(Ken Silva, Headline USA) CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane recently went on Meet the Press host Chuck Todd’s podcast to discuss his experience at the July 13, 2024, Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a gunman nearly took President Donald Trump’s life.
MacFarlane told Todd that he has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the assassination attempt, which also resulted in the death of firefighter Corey Comperatore and serious wounds for at least two others. But that’s not why MacFarlane has PTSD. Rather, he says he was scarred by the crowd’s reaction.
“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 said. “They were coming for us! If he didn’t jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us!”
🚨NEW: CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane tells Chuck Todd he got “PTSD” after Trump assassination attempt — *NOT* from the shooting, but because the crowd blamed the media🚨
“For those of us there, it was such a horror.”
“I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got… pic.twitter.com/JYeA7FZ90G
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) July 16, 2025
MacFarlane wrote numerous stories about the Justice Department’s prosecutions of Jan. 6, 2021, Captiol Hill protestors during the Biden administration. MacFarlane’s coverage was extremely favorable towards the DOJ.
MacFarlane wasn’t the only person from the Trump rally who professes to have PTSD. Two of the Secret Service’s counter-snipers left the deadly Trump rally believing that they took fire—with one of them telling Congress that he can’t use his agency’s radios anymore due to the trauma from the event, according to recently released interview transcripts.
“The sound that a radio transmission makes is the same sound as a round snapping by. So I can’t use them because it brings me back to that day,” he said. “I’m telling you, in my knowledge, training, and physical experience, a round was close enough for me to smack with my hand.”
Reacting to that disclosure, a Task Force member told him, “I’m sorry that some of those comms issues are bringing you back to that day. I can only imagine … That’s traumatic.”
The Task Force member then asked him if he believes the shots at him were fired by alleged gunman Thomas Crooks, to which the counter-sniper responded: “I couldn’t positively identify whether Crooks was shooting at me because I never saw Crooks, but if someone from Butler PD was engaging us, I have a list of questions for them.”
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
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