“I should be dead,” Trump tells the New York press after the assassination

MILWAUKEE

Former US President Donald Trump told the New York Post on Sunday that he “should have been dead” after surviving an assassination attempt that he described as a “very surreal experience”.

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“I shouldn’t be here. I should be dead,” Trump told the New York Post in an interview aboard his plane en route to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention, where he is expected to be confirmed as the party’s presidential nominee.

It was a “very surreal experience,” he said, covering his right ear with a white bandage, the newspaper said.

“It’s time to calm things down. We all have a responsibility to do that,” US President Joe Biden said in a televised address after the attack, in which Republican Trump was injured in the ear and a bystander was killed by gunfire.

As the country reeled from images of a bloodied Trump waving his fist after the gunman opened fire at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, Biden added that U.S. politics must “never be a battlefield in the truest sense of the word, God forbid, a killing field.”

The 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead by Secret Service agents amid the chaos. Authorities say his motive is still unclear.

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The FBI said it was investigating the attack as a possible act of domestic terrorism and was examining Crooks’ phone to determine any “ideologies” he may have had.

Trump said in a social media post that it was “more important than ever that we stand united,” adding that Americans must not allow “evil to win.”

Numerous Republicans – who themselves often pose with guns in political ads – claimed that extreme rhetoric from Democrats led to the shooting.

Trump has landed in Milwaukee for the Republican Party Convention, where he will be officially named the party’s candidate.

The US secret service stressed that its agency was “fully prepared” to provide security at the party convention, which is under close scrutiny because of the attempted assassination of Trump.

The agency must examine in detail how the shooter managed to climb onto a roof about 150 meters from Trump’s speech and fire several shots.

The FBI “views it as a possible act of domestic terrorism,” said Robert Wells, deputy director of the Counterterrorism Division.

The shooter’s father reportedly bought the semi-automatic weapon used in the attack, but it is unclear how the shooter obtained it. Investigators also found a “suspicious device” in the shooter’s car.

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Crooks’ former schoolmates described him as a quiet student who often seemed lonely.

“He was quiet, but he was just bullied. He was bullied so much,” Jason Kohler, who said he went to the same high school as Crooks, told reporters.

The attack threatens to further inflame tensions at an already heated moment in the race for the White House.