Former President Donald Trump opened his presidential nominating speech with an emotional recounting of the shooting at his rally last week that left him injured and killed another.
Former President Donald Trump opened his presidential nomination speech with an emotional recounting of the shooting at his rally last week that left him injured and killed another.
For more than 10 minutes, Trump recounted to the Republican National Convention in vivid details his observations of the attack on the « warm, beautiful day in the early evening in Butler township in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. »
Trump, in a more subdued and somber tone than his usual bombast, said that he felt something hit his ear, and that he « felt very safe, because I had God on my side. »
« I’m not supposed to be here tonight », Trump said as the crowd responded « Yes you are! » « Not supposed to be here . I thank you, but I’m not, and I’ll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God. »
Here’s the transcript from Trump’s speech discussing the assassination attempt:
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. 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 began speaking, very strongly, powerfully and happily, because I was discussing the great job my administration did on immigration at the southern border. We were very proud of it.
[Applause] Behind me 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. 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. It was 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. Bullets were continuing to fly. I was very brave. Secret Service agents rushed to the stage and they really did, they rushed to the stage.
These are great people, at great risk I will tell you, and pounced on top of me so that I would be protected. There was blood pouring everywhere. And yet, in a certain way, I felt very safe because I had God on my side.
