Trump’s full statement on his assassination

Donald Trump described the attempt on his life during his speech to the RNC on Thursday night, saying the crowd believed he had been killed and that he survived “only by the grace of Almighty God.”

When Trump took the stage in Milwaukee, he wore a bandage over his right ear, where he had been hit by a gunman’s bullet at the rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend.

“I shouldn’t be here tonight,” Trump said.

Read his full remarks on the shooting below.

The assassin’s bullet would have missed me by a quarter of an inch. So many people have asked me, “What happened? Please tell us what happened?” And so I’m going to 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 state of Pennsylvania. There was loud music playing and the campaign was going really well. I walked on stage and the crowd cheered wildly. Everyone was happy. I started speaking very forcefully and powerfully… because I was talking about the great job my administration had done on immigration at the southern border. We were very proud of that.

Behind me to the right was a large screen showing a map of the border crossings under my leadership. The numbers were absolutely astonishing. To see the map I started to turn to the right and was ready to turn a little more, which thankfully I didn’t when I heard a loud hiss and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear. I said to myself, “Wow, what was that? That can only be a bullet,” and moved my right hand to my ear and brought it down. My hand was covered in blood, it was covered in blood all over. I knew immediately that it was very serious that we were being attacked and I dropped to the ground. The bullets continued to fly while very brave secret service agents rushed the stage and pounced on me to keep me protected. Blood was pouring everywhere. Again, I felt very safe in a way because I had God on my side. The amazing thing is: If I hadn’t moved my head at the very last moment before the shot, the assassin’s bullet would have hit its target perfectly and I wouldn’t be here tonight.

The most incredible thing about what happened that terrible evening in the setting sun, as you probably know, in almost all cases became apparent later. And when even a single bullet is fired, just a single bullet, and we had many bullets fired, the crowds of people run in panic to the exits, but not in this case. This huge crowd of tens of thousands stood there and did not move an inch. In fact, many of them bravely and automatically stood up to look for a sniper and then began to aim at him. You can see that if you look at the group behind me, which was just a small group compared to the one in front of me. Nobody ran, and by not panicking, many lives were saved. But that is not the reason they did not move. The reason is that they knew I was in very serious trouble. They saw me fall to the ground. They saw the blood and thought, most thought I was dead. They knew it was a shot to the head and they saw the blood. And there’s an interesting statistic: the ears are the bloodiest part. Something happens to the ears – they bleed more than any other part of our body for some reason. The doctors explained that to me. I asked, “Why is it bleeding so much?” and they said, “It’s the ears.” So you learn something. But they, this wonderful crowd, wouldn’t leave me.

Bullets flew overhead, but I felt calm. But now these secret service agents were entering very dangerous territory. Bullets flew right over them, missing them by inches, and then it all stopped. Our secret service sniper killed the assassin from a much greater distance and with just one bullet.

I wasn’t supposed to be here tonight. I wasn’t supposed to be here. It’s only by the grace of Almighty God that I stand before you in this arena. The reports over the last few days say it was a providential moment. When I stood up, I was surrounded by Secret Service. The crowd was confused because they thought I was dead, and there was great, great sadness. I could see it in their faces, they didn’t know I was looking. I could see it. To show them that I was OK, I raised my right arm, looked at the thousands and thousands of people waiting, and I started to shout, “Fight, fight.”

Once I got the ball high in the air, the crowd knew I was OK. For the rest of my life, I will be grateful for the love that huge crowd showed, for the Patriots who stood bravely on that fateful night in Pennsylvania.