The day after the assassination attempt, Donald Trump has arrived in Milwaukee, where he is expected to become the Republican Party's official presidential candidate.
I shouldn't be here, I should be dead, says Trump to the New York Post.
On Sunday evening local time, barely 24 hours after the assassination attempt at his campaign meeting in Pennsylvania, Trump landed at Milwaukee's airport. On Monday, the Republican Convention begins.
On his way to the convention in his private plane, Trump tells the New York Post reporter about his thoughts after the attack.
The doctor at the hospital said he had never seen anything like it before, he called it a miracle, says Trump, who according to the New York Post reporter had a large white bandage over his right ear.
I shouldn't be here, I should be dead.
He also took the opportunity to praise the Secret Service, who killed the suspected shooter.
They got him with a shot right between the eyes. They did a fantastic job.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Trump says he has now completely rewritten the speech he will give on Thursday.
Had this not happened, it would have been an incredible speech. But honestly, it's going to be a completely different kind of speech now, says Donald Trump.
According to the former president himself, the speech will live up to the gravity of the moment.
It's a chance to unite the country. I've got that chance, he says.
The Rescue: A Screen
It was at a campaign meeting on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, that a shooter opened fire in what the police are investigating as an assassination attempt on Trump. Trump was injured in the ear and was led bleeding from the stage by his bodyguards – but first, he stopped and raised a clenched fist in the air. The images of this have already been described as iconic.
The gesture was a way to show the audience that he was okay, says Trump.
I knew the world was watching. I knew history would judge this moment, and I knew I had to let them know that we're okay.
According to Trump himself, he was saved by the fact that he momentarily looked away from the audience to look at a screen with statistics, which he used in his speech.
Reality starts to sink in. I rarely look away from the audience. Had I not done it just then, yeah, we wouldn't be sitting here today, or would we? he says to the Washington Examiner.
No Motive
A spectator in the audience, 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, was killed. Two other men, a 57-year-old and a 74-year-old, were seriously injured but are reported to be in stable condition.
The shooter was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who lived in a suburb of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. He was shot dead on the spot.
According to the FBI, Crooks acted alone, but his motive remains unclear.
Currently, we have not identified an ideology associated with the shooter, but I want to remind everyone that it's still very early in this investigation, said Kevin Rojek of the FBI, reports ABC News.
