Brisbane Journalist Phoebe Hosier Recounts The Moment Trump Was Shot

Robin and Kip speak to Australian journalist Phoebe Hosier. Phoebe, who's usually located in Washington D.C., was at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania standing 50 metres away from the podium when shots were fired in the direction of former US president Donald Trump.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now, Phoebe, were you actually at the rally?

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (00:02):
And what capacity? Were you there just checking it out?
Are you a Trump supporter? What were you doing there?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
No? I am not as Trump supporter.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
I was there.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Purely out of journalistic curiosity. My boyfriend Sam and I
basically just wanted to witness the spectacle of Trump. Really,
I mean, this is a man that's dominated headlines, shaped
American politics, or completely overhauled it, I guess you'd say,
And so we thought, why not go and witness this.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Bloken the flesh.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, that's why we went.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Okay, So just to explain exactly what happened. We arrived there.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's a scorching hot day in rural Pennsylvania. It's on
an air strip. There's people in all kinds of Margaret
get up. As you can imagine. Donald Trump took roughly
one hour to appear on stage. We were standing roughly
fifty meters from the podium itself. If you could kind

(00:58):
of stand up on your tiptoes, you'd be able to
kind of catch a glimpse of him. And prior to
him coming on, the crowd was very patriotic, I'd say,
there was a lot of anger and hatred in the crowd.
I'd say it's fair to say as well, a lot
of f Joe Biden chance, all of that kind of jazz. Anyway,

(01:21):
when Trump eventually comes on, it's just like rapturous applause.
Trump had just begun talking about immigration. It was talking
about the undocumented migrants, which he calls illegals, and a
man to my right had yelled shoot him, shoot em all,
as in, shoot these migrants. Ironically, then only a few

(01:43):
moments after that we heard actual gunfire.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So did you know straightaway that that was gone fire?

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I think I did. I think just purely being a journalist,
I think you cover enough things that you just kind
of assume the scariest situation is probably what's happening. So yes,
I think I did. I did know. But what made
me question it was the reaction of people around me.
So there were quite a few people such as myself

(02:12):
who kind of were in disbelief for a moment and
then ducked down straight away to kind of.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Duck for cover. But there were also a lot of people.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Around us who were acting quite unfazed by the sound
of gunshots, which was shocking and kind of terrifying to
me in quite a chilling way, I guess just I
guess it speaks to the prevalence of gun violence in
America and how normalized it is for many Americans. But
I mean, for me, being from Brisy, I don't think
I've ever even seen a gun in my life, so

(02:42):
I was absolutely terrified, as you can imagine. So, yes,
then I guess the mood in the crowd. There are
some people who are crouched down, there are others still standing,
people are pretty panicked. There's you know, all kinds of
like things going through the crowd, people saying, oh my gosh,
did they get Trump, what's happening, et cetera. But then

(03:04):
that mood quickly dived and it turned into one of
like really palpable anger. A man and a few other
men around us kind of jumped to their feet and
yelled out, f Obama and f the terrorists. So there
was real anger about whoever this person was that tried
to kill you know, their preferred president, the presidential candidate,

(03:29):
and you know, their political hero.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Really, so tell me where the guy who was killed
was standing. Because of all the vision that we're seeing,
it's from sort of one angle and it doesn't seem
that anyone is concerned that someone else has been shot.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
I actually can't say with absolute certainty where it was
that he was killed, but from what I've pieced together
and from the kind of snippets of news that I've
been able to read in the past twenty four hours, basically,
there was a man who was to our right, not
actually that far from where we were standing. And as
we were all flooding out of the venue, people were

(04:05):
like screaming, crying, super distressed. Others were just strolling out
like nothing had happened. But one man I spoke with,
I quickly asked him like what he'd seen. He and
his fiance were standing to the right of where I was,
and they said that they saw a man not far
from him being shot in the stomach. So I suspect

(04:28):
that that may have sadly been the man that's died,
which makes me feel sick. But do you think that
I spoke.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
With was it a shot that was aimed at Trump
and it's missed and got that person?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Is that the thought? I honestly couldn't say for sure.
I don't. I don't know, but I mean it likely
would be. I think it might have perhaps been like
they were either trying to get Trump in that shot,
because if you considered the line of direction of where
that bullet would have been traveling, it kind of carries
on and then would have hit this guy, so that
that would make sense.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
But it sounds like you were right. You could have
been in the line of fire. Yeah, it was. It
was terrifying. Honestly, would you go back, I don't know
and do it again?

Speaker 2 (05:09):
God, I don't think so. I think it's kind of thing.
It's like one and done. I've seen it, done it,
you know, I get the sense of it. I think
I kind of understand Trump supporters more now. But no,
I don't think I need to revisit that at all.
I think this is the kind of thing that will
probably stay with me forever. Sadly.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Be well. I mean, I'm glad you're okay, mate. Oh
thanks guys, no stress at all, and thanks for chatting
with us. No worries guys. Bye,