President Trump, reflecting on the “crazy” rally shooting nearly a year ago, said he still feels pain in his ear but believes he was “saved by somebody very special” after a July 2024 assassination attempt.
“I went through a lot. It was a crazy time, very surreal, actually, if you want to know the truth,” Trump told Fox News’s Will Cain in an interview, as the president surveyed damage from deadly flooding in Texas on Friday.
“It’s … I have got this massive crowd of people, and all of a sudden you hear and you feel something that’s very unusual. And I got down quickly. And I was — people were screaming, get down, get down,” he added. “It was a whole … the whole thing was just crazy. And it’s hard to believe a year is up.”
Trump was addressing a crowd in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024, when gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed onto the roof of a nearby building and fired into the crowd. The shots killed one rallygoer and a bullet grazed the ear of the then-GOP frontrunner. Crooks was then shot and killed by Secret Service.
Days later and with a bandaged ear, Trump was officially named the GOP presidential nominee during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
The president and many of his allies have suggested that “God stepped in” to save him that day, and he leaned into that rhetoric on Friday.
“A lot of things have happened since then, including the presidency,” he told Cain. “So, I have an obligation to do a good job, I feel, because I was really saved, I was really saved by somebody very special.”
“People that are shooters — I’m not so much of a shooter, but people that were shooters say it’s almost impossible that that was a miss. I mean, it was a hit, but it was a miss,” Trump continued, “Well, I do get that throbbing feeling every once in a while, you understand.”
The assassination attempt has prompted several investigations, including a deeper look at training practices within the U.S. Secret Service. The former director resigned following a tense hearing on Capitol Hill and six agents were suspended earlier this month in connection with their “actions” during the rally.
Trump returned to the Butler location in October for another event to honor the death of Corey Comperatore, saying he felt an “obligation” to do so. His family also came to Washington in March to attend the president’s joint address to Congress.
“I hope the reason I was saved was to save our country,” he told Fox News on Friday. “We had a country that was, I don’t say dead because it’s too strong, but we had a country that was really very close to being finished, in my opinion.”
“And now we have the hottest country in the world. That’s why I’m so saddened by this,” Trump continued, adding later, “But it’s one of those things, those tragic things that happened.” But we had a country that was dead. It was dead. It was really in deep trouble.”
The interview comes as suspect Ryan Wesley Routh is being held for a second alleged assassination attempt outside of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Routh was charged in Florida with attempted first-degree murder and terrorism after he allegedly pushed a gun through the bushes last September — just months after the rally shooting. He also faces a slew of federal charges following an FBI investigation.
