In his speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, former President Donald Trump shared a deeply emotional account of the assassination attempt on him last Saturday during a rally in Butler, Pa.
“Let me begin this evening by expressing my gratitude to the American people for your outpouring of love and support following the assassination attempt at my rally on Saturday,” Trump said. “As you already know, the assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life. So many people have asked me, ‘what happened? Tell us what happened, please.’ And therefore, I will tell you exactly what happened, and you’ll never hear it from me a second time because it’s actually too painful to tell.”
“It was a warm, beautiful day in the early evening in Butler Township in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Music was loudly playing and the campaign was doing really well. I went to the stage and the crowd was cheering wildly. Everybody was happy. I I began speaking very strongly, powerfully, and happily, because I was discussing the great job my administration did on immigration at the southern border,” the former president explained.
“We were very proud of it. and to the right was a large screen that was displaying a chart of border crossings under my leadership. The numbers were absolutely amazing. In order to see the chart, I started to, like this, turn to my right, and was ready to begin a little bit further turn, which I’m very lucky I didn’t do, when I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear,” Trump continued.
Multiple angles of the shooting clearly show that the former president turned his head at the exact moment to dodge the assassin’s bullet. “I said to myself, ‘wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet.’ And moved my right hand to my ear, brought it down. My hand was covered with blood, just absolutely blood all over the place. I immediately knew it was very serious, that we were under attack. And in one movement, proceeded to drop to the ground,” Trump recounted.
“Bullets were continuing to fly as very brave Secret Service agents rushed to the stage, and they really did. and they really did. They rushed to the stage,” he continued, leading audience members to rise in honor of the agents who evacuated the former president. He went on to say that he believes he is alive through divine intervention. “I’m not supposed to be here tonight. Not supposed to be here,” Trump said. The crowd then replied with shouts of “no” and erupted into chants of “yes you are!”
“Thank you. But I’m not,” the former president replied. “And I’ll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God… In watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential In watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment.”
WATCH:
Trump recounts the assassination attempt
“There was blood pouring everywhere and yet in a certain way I felt very safe because I had God on my side”
Most powerful acceptance speech of all time pic.twitter.com/Rowarp0TwR
— johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) July 19, 2024
