Donald Trump is facing backlash after he made a joke involving the man who died during his attempted assassination.
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The nation was left in shock when 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, targeting the 78-year-old Republican candidate.
Trump narrowly avoided serious injury, sustaining only an ear wound.
The attack, however, left one rally-goer dead and two others seriously injured.
Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old volunteer fire chief from Sarver, Pennsylvania, lost his life during the shooting.
His family says he sacrificed himself to protect them.
Trump is now under fire for making a controversial remark about Helen Comperatore, Corey's wife.
During a rally in Harrisburg on Wednesday, Trump claimed that a friend had given Helen a check for $1 million and that crowdfunding efforts for her family had amassed millions more.
“But you know what?” Trump addressed his supporters. “Corey’s wife said, ‘I’d rather have my husband.’”
Trump added: “Isn’t that good? I know a lot of wives that would not say that, I’m sorry. They would not say that.”
His comment was met with laughter from the audience.
“But no, it’s a great family. He was a great man. He was a brave man,” Trump said before leading a moment of silence in honor of Corey.
Critics on X, formerly known as Twitter, swiftly condemned Trump for what they perceived as turning Corey’s tragic death into a punchline.
"So heartless and unkind," one person wrote, with a second adding: "He's a self-centered sadistic monster."
"The dead guy is a prop and now a punchline. Cruel," a third said.
However, some were defending Trump, with a suggestion that he was actually poking fun at his wife Melania.
Helen revealed that Trump called her in the aftermath of her husband's death, and she was pleased to answer the call.
"He was very kind and said he would continue to call me in the days and weeks ahead,” Helen Comperatore shared on her private Facebook page, per the New York Post.
“I told him the same thing I told everyone else. He left this world a hero and God welcomed him in. He did not die in vain that day,” she wrote of her husband, according to a screenshot of the post.
Trump’s call comes after Helen declined to take a call from President Biden following her husband’s death.
"I didn’t talk to Biden," Helen stated from her Pennsylvania home on Monday, per the New York Post.
"I didn’t want to talk to him. My husband was a devout Republican, and he would not have wanted me to talk to him.
“I don’t have any ill will towards Joe Biden. I’m not one of those people that gets involved in politics. I support Trump. That’s who I’m voting for, but I don’t have ill will towards Biden,” Helen said.
“He didn’t do anything bad to my husband. A 20-year-old despicable kid did.”