No, this photo doesn’t show Barron Trump in the crowd at Pennsylvania rally shooting

Some social media users are circulating a photo they say shows Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron, at a Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally where a shooter opened fire on the former president.

A July 14 Threads post includes a photo of Barron standing among a crowd of Trump supporters with his arms crossed over his chest. Text above the photo says, "Imagine having a front row seat to your dad getting shot in the head. Barron will never forget what they did to his father!"

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

(Screengrab from Threads)

Donald Trump said in a July 13 Truth Social post that one of the shooter’s bullets struck the upper part of his right ear. His campaign posted on X about an hour later saying Trump was "doing well." The FBI is investigating the shooting as an assassination attempt.

A reverse-image search using Google Images found that this photo of Barron was taken at a July 9 Trump campaign rally in Doral, Florida, four days before the shooting. The original photo shows a wider shot of the crowd behind Barron, whereas the Threads post’s photo is closely cropped.

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stated on July 14, 2024 in an Instagram post

A Secret Service agent named Jonathan Willis said he “had the assassin in his sights for 3 minutes, but he was told not to engage by the head of the (Secret Service) unit.”

Other photos and videos taken by The Associated Press, Getty Images and the New York Post at the Florida rally place Barron in the front row, next to other Trump family members. That was the first Trump campaign rally Barron, 18, has attended.

PolitiFact contacted Trump’s campaign to verify whether Barron attended the Pennsylvania rally, but did not receive a reply by publication.

Donald Trump’s wife, Melania, released a statement following the shooting; it did not say she and Barron were at the Pennsylvania rally.

We found no credible news reports that Barron attended the campaign rally in Pennsylvania. We also found no Associated Press or Getty Images photos or video footage of Barron at the July 13 rally.

We rate the claim that this photo shows Barron Trump at the July 13, 2024, Butler, Pennsylvania, rally False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

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