The Republican National Convention Week starts today in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Former President Donald Trump has arrived for the event and will be ready to accept the Republican nomination for President, on Thursday.
Mr. Trump said in a new interview that he’s “supposed to be dead” after an assassination attempt left him bloodied in the ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday afternoon.
Trump, 78, described Saturday’s events in Butler, a town just north of Pittsburgh, as a “very surreal experience.” He said a doctor at a nearby hospital told him “he never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle.”
“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead,” Trump told the New York Post.
The incident unfolded just after 6 p.m. ET as the former president was campaigning to a large crowd ahead of this week’s Republican National Convention, which starts today in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The FBI is investigating the shooting as “potential domestic terrorism.”
Authorities identified the gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, known as a loner, a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania. Crooks got off at least 6 rounds from a rooftop only 130 yards from the podium and stage where Mr. Trump had began speaking. Police sharpshooters shot and killed Crooks within a minute of the incident. The FBI at this time, believes Crooks acted alone, and officials are working to establish a motive for the shooting.
The shooting left one of the rallygoers Corey Comperatore, 50, dead, and two other attendees critically wounded. Mr. Comperatore was a local fireman, married with two daughters. The governor of Pennsylvania said Comperatore died while shielding his family from gunfire.
Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday night with hope of tamping down the constant vitriol and negative media outlets and White House comments against him, said his convention address is “going to be a whole different speech now” after the attempt on his life.
“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,” he told the press.