CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane says he got ‘PTSD' from Donald Trump assassination attempt because of crowd anger at media
'For those of us there, it was such a horror, because you saw an emerging America,' the reporter said of the attendees at Trump's campaign rally in Butler, Pa., who famously rushed to provide assistance to those injured in the shooting.
'I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave. Not because, I think, of the shooting, but because you could — you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people,' MacFarlane whimpered on an episode of 'The Chuck ToddCast' podcast.
'They were coming for us. If he didn't jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us,' he said in a reference to the now-iconic photo of a bloodied Trump pushing past his Secret Service detail to immediately yell, 'Fight! Fight! Fight!'
'Many of us on press row — because we talked about this on our text chains for weeks after — were quite confident we'd be dead if he didn't get back up,' he said. 'When he jumped up triumphantly, it saved us.'
MacFarlane further claimed 'dozens' of people in the audience that day instantly turned on members of the media, calling out 'You did this, this is your fault, you caused this, you killed him,' and speculating they were about to 'beat us with their hands.'
Host Chuck Todd, who said he was on a flight to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee at the time of the assassination attempt, said the US has become 'a tinderbox' in recent years.
'Look, let's be honest, we've been fearing this for about a decade. That all of this heightened rhetoric, all of this crap online, what happened on Jan. 6 … we're a tinderbox. There's a fear that this moment is coming,' he said before appearing to lend some credence to MacFarlane's unhinged assertions.
'The fact that we dodged that, you're right, I don't know what would have happened had the outcome been different.'
MacFarlane, hinting he hasn't quite fully shaken off the PTSD, added, 'I can't eliminate from my mind's eye the look in their faces,' he said, narrowing his gaze and affecting a grave tone.
'That's what America is right now. It's not rational. It's an irrational thought to think 'the media shot somebody from the top of the building.''
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire as Trump addressed the rally crowd on July 13, 2024, wounding the president and two others and killing former fire chief Corey Comperatore, who died protecting his family from the assassin's bullets.
Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper moments later.
Originally published as CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane says he got 'PTSD' from Donald Trump assassination attempt because of crowd anger at media
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