Former US President Donald Trump, after surviving an assassination attempt that he described as a “very surreal experience,” said in an interview broadcast by CNN on Sunday, “I have to die.” New York Post.
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“I shouldn't be here, I should be dead,” Donald Trump told the newspaper during an interview aboard his plane bound for Milwaukee to attend the Republican Party convention, where he is expected to be confirmed as the party's presidential nominee.
“It was a very surreal experience,” he said of the attack, wearing a white bandage over his right ear, according to the newspaper.
The 78-year-old former president and new White House candidate was shot in the ear and evacuated after multiple shots killed one person and seriously wounded two others among the spectators during a rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The Republican said that if he had not tilted his head slightly to the right to look at a table displayed in front of the audience about illegal immigrants, he would have died, the conservative newspaper reported.
“It's luck or God's grace, a lot of people say it's God's grace that I'm still here,” he said.
Secret Service agents, the elite police force responsible for protecting prominent political figures, congratulated the shooter on killing him.
“They shot him between the eyes,” he said. “They did a great job.” “It’s surreal for all of us.”
Images of Donald Trump raising his fist in defiance of the crowd as officers led him away have spread around the world.
“A lot of people say it's the most famous picture they've ever seen,” he said. “They're right and I didn't die. Usually you have to die to get an iconic picture.”
After the assassination attempt, Trump said he rewrote the speech he had prepared for the Republican convention.
He said he had “prepared a very tough speech” about the “terrible Biden administration” but scrapped it for a speech he hoped would “unite the country.”
“But I don't know if that's possible. People are so divided.”
