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Donald Trump said on Monday he is “supposed to be dead” after surviving an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.
In one of his first interviews since the incident, the former president claimed he felt that he had been saved “by luck or by God” as he recalled the moment a gunman opened fire at him on Saturday.
He called the attempt made on his life a “very surreal experience,” telling the New York Post: “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead.”
He added that the doctor at the hospital where he was treated said he “never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle”.
Mr Trump vowed an entirely new speech when he accepts the Republican White House nomination this week, projecting the need for unity even as a furious blame game rages over the attack.
“The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,” the former president, 78, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.”
Mr Trump said he would no longer aim to rile up his base at the Republican convention in Milwaukee opening today, after claiming that divine intervention saved him from a sniper’s bullet at the open-air rally.
He said: “This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago.”
The King has written privately to Mr Trump, Buckingham Palace said on Monday morning, after Sir Keir Starmer reached out by phone to hold his first conversation with the former president since becoming Prime Minister.
The four-day Republican convention has turned from a political carnival into a much more sombre event leading up to the candidate’s closing speech, and thrown a stronger spotlight on Mr Trump’s imminent choice of a vice presidential candidate.
The former reality TV presenter has likened his selection process to a “highly sophisticated version of The Apprentice”. The shortlist includes senators JD Vance (Ohio), Marco Rubio (Florida) and Tim Scott (South Carolina), along with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
The iconic imagery from Pennsylvania, showing Mr Trump bloodied but unbowed, could sway an already tight White House race further his way with the 81-year-old President Joe Biden dogged by doubts about his mental and physical stamina.
Mr Biden appealed for calm and unity, after speaking to his rival shortly after the attack. But Republicans accused him and the Democrats of having set the stage by portraying the former president as a would-be dictator who would upend democracy if he wins in November.
But Mr Trump, who has never accepted his defeat by Mr Biden in 2020, has a long history of incendiary rhetoric with comments encouraging violence against his opponents, not least when his supporters stormed Capitol Hill in early 2021.
“That reality is just setting in,” he told the newspaper the day after the attack at a showground in Butler, Pennsylvania. “I rarely look away from the crowd. Had I not done that in that moment, well, we would not be talking today, would we?”
He said that when he was surrounded by Secret Service agents trying to get him to safety, he raised his fist to show that he was alive and to declare “that America goes on, we go forward, that we are strong”.
The Secret Service denied accusations by some Trump allies that it had rejected a campaign request for more security, but questions mounted over how the gunman managed to get so close and why law enforcement officers failed to intervene sooner when he was spotted by members of the crowd.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot dead at the scene by Secret Service snipers after he opened fire from the roof of a nearby building, prompting vows of official inquiries from Republicans about the serious security lapse.
One man in the crowd was killed and two others seriously wounded. Firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, was said to have died trying to protect his family from the hail of bullets.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro said: “Political disagreements can never, ever be addressed through violence.”
One shot hit Mr Trump’s upper right ear, leaving his face streaked with blood, but he was not severely injured and emerged from the melee pumping his fist to the screaming crowd and shouting “fight”.
FBI officials said that Crooks acted alone and had used a semi-automatic rifle that appeared to have been legally bought by his father. The bureau said it had yet to identify any ideology linked to the suspect or any mental health issues.
The gunman was a registered Republican but had also donated $15 to a Democratic committee when he was 17. He had been working as a food assistant at a nursing home, which said there were no concerns about his job performance.
