Donald Trump appeared on “Life, Liberty & Levin” with host Mark Levin Saturday and told the story of how his youngest son Barron found out that his father had been shot in an assassination attempt at a Butler, Pennsylvania rally in July. He also talked about his wife Melania watched the near tragedy unfold on live TV.
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Barron was playing tennis:
[Melania] was watching it on television and Barron was outside having a tennis lesson. He’s a good tennis player, he was outside playing tennis and somebody ran up, “Barron, Barron, your father’s been shot.
He went, and he loves his father—he’s a good kid, good student, good athlete, actually—and he ran, “Mom, what’s going on?!’”
She couldn’t believe it. She was actually watching it live—can you imagine? And then I got up, and let people know I was okay. Fight, fight, fight.
Watch:
“But I let people know I was OK, but it was a hit. It was a big hit and a miracle, actually,” he added, explaining that it was only because he turned his head ever-so-slightly to look at an immigration chart:
“The amazing thing about the chart, I rarely use it in a speech. I just said ‘put out the chart.’ And then I turned around,” the former president said. “If I turned around just a little bit less, or a little bit more, if I turned around more or less, it would still the end.”
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He described how his son Don Jr., a shooter, was amazed that the bullet missed:
…from that distance it’s supposed to be like a sure thing, they said, like sinking a one-foot putt.
And Don [Jr.] called me, he said, “I can’t believe it—from that distance, I can’t believe it.”
I made the right turn. If I didn’t turn it that exact 100th of a second. It’s like a miracle. And [I] got “whacked.”
But that’s OK by comparison to the alternative.
The assassination attempt killed 50-year-old firefighter and U.S. Army Reserves veteran Corey Comperatore and wounded two others. In the aftermath, investigations uncovered stunning security lapses, and Secret Security Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned under pressure while at least five Secret Service agents were put on leave.
Some of Trump’s story we’ve heard before, most notably from when he spoke at a private event during the GOP Convention just days after the shooting, but it’s still fascinating to listen to the details of what must have been an incredibly traumatic moment for his family. As the presidential campaign heats up and the news cycle continues, it’s too easy to forget that we as a nation barely dodged a historical tragedy with implications we can only speculate about.
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Here’s a longer clip of the interview: