‘I Shouldn’t Be Here, I Should Be Dead!’ Donald Trump Gives First Interview Since Shooting Attack
Trump said his shoes were knocked off his feet when Secret Service agents threw him to the ground.
Lucky Donald Trump has admitted he is “supposed to be dead” in his first interview since surviving a botched assassination attempt.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the ex-president – shot in the ear by gun-mad maths geek loner Thomas Crooks during his campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday – opened up about dodging death by inches while flying to Milwaukee on Sunday to attend this week's Republican National Convention.
Questions have been raised by lawmakers about the failures that allowed Crooks to fire off so many shots before he was stopped.
He told reporters: “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead.”
On Saturday, Trump, 78, became the first presidential candidate to be targeted in an assassination attempt since President Ronald Reagan in March 1981 – with a photo capturing a bullet whizzing inches past his head, a nanosecond after he made a turn that just saved him from being blasted in the brain.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shooter whose picture was first revealed to the world by RadarOnline.com, let off a volley of shots from a high-powered AR-15 rifle while perched in a sniper position on a roof 130 yards from the stage of Trump’s MAGA rally on Saturday.
With a bandage over his ear on Sunday, Trump told The New York Post and The Washington Examiner the shooting was a “very surreal experience.” He also called his survival a “miracle”.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shooter, was killed by a counter sniper after firing several rounds toward the stage and into the crowd.
Trump said: “The doctor at the hospital said he never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle.”
Crooks was “neutralised” by Secret Service agents after he fired off nine bullets toward Trump’s head – killing one rally attendee dead and critically wounding two others.
One bullet grazed the ex-president’s right ear, with Trump saying he felt bullets “whizzing” by him and his flesh tear.
Trump praised his secret service protection by saying: “They took him out with one shot right between the eyes. They did a fantastic job.”
Witnesses of Crooks being blasted to death.
He added: “It’s surreal for all of us.”
Trump also discussed the already-iconic photo of him rising from behind his podium with a defiant fist in the air in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s carnage.
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The 2024 presidential candidate, set to be officially named the Republican Party’s nominee in Milwaukee this week, added: “A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen.
“They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually, you have to die to have an iconic picture.
Trump just before being captured in the now-iconic photo of him fist-pumping the air after he was shot in the ear.
“By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God, I’m still here.”
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Former First Lady Melania Trump has also since broken her silence regarding Saturday’s failed assassination attempt against her ex-president husband.
In a statement on Sunday morning, she proclaimed the “winds of change have arrived” and thanked the Secret Service for their protection.
She added: “When I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and Barron’s life, were on the brink of devastating change.
“This morning, ascend above the hate, the vitriol, and the simple-minded ideas that ignite violence.
“The winds of change have arrived.”
President Joe Biden addressed the nation from the White House on Sunday night to call for unity across the nation.
President Joe Biden addressed the nation from the White House on Sunday night to call for unity after Saturday's startling developments.
The 81-year-old president, who is facing mounting calls to withdraw from the 2024 race for the White House amid concerns about his age and mental sharpness, insisted politics “must never be a literal battlefield”.
He said: “Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy. It’s part of human nature. But politics must never be a literal battlefield, or God forbid, a killing field.”
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