While en route to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention, former President Trump spoke to the Washington Examiner from his 757—and marveled over the fact that he wasn't killed. He gave credit to the immigration-related chart he turned to reference at the exact moment shots rang out. "If I only half-turn, it hits the back of the brain," he said Sunday afternoon. "The other way goes right through [the skull]. And because the sign was high, I'm looking up. The chances of my making a perfect turn are probably one tenth of one percent, so I'm not supposed to be here."
The Examiner's Byron York writes that he sees a man "grappling with the feeling that something very big has changed in his life and in the presidential race." Indeed, when York asked Trump if the assassination attempt changes his campaign, Trump quickly replied in the affirmative and said he threw out the speech he planned to give Thursday at the RNC and has started drafting a new one. He explains:
- "I basically had a speech that was an unbelievable rip-roarer. It was brutal—really good, really tough. [Last night] I threw it out. I think it would be very bad if I got up and started going wild about how horrible everybody is, and how corrupt and crooked, even if it's true. Had this not happened, we had a speech that was pretty well set that was extremely tough. Now, we have a speech that is more unifying."
story continues below
In a separate piece for the Examiner, Salena Zito offers similar lines from Trump: "The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger. Had this not happened, this would've been one of the most incredible speeches" going after President Biden's policies. "Honestly, it's going to be a whole different speech now. ... This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would've been two days ago." (More Trump rally shooting stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
