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Donald Trump has revealed what Joe Biden told him on a phone call after the former president was bloodied during an assassination attempt at a campaign rally earlier this month.
The 78-year-old narrowly avoided being fatally shot while standing on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 as local resident Thomas Crooks opened fire with a semi-automatic assault rifle from a rooftop.
On Monday, during a pre-recorded prime time interview with Fox News, seated next to his nominated running mate JD Vance, the former president revealed the seven-words Biden said to him following his near-death experience.
“‘You’re lucky you turned to the right,’” Trump said the president told him.
Host Jesse Watters quipped that “this country would be lucky if it turned to the right” before Trump added that his chat with Biden was a “nice conversation”.
Biden described the phone call with Trump as “very cordial” in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on July 15 – just two days after the shooting.
“I told him he was literally in the prayers of Jill and me, and his whole family was weathering this,” he said.
The former president was struck in the right ear during Crooks’ assassination attempt, which saw three people shot, including firefighter Corey Comperatore killed during the volley of bullets.
Trump refused to be taken away on a stretcher, he told Watters, and instead defiantly pumped his fist in the air as blood trickled down his face. Sporting a much smaller bandage than at the Republican National Convention, he added that his ear is “getting much better”.
Crooks, a 20-year-old registered Republican who was identified the following day by the FBI, was shot dead by a member of the Secret Service sniper team as he fired at the former president. The Bureau is continuing to investigate the shooting, while the gunman’s motivations remain unclear.
Some Republicans have blamed Biden for the assassination attempt after the president said, “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye,” in a statement made in private to donors just days before the bloody rally.
Biden admitted to Holt that it was “a mistake to use that word”.
“I didn’t say crosshairs. I meant bullseye, I meant focus on him. Focus on what he’s doing, focus on his policies, focus on the number of lies he told in the debate,” he told the Nightly News anchor.
Georgia representative Mike Collins shared part of the Biden quote on X and said that “Joe Biden sent the orders”.
Several prominent Republicans, including JD Vance, blamed Democrats for perpetuating conditions for violence by branding Trump a threat to democracy.
There is no evidence tying the president’s comments to the attack.
