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Near the start of his speech at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, Donald Trump spoke about Corey Comperatore, who was killed in the shooting at the former president’s campaign rally last month.
Trump held a moment of silence for Comperatore, whom he called "a hero to all of us." Yet even as he honored the late firefighter, Trump appeared to make an off-the-cuff quip while talking about his widow’s grief.
The GOP presidential nominee told the crowd that a friend of his had given Comperatore's family a $1 million check, and he also made reference to money donated to the family's GoFundMe.
"But you know what? Corey's wife said, 'I'd rather have my husband,'” Trump said.
“Isn’t that good? I know a lot of wives that would not say that — I’m sorry," he continued, as the crowd laughed. "They would not say that."
Trump's unfiltered manner of speaking has long been a quality reviled by his critics and beloved by his supporters. His crude attempts at levity and flippant comments in somber situations — especially while he was in office — have contributed to a longstanding perception that he's callous and unempathetic.
Comperatore, 50, was killed while trying to protect his wife and two young daughters when a 20-year-old gunman opened fire at Trump's campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. Two other men, David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, were critically wounded but have since been released from the hospital.
Comperatore's family said that Trump reached out to them days after the shooting. His widow, Helen Comperatore, has said that President Joe Biden also called her family that weekend, but she declined to speak with him out of respect for her husband, who she said was a "devout Republican."
“I support Trump. That’s who I’m voting for, but I don’t have ill will towards Biden,” she told the New York Post at the time.