How a single bullet changed Donald Trump forever

Telegraph

3 days ago

The chart showing immigration numbers was usually displayed in the closing minutes of the stump speech and on the other side of the stage.
So, when Donald Trump turned his head to the right to glance at the graph, escaping an assassin's bullet by millimetres, many thought they saw the hand of God.
'There's a confluence of things that happened to avert tragedy, and I think he talks about how there must have been some divine intervention,' says Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, who was present on July 13 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. 'That is the change.'
It was the day a bullet grazed Mr Trump's ear, upending the 2024 election campaign and changing the president forever.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old would-be assassin of Mr Trump was shot dead by the Secret Service at the scene. Crooks also fatally shot audience member Corey Comperatore, and injured two other people in the crowd.
Since then, Mr Trump has talked about his nerves when people move around in the crowd at his rallies, flirted with the idea of uniting the nation, and described his mission to save America as the work of God.
This weekend, however, there will be little in the way of commemoration. An interview with Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, is due to be broadcast on Fox News on Saturday, when he will reflect on the past year.
And that is all in keeping with a man who prefers not to look backwards, say insiders.
'He's a busy man. There's a lot to get on with,' said a senior administration official.
In the past year, Mr Trump pulled off an extraordinary political comeback, becoming only the second president in history to serve non-consecutive terms.
He has governed at a rapid pace, slashing the federal workforce, axing foreign aid, challenging the world to a trade war, reducing illegal immigration, and bringing media critics to heel.
Mr Cheung said there had been no time to take a step back immediately after the assassination attempt.
'Immediately we went into the Republican National Convention (RNC),' he said, 'Immediately he went back on the campaign trail.'
Just two days after being wounded, Mr Trump made his triumphal entry at the RNC in Milwaukee, pacing down an entry corridor in front of a camera, looking every inch the heavyweight champ returning to the ring.
Thousands of supporters embraced the religious parallel.
'July 13 was the same date when the Holy Mother revealed the third secret of Fatima,' said a Catholic attendee.
That was the date in 1917 when the Virgin Mary appeared to three Portuguese children, entrusting them with her prophecies.
The vision foretold an attack on a 'bishop dressed in white,' and was only revealed in 2000, 19 years after an assassin tried to kill Pope John Paul II.
'You can't make this stuff up,' added the Trump supporter.
For a while Mr Trump held his rallies indoors, reducing the threat of a copycat sniper. But six weeks later his security team rejigged the setup with bulletproof screens allowing the Republican candidate to resume his trademark events.
His ear had healed quickly, but Mr Trump admitted some other scars might remain.
During a rally in New York in September he appeared startled by a sudden movement in the audience.
'I thought this was a wise guy coming up,' he said. 'You know, I've got a little bit of a yip problem here. Right? That was amazing. I was all ready to start duking it out.'
There were other effects from the shooting, according to Blake Marnell, who travels around the country attending rallies and who was in the front row at Butler, resplendent in his distinctive brick-patterned suit.
He said older voters remember the anger and violence in the country around the time of the murder of John F Kennedy. If anything, the shooting this time helped voters coalesce around the wounded leader.
'When you look at the other effects post Butler, you can't ignore the fact that that is one of the driving factors that got Robert F Kennedy and president Trump speaking, which led to the Make America Healthy Again (Maha) coalition,' he said, referring to a member of the famous liberal political clan, who was best known as an environmental lawyer.
'That also crystallised Elon Musk's support for the president.'
The world's richest man endorsed Mr Trump on the night after the shooting. And he appeared on stage with him when the Republican candidate returned to Butler three months later.
For a while Mr Trump's speeches took on a more bipartisan air. Aides described how a caustic convention address was toned down in the interests of national unity.
'The discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it quickly,' he said at the start of his 90-minute speech.
'As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart.'
Headlines about a softer Mr Trump did not last long, however, as he quickly resumed his scathing attacks on Joe Biden, the then president, and Kamala Harris, his election opponent.
What endured was a greater sense of mission in a man who pulled off a surprise win in 2016 and at times struggled to impose his will on Washington during that first term.
Mr Trump himself used religious framing to describe his campaign after his narrow escape in Butler. He was often seen taking part in group prayers, the president in the middle, head bowed, as supporters reached out to touch his arm, an elbow, the back of his chair.
'I would love to think it's God, and it's God doing it because he wants to save America,' he said in an interview. 'He sees what's happening. God sees what's happening in America.'
He shrugged off questions about PTSD or mental scars, but has returned repeatedly to the idea that surviving that day has toughened his resolve and his faith.
'It changed something in me,' he said a month after returning to the White House. 'I feel, I feel even stronger. I believed in God but I feel much more strongly about it.'
The result was a greater sense of purpose, said Mr Cheung.
'I think it was a further resolve of how important it was to work on behalf of the people, and that the mission took on an even greater importance,' he said.