Former vice-president Mike Pence said on Sunday that “there is no place in America for political violence” of the sort that targeted his former boss Donald Trump at a Republican rally.
Such violence, Pence added on social media platform X, “must be universally condemned”.
Trump, who is poised to receive his party’s formal nomination at a Republican convention this week in Wisconsin, said he was shot in the right ear during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The attack killed a bystander and left two other spectators critically wounded, while the shooter was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
The 78-year-old Trump, with blood on his face, responded by pumping his fist to the stunned crowd before Secret Service agents hustled him from the scene.
Pence said on X that he and his wife Karen “are praying for his full recovery and for those lost and injured in this horrific attack”.
The former vice-president was among Trump’s most loyal supporters until the events of January 6, 2021, when in defiance of his boss he refused to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, and angry Trump backers swarmed the US Capitol, some calling for Pence’s head.
Pence later accused the billionaire of endangering his life and his family’s through his inflammatory rhetoric ahead of the assault on the Capitol.
A Christian evangelical, Pence further angered his former boss during this year’s Republican primaries by briefly running against him.
Supporters of the former president now view Pence as a traitor, and Trump, who is expected soon to announce his choice of a running mate, has ruled out any prospect of turning again to the former Indiana governor.