On July 13, 2024, then presidential candidate, Donald Trump, survived an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler Township, PA. A year later, now President Trump, sat down with his daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, on her FOX News program, My View, that aired on Saturday night, to talk about that day. “Well, it was unforgettable,” said the president. “I didn’t know exactly what was going on. I got whacked. There’s no question about that. And fortunately, I got down quickly. People were screaming, and I got down quickly, fortunately, because I think they shot eight bullets.” He praised the Secret Service sniper, who he named as “David” and who “did a fantastic job” of shooting the potential assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, who had set himself up on a rooftop of a building from where he could see the stage where Trump stood and fired off eight rounds from his rifle. Speaking of “David”, the president said, “He just, he went about his business. Less than just about four seconds, and that’s when it all stopped and he got him perfectly from a very long distance. So, we got a little bit lucky in that regard.” .On Wednesday, White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, said on the Pod Force One podcast she initially didn’t believe Trump had survived the assassination attempt until he rose to his feet and raised his fist in the air. “We were just crazy at the minute he was hit,” said Wiles, adding she thought he was dead. “I did. You think the worst. You cannot, it’s human. You can’t, you can’t think otherwise. And when he stood up, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and then they raced us to the cars, and we went to the hospital and it was clear very soon that he was going to be okay. But it was a scary time and it changed everything for us.” Wiles said when Trump asked to have a chart displayed at the rally, it saved his life. “The way the rally itself unfolded, the chart he had them put up on the screens on the big LED boards came, it was always the last chart in the rotation, and it was always on the other side,” Wiles told New York Post (The Post) reporter Miranda Devine. .“So, to have him ask for that chart eight minutes in and to have it come on the side that is opposite caused him to look in a different direction and lift his head just a little, because it was higher. And that just doesn’t happen because it happened. It happened because I believe God wanted him to live.” One of the bullets grazed Trump’s right ear, but he stood up, shouting “fight, fight, fight” as the Secret Service took him off stage to an SUV and raced him to the hospital. On Wednesday, the Secret Service suspended six officials as punishment for failings surrounding the shooting, but Trump said he was “satisfied” with the briefings he’d received since his brush with death, reports The Post. “They should have had somebody in the building [Crooks shot from], that was a mistake,” Trump said on My View. “They should have had communications with the local police, they weren’t tied in, and they should have been tied in.” “So, there were mistakes made. But I was satisfied in terms of the bigger plot, the larger plot, I was satisfied.” “And I have great confidence in these people. I know the people. And they’re very talented, very capable. But they had a bad day. And I think they’ll admit that. They had a rough day.” .The Post reports none of the agents who were suspended were in the group shielding Trump on stage. Former volunteer fire department chief Corey Comperatore was shot and killed and two other rallygoers were wounded in addition to Trump. Despite multiple investigations into the shooting, including by federal law enforcement and by Congress, unanswered questions about the shooting remain, according to The Post.
