'Brick Suit Guy' reveals where he got his famous outfit, what it was like being at 70 Trump rallies, and the horror of seeing the President shot from the front row

By NICK ALLEN, US NEWS EDITOR (POLITICS) Published: 20:51, 28 May 2026 | Updated: 20:51, 28 May 2026 On stage at a rally in Montoursville, Pennsylvania in May 2019, Donald Trump looked out across a sea of red hats but there was one supporter who stood out. 'Get him up here,' Trump yelled. 'Come on up here. Look at this guy!' Blake Marnell made his way to the stage wearing a suit designed to look like a wall. Trump embraced him and, to wild cheers, hailed the success of his own border policy in stopping illegal immigration. 'Brick Suit Guy' was born. Marnell went on to wear the suit at about 70 chaotic campaign rallies, becoming perhaps the most photographed member of Trump's political base and an enduring symbol of the fervor of core supporters. In July 2024, when the President survived an assassination attempt at an event in Butler, Pennsylvania, Marnell was in the front row, close enough to see the blood on Trump's ear, and to hear him shout 'Fight, Fight Fight'.  His response was: 'Yes, Yes, Yes.' After Butler and the later assassination of conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, big outdoor rallies have become less common. Although Trump will campaign for Republicans in the midterms, and his party's successor in 2028, the era of frenetic, almost daily MAGA jamborees in fields and parking lots across the nation may be over or, at least, never fully return. Donald Trump calls Blake Marnell to the stage during a 'Make America Great Again' campaign rally at Williamsport Regional Airport, on May 20, 2019, in Montoursville, Pennsylvania  Blake Marnell, AKA 'Brick Suit Guy', in his spare time at the National Archives researching historical railroads  For Marnell, 61, a retired sales worker from San Diego, it all began in 2019 when he decided to take his support for Trump from online to the real world amid a crackdown on social media. 'There were stories about people being assaulted for wearing MAGA gear in public but, more importantly, it was a time when [MAGA] people were being taken offline,' he told the Daily Mail. 'In 2018 and 2019, you started seeing a lot of people being kicked off of YouTube and Facebook and Twitter. I understand that those are all private companies, and you don't get absolute free speech online, so I decided I would start expressing myself in public and started wearing a [MAGA] hat.' After going to a couple of rallies, he decided to take things further. A trip to a history convention left him with two free days in Washington DC and he planned to make a political statement by walking around the capital in an outfit people would not ignore. 'I thought, "I got to do more than just wear hats," so I ordered the suit. It's not custom made. It's actually a costume suit and it is what you would call, perhaps, fancy dress,' Marnell said. 'It's a stag suit sold for the market in England, made by an English company as a novelty suit. They're suits with a funny pattern for individuals to buy or for groups. From what I understand, with the dress code at some of the clubs in London, you have to wear a suit. But there's nothing to say you have to wear a nice suit. So for these stag parties, these stag suits, all the guys, I guess, wear similar clothing. 'They get to go out and not be afraid if they get a little bit too drunk and fall down and rip a knee because the suit only costs, like, 80 bucks. 'It's the best $80 I ever spent, definitely,' Marnell told the Daily Mail. Blake Marnell became known as the 'Brick Suit Guy' and attended scores of Trump rallies in the 2020 and 2024 campaigns  'Brick Suit Guy' minus suit but with an apt hat at the Trump International Hotel in 2025  'Brick Suit Guy' and an ICE truck at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in December 2025 The day before he left San Diego for Washington, Trump scheduled the Montoursville rally so Marnell went there instead and wore the border wall suit for the first time. 'I thought the most that would happen is he would see me in the audience and give me a thumbs up, or say "nice suit" or whatever, but he actually called me up on stage,' he recalled. 'And when the President of the United States calls you up on stage in a brick suit, you kind of have a choice to make. You can put it in the closet and never wear it again and just think about that one day, or you can lean into it and do some stuff with it in a political way. And that's what I decided to do. 'I think of it as being a meme in real life. It's a metaphor for his core position of strong borders. And I think he did a great job in the first term, and that never should have become an issue again. 'But the Biden administration kind of reversed a lot of stuff on the border and made, I think, the border issue even stronger in 2024 than it was in 2016 or 2020.' As he followed Trump during the 2020 and 2024 campaigns, Marnell racked up thousands of miles in rental cars heading to swing states, including Michigan and Wisconsin. He also bought more suits, all sourced from the UK. 'I thought, if I'm going to do this, I'm gonna need more than one suit because I'm thinking maybe Antifa is gonna throw paint on me or whatever,' he said. 'You know, I need backups. I scoured the internet to find whatever last remaining inventory I could find, and was able to buy three more suits. Three of them are the highest amount that will ever be in one place and the fourth suit is stored off site. 'It's the 'Designated Survivor Suit' so even if my luggage gets lost at a convention, or my house gets hit by a meteorite, I still have one suit.' Blake Marnell goes through security at a Trump town hall event Marnell with Steve Hilton, Republican candidate for Governor of California Ultimately, the rally that eclipsed all the others was Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. Marnell, who had become an RNC delegate for California, was heading to Milwaukee for the party convention when Trump announced the Butler event, and there was speculation he might reveal his running mate. 'I decided to go to Butler at kind of the last minute,' said Marnell. 'I get there, it's a rally, much like any other rally. I do remember feeling that the security going in was even better than normal, because normally they have TSA that does the screening. 'But because there was a TSA labor shortage at the Pittsburgh airport, the screening at the metal detectors was done by the Secret Service, and it's the first time when I can ever remember the Secret Service people doing the screening at the magnetometers.' When Trump took the stage, Marnell was in the front row, right in the center, about 10 yards away 'President Trump is at basically my 12 o'clock. I'm looking straight at him and he mentions the charts coming up, and he looks to the one that's on his right, so it's on my left. I turn and I'm actually looking at the chart, and that's when the first series of gunfire comes out. 'I don't register it as gunfire. I thought it was like firecrackers. I've fired guns before but I've never been down range of a rifle and it just sounds different. I now, unfortunately, know what it sounds like, but at that time I didn't, so my initial reaction I was actually standing up for a little bit. 'I thought it was coming from my left, so I looked to my left. And then when I looked back at the lectern, all I could see was Secret Service running up, and then more shots rang out. And that's when I realized, you know, it was an assassination attempt. 'I could hear what's going on a little bit. They [the Secret Service agents] said something like, "Let's get ready to move him," and I'm thinking, you know, that doesn't sound good, are they carrying him? Is he OK? 'They stood him up five seconds later, and I was close enough that I could see that the blood was coming from the top of his ear. President Trump's Butler PA rally, what I filmed from the front row immediately after the attempt on President Trump's life.Wasn't ready to post this until today. pic.twitter.com/9CUFwOvY1s Blake Marnell was close by when President Donald Trump was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024; 'He looked completely lucid and defiant.' 'When he did the "fight, fight, fight," I think I screamed "yes" like three times. And I'm just going, "yes, yes, yes." And then, as he's being led off the stage, I'm like, it could just be his ear, it could just be his ear. He was walking under his own power. 'I could see his face, and I could see a defiant look in his face when he raised his fist up. I could see his expression, he looked completely lucid and defiant. 'I was still concerned that he might have an injury similar to Ronald Reagan did where, you know, he took a bullet in the chest that they didn't discover until later, but at least it appeared to me that he was ambulatory, didn't need significant assistance walking.' One of the things that still stands out to Marnell is the reaction of the crowd around him. Nobody panicked. 'There were people screaming, yes, there were people afraid, yes, people praying, people angry, but nobody ran. You didn't see a stampede of any type,' he said. 'My viewpoint was that I was more concerned with the health of the President than my own safety and I imagine there were many other people the same way.' One thing that angers him now is seeing video footage he took from a different vantage point to the television cameras being used online to advance conspiracy theories that the assassination attempt was staged. He says that such claims are false, and condemns them as 'all sorts of bulls***t.' Trump greets the 'Brick Suit Guy' on stage at a rally in Pennsylvania in 2019  As the midterms approach, Marnell is dusting off his border wall suit and getting ready to hit the road again for Republican rallies and events celebrating America's 250th birthday. 'Now I am fully retired, I'm looking forward to doing a little bit more traveling and seeing some of the events that are going to be happening this summer,' he said. 'I don't know if I'll be on the road for such an extended period of time as I was in the 2024 election but I will be trying to make it to as many rallies as I can get to. There's going to be some key Senate races and those are the states where President Trump will go to shore up support.' The events may be smaller, though, including ones at airports where Trump flies in and speaks to a limited crowd in a hangar. 'I don't think from a security standpoint we are going to see as many large rallies. So, you know, the days of the arena rallies of the 2020 campaign, pre-COVID, those are gone,' Marnell said. 'There'll still be occasional ones but I think, for the most part, they'll be a little bit smaller. 'I'd be highly surprised if they go back to the big arena rallies, but they are making noise about possibly doing a convention. If they do a convention, that might be in a basketball-size arena.' Meanwhile, Marnell is also turning his attention to supporting the British-American Republican Steve Hilton for California governor. 'When 2028 rolls around, I'm going to be completely on the road,' he said. 'By that time, I envision having a motorhome, being fully self sufficient, and just being able to drive from one location to another, and not having to worry about plane seats and luggage, and where I'm sleeping – and getting my suits dry cleaned.' No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. 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