PALM BEACH, Florida — Former President Donald Trump told Breitbart News exclusively that when he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, in mid-July he knew instantly it was a bullet that had hit him.
“A lot of times, and I was thinking about this, it would seem like a surreal moment—like you don’t realize almost where you are,” Trump said when asked to describe what went through his mind in that moment. “I never felt that. I knew immediately I got hit by a bullet.”
Trump’s comments came during a lengthy exclusive interview at Mar-a-Lago a couple weeks ago, where he sat for an hour with Breitbart News after a press conference he held earlier in the day. One of the most interesting parts of the interview was Trump talking about the failed assassination attempt from 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks against him, and it was unbelievable to hear Trump himself describe just how lucky he was that the would-be assassin’s bullets barely missed him.
Trump, sitting behind his big ornate wooden desk, described to Breitbart News that he would be dead if he had not turned exactly the right way at exactly the right second.
“So what are the odds that I’m looking to the right?” Trump said. “The poster is never used early, and it’s never on the right it’s always on the left. If you take the odds of this whole thing it’s like 10 million to one and you only have an eighth of a second.”
As Trump said this, he started moving his head to various angles and pointing out he’d be dead in all but one angle in which he’s alive which he thankfully is today.
“I’m turning, and I’m dead here, I’m dead here, I’m dead here, dead, dead, alive, dead,” Trump said. “So, think, you only have this exact spot right here. This is an amazing phenomena. It’s millions to nothing. There’s about an eighth of a second where I’m good. The rest of the time you’re dead.”
Trump said the shooter was very close to him comparatively speaking, and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump—both avid shooters—are shocked that the shooter missed.
“Because [the shooter]was 130 yards away, which for a shooter is very little,” Trump said. “My son’s a shooter—he says that’s like a two-foot putt. He says it’s impossible. He said it’s like a one-foot putt. It’s impossible. He can’t believe it. Don is a real shooter, and so is Eric. They can’t believe it.”
Trump said the odds of him looking the exact right way at that exact right second are next to impossible.
“Number one, I’d never be looking there or there because there’s nobody there and the audience is maybe 55,000 people—it was packed,” Trump said. “The only reason I looked—I use that poster, that chart a maximum of 20 percent. I just don’t use it. It’s always at the end and it’s always on my left. The only time I use it is at the end of the speech. Now I say put up the poster and let’s go, here it is right here. Ping. I never do it during the early part. The only time I do it is at the end of the show and it’s always on my left—this time it was on my right. So what are the odds that I turn there because there’s nobody there and nobody to speak to there, because the fans are all up there and to the right or the left, but there’s no people there. You have the fences.”
Trump detailed the second he was shot as he continued explaining the angles that saved his life.
“So when I’m looking at the audience, I’m like this—he’s got me right here,” Trump said. “Then I go look like this when he’s ready to shoot because I have the immigration sign. So I’m going like that. I said ‘you take a look at how well we did,’ and boom. Then remember I took my hand and I looked my hand has blood all over my hand. All over—and I went down. If I didn’t go down I would have been hit. That I don’t consider as lucky because that’s going down. The amazing thing is if my head is even turned like this I get hit. If it’s turned like this I get hit. The only thing I could have been is flat. I’m like this, and he was exactly there 90 degrees—dead parallel.”
Trump said that in the moment he “knew exactly what was happening” and knew that a bullet hit him in the ear. He also said the Secret Service agents who covered him thought he was hit multiple times.
“Don’t forget eight bullets went over me. So if I’m not down, the luckiest was looking this way. Being down is a little different because the bullets were flying over my head. They killed the fireman and they really badly hurt two people who are recovering and are going to make it but they thought those two guys would not be alive—very good guys too. You would think it would be a surreal experience. It wasn’t. I knew exactly what was happening. I knew I was hit in the ear. I had seven very large people on top of me. They wanted me to stay down and they assumed [I was hit more than once] because there was so much blood from the ear. Butler Hospital did a fantastic job. But the doctor explained when you get hit in the ear it’s the bloodiest part because of cartilage. I said ‘how can it be that much?’ It was amazing. He said, ‘sir, you get hit in the ear, and it’s like an explosion of blood.’ If you get hit in the stomach, it’s much different—it’s not nearly as bad—or if you get hit in the leg. Who would have thought that? But when the ear gets cut you won’t be happy. But they thought I was hit in multiple places because there were a lot of shots fired. And they didn’t know those shots went over my head.”
Trump said if the bullet had actually hit his head rather than his ear, “my head would have exploded like a watermelon,” and that America’s adversaries would have used it as propaganda against the United States.
“How about if you had that on slow-motion instant replay?” Trump said. “Couple of things just to think of it because it’s got to be divine intervention.”
Trump said his views on the U.S. Secret Service are mixed. While he said there were some failures that day—particularly with regard to securing the rooftop from which Crooks shot him—he also recognizes the bravery of the agents around him who shielded him.
“So, Secret Service they obviously had a big lapse when they didn’t cover the roof of that building,” Trump said. “Yet, they were very brave when they jumped on me when I went down. I reacted very well because I went down fast.”
“They were very brave because they jumped when the shots were coming and yet they jumped,” Trump added of the agents who shielded him. “You saw them—the one big guy comes literally from where the bullets were coming trying to cover me.”
Continue reading: Breitbart.com
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