Politics
Trump Assassination Attempt Photo Wins Top Pulitzer Prize
The New York Times photographer who captured the eerie moment before President Donald Trump was nearly shot and killed has been awarded one of journalism’s most prestigious awards.
Pulitzer Prize winners were announced in a Monday night ceremony that was made all the more remarkable for recognition of the photograph by Doug Mills; in it, a speeding bullet can be seen flying by Trump’s head moments before the shot rang out and Secret Service agents tackled him to the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The July 13, 2024, rally became synonymous with Trump’s unwillingness to back down in the face of opposition, even if it is deadly. He rose from beneath a pack of agents to chant “fight, fight, fight” while pumping his blood-stained right hand in the air, another significant moment captured by Mills and other photographers in the pool.
Days after the shooting, Mills spoke about the hysteria surrounding him that day and how he held his position even as he knew he was facing fire from a deranged gunman.
“I just happened to be down, shooting with a wide-angle lens just below the president when he was speaking. There was a huge flag waving right above his head, and I just happened to be taking pictures at the same time,” he said during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
“Then, when I heard the pops, I guess I kept hitting on the shutter, and then I saw him reach for his [ear]. He grimaced and grabbed his hand and looked. It was blood, and then he went down, and I thought, ‘Dear God, he’s been shot,'” he continued.
It was only after he sat down to begin editing his initial shots that he was “surprised” to notice the rifle round whizzing by the president’s head.
“I was like, ‘Oh, hell. I remember taking pictures of him when this happened. Let me go back and look.’ I started looking at it. I started sending them right away, and I called one of the editors and said, ‘Please look at these really closely. This might have been near the moment where he was shot,’” he told Fox News.
“She called me back like five minutes later and said, ‘You won’t believe this.’ She goes, ‘We actually see a bullet flying behind his head, and I was like, ’Oh my gosh.'”
For photographers eager to know which camera Mills relied on during the most important moment of his career, he said he shot the Butler rally on a Sony a1 camera.
“Doug Mills of The New York Times won the breaking news photography prize for his photos capturing the attempted assassination of President Trump last year, including an image in which a bullet can be seen,” New York Times’ media reporter Katie Robertson wrote about Mills.
In addition, the paper won three other Pulitzers for stories on Sudan, Afghanistan and Baltimore.
This is the full clip.
1- shots on trump
2- ss returns fire
3- you hear “shooter is down”
4- they stand trump up
5- he asks to get his shoes
6- fist pumps and fightTruly unreal.
— tyler hogge (@thogge) July 13, 2024
