is a photograph that could change America forever", comparing it to the Zapruder film and the 1988 image of Michael Dukakis in a tank. "Vucci's photo will create a reality more real than reality, transforming the chaos and messiness of a few moments of peril onstage in Pennsylvania into a surpassing icon of Trump's courage, resolve and heroism", Kennicott wrote. He described it as "Densely packed with markers of nationalism and authority — the flag, the blood, the urgent faces of federal agents in dark suits", and predicted that it will encourage more political violence. ^[8]

Benjamin Wallace-Wells of The New Yorker wrote of an uncropped closed-mouth photograph, "It is already the indelible image of our era of political crisis and conflict." He noted that "some of the elements in Vucci's image are familiar from the countless others of Trump", and concluded, "It is an image that captures him as he would like to be seen, so perfectly, in fact, that it may outlast all the rest." ^[7] AP News said they were "an extraordinary illustration of Trump’s raw political instincts and of how keenly aware he is of the images he projects", and called them "iconic photographs and video that are sure to become an indelible part of history." ^[9] The Spectator's Fraser Nelson shared a similar sentiment. ^[10]

Tyler Austin Harper of The Atlantic, describing one of the open-mouth photographs, wrote that it "became immediately legendary", and "However you feel about the man at its center, it is undeniably one of the great compositions in U.S. photographic history." Harper predicted that the photograph would be used in campaign merchandise and advertisements, and that the image will help Trump win the election. Harper wrote, "I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that the photo is nearly perfect, one captured under extreme duress and that distills the essence of a man in all his contradictions." ^[4] Yudhajit Shankar Das of India Today anticipated Vucci's work as a "defining photograph of US history", and noted that his prior work photographing in war-torn Iraq likely absolved him of fear of bullets. Das mused that Vucci's work could "act as the Napalm Girl" of the 2024 election. ^[11]

Carla Bleiker of Deutsche Welle described one of the closed-mouth photographs as an "image for the history books". She compared it with Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, writing, "Trump's raised fist and his facial expression, accentuated by the blood splatters across his cheek, can be read as an declaration of defiance in the face of adversity", in an "'I'm still standing'-gesture". ^[1] Bleiker compared the US flag that is the centerpiece of the Iwo Jima image to the US flag in the background of Vucci's image, noting the flag's importance as a cultural image to Americans, especially conservative Americans. ^[1] One photo, an open-mouthed one, was used as a cover for the August 5, 2024, issue of Time magazine. ^[12]

See also

• Mug shot of Donald Trump
• Public image of Donald Trump
• List of photographs considered the most important

References