“I should be dead”: Trump describes the split second moment that saved his life after an assassination attempt

Do you really support
independent journalism

Find out moreClose

Our mission is to provide unbiased, fact-based reporting that holds the powerful to account and exposes the truth.

Whether it’s $5 or $50, every contribution counts.

Support us in practicing journalism without an agenda.

Donald Trump said he “should be dead” as he spoke about the split second that saved his life when a would-be assassin opened fire during a campaign rally over the weekend.

In one of his first interviews since the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, the former president called his story of survival a “miracle” and claimed it gave him new perspective as he looked ahead to the Republican National Convention to “unite the country.”

“The doctor at the hospital said he had never seen anything like it, he called it a miracle,” Trump said. The New York Post while traveling to the event in Milwaukee.

“I shouldn’t be here. I should be dead. I should be dead.”

In a moment that will go down in history, the former president was the target of an assassination attempt.

Just minutes after he began his campaign speech on stage in Butler, gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on the former president from the roof of a building just outside the rally’s security perimeter.

Trump was hit in the ear by a bullet and jumped to the ground behind the podium while shots continued to be fired.

Secret service agents returned fire on the shooter and shot him dead at the scene.

Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old former fire chief who was attending the rally with his family, was killed when he threw his body over his loved ones to protect them from the gunman’s hail of bullets.

Two other participants in the rally – David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74 – were injured and hospitalized in critical condition. Their condition was updated to stable on Sunday afternoon.

Trump escaped the attack largely unscathed; the bullet merely grazed his ear.

The former president acknowledged that things would have turned out very differently if he hadn’t turned his head and looked at a graphic he was showing to the crowd at the exact moment a bullet was heading toward his head.

“Many people say that I am still here by luck or God,” he told Post Office, He described the attack as a “very surreal experience.”

Trump claimed the near-death experience caused him to tear up his RNC speech in which he sharply attacked Joe Biden and instead refocus on the need to “unite the country.”

As the nation continues to reel from the aftermath of the attack, which occurred less than 100 days before the November election, many questions about the day’s events remain unanswered.

The motive for the attack remains unclear. Authorities said Sunday that they are investigating Crooks’ background and are trying, among other things, to access his cellphone.

Explosive devices were discovered both in the shooter’s car, which was parked near the rally, and in his house.

Online records show that Crooks was registered to vote as a Republican, but federal campaign finance reports show that he also made a $15 donation to a Democratic-aligned political action committee called the Progressive Turnout Project on Jan. 20, 2021.

For Crooks’ family members, the motive for the gruesome attack also remains a mystery. His uncle Mark Crooks said: The Independent on Sunday morning that he had “no idea” why it happened.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Secret Service is increasingly coming under scrutiny over whether adequate security precautions were taken in the run-up to the political rally – and whether law enforcement responded quickly enough to reports of a “suspicious person” on the day of the rally.