«I should be dead», former US President Donald Trump said after the attempt on his life, which he described as a «very surreal experience», in an interview with the New York Post yesterday, Sunday.
«I shouldn't be here, I should be dead,» Trump told the newspaper from the plane that flew him to Milwaukee to attend the Republican National Convention, where he is expected to officially receive the party's nomination to run in the November presidential election.
It was «a very surreal experience,» he added, referring to the attack on his life that occurred Saturday during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Trump, according to the newspaper, is wearing a white bandage on his right ear, where the bullet of the assassination attempt perforated him. The shooting killed one attendee at the campaign rally and seriously injured two others.
The 78-year-old former president said that if he had not turned his head slightly to the right to look at an image a projector was showing the audience, he would have been dead, the newspaper said.
«By luck or with the help of God, a lot of people believe with the help of God, I'm still here,» Trump said.
In addition, the Republican thanked the Secret Service agents who neutralized the attacker. «They killed him with a bullet between the eyes,» he explained. «They did a fantastic job.» «It's surreal for all of us».
Photos of Donald Trump, with blood on his face, raising his fist in defiance to the crowd as the Secret Service removes him, have been making the rounds.
«Many people say this is the most iconic photograph they have ever seen,» he stressed. «They're right and I'm not dead. Usually you have to be dead to have an iconic photograph.».
After the attempt on his life, Trump said he rewrote the speech he had prepared for the Republican convention.
The former president pointed out that «I had prepared an extremely tough speech» about «the horrible Biden administration», but changed it, preferring to deliver a speech which, as he said, he hoped would «unite the country».
«But I don't know if that's possible. People are very divided.».
