MILWAUKEE — Scott Hogg was at a downtown Milwaukee hotel bar on Saturday, unwinding after days of meetings to help craft a platform before the Republican National Convention this week.
Hogg, a delegate from Camas, Clark County, said he was there with about 50 other RNC delegates. When former President Donald Trump took the stage to speak at a rally in Pennsylvania, they turned up the bar's TV volume and watched.
Minutes after Trump started shots rang out, fired by a 20-year-old would-be assassin perched on a nearby rooftop, according to the Secret Service. Trump ducked to the ground, grazed by a bullet, before getting back up to pump his fist defiantly in the air as he was hustled away by Secret Service agents.
At the Milwaukee hotel, Hogg and other Republicans watched in stunned silence.
"It was like 9/11. No one spoke. We just couldn't believe it was happening right in front of us, like buildings falling down in New York City on television right in front of us," Hogg said in an interview Sunday. "I don't care what your politics are. To think that this is what we have become is the most disheartening thing I've ever felt."
Like the rest of America, Washington's delegates to the GOP convention were coming to grips with the shocking news of the assassination attempt of Trump, who is set to be nominated this week to take on President Joe Biden in a rematch of their 2020 showdown.
On Sunday, as the bulk of Washington's RNC delegates arrived at their assigned hotel in the village of Menomonee Falls, about 20 miles northwest of Milwaukee, several said that despite rampant speculation online and from some high-profile political figures, they were waiting to learn more about what happened — and why.
Marlene Pfeifer, Washington's national Republican committeewoman, was at American Family Field, watching the Milwaukee Brewers play a home game against the Washington Nationals along with others, including state GOP Chair Jim Walsh. Then she got a text saying what had happened.
"The rest of the time we were on the phone. I have no idea who won the game," said Pfeifer, who lives in Ellensburg and chairs the Kittitas County Republicans. (The Nationals won 6-5.)
Pfeifer said she didn't know enough to pass judgment on the reasons for the attempt on Trump's life.
"It could just be one sick individual," she said.
Donna Russell, who lives in Stevens County and is attending her first Republican convention, said she was getting in her rental car from the airport Saturday when her phone started "blowing up" with texts. She immediately pored over news accounts online showing a spray of bullets nearly killing Trump.
"God was watching him. Because if he hadn't turned his head, he'd be dead," Russell said.
Russell said she and others are feeling angry about anti-Trump comments, such as Biden recently saying at a fundraiser Trump needs to be put "in the bull's-eye" (he was discussing focusing public attention on the consequences of a second Trump administration). But Russell said she doesn't think Biden was explicitly trying to incite violence, doubting his mental capacity to do so.
"What is wrong with our country that a 20-year-old would feel that this was his legacy?" she said, referring to the suspected shooter. "We may never know."
Political leaders, including Democrats and Republicans, have mostly condemned the violence and many have warned against jumping to conclusions before more is known about the shooter.
But some have blamed the media and Democrats for amping up their rhetoric and portraying Trump as a grave threat who has to be stopped.
Walsh, the state GOP chair, pointed to magazine covers and social media posts likening Trump to Hitler.
In an interview Sunday, Walsh said that while the suspected shooter's motivation may never be known, he believes strongly that "the stuff repeated as talking points in the intellectual media" and by some Democrats played a role.
"The phrases 'existential threat to democracy,' 'fascist,' literally 'Hitler' — I mean, come on. You can dislike Donald Trump. You can say he's a grubby New Yorker, you don't like his style. You don't like his policy. You don't like his judges. He's not Adolf Hitler. That was never true," he said.
Hogg, the delegate from Camas, said Sunday he's grateful the GOP convention is able to proceed and push Trump toward the White House again. "It's about celebrating him, and now we've got a bit more to celebrate," he said.
The convention officially starts Monday and runs through Thursday in downtown Milwaukee, which has been cordoned off with concrete barriers and tall metal fences.
Maybe, Hogg said, the U.S. can use the moment to cool down and come together.
"We have to figure out a way to be Americans first and political team members next," Hogg said. "We've got to come together as Americans right now. There is nothing more important, because we are going to lose the whole thing — all of us are going to lose the whole thing if this continues."
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