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Six weeks after an assassin’s bullet tore through his ear, Donald Trump said the attack had left no mental scars and he had not felt the need for any counseling. ‘A couple of people have asked me that, and I have had no impact,’ he told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview. ‘It’s just amazing.’ He went on to describe in spiritual terms how the moment had crystallized in his mind the importance of his political mission.
Trump was in full flow at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania , in July when a gunshot echoed through the crowd. He raised his hand to his bloody ear in disbelief, before ducking to the ground where he was quickly shielded by a cocoon of Secret Service agents. A week later he resumed his trademark rallies, indoors at first and then outdoors again two weeks ago with the protection of a bulletproof screen.
Trump, 78, said he had suffered no flashbacks or bad dreams of the sort associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and had felt no need for counseling. ‘But I have not had any, I must tell you, I don’t think about it a lot,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to think about it a lot, but I’ve had … no it’s had no impact. It healed up.’
Trump talked about everything from his family to policy and the state of the campaign during the interview in the opulent living room of his Mar-a-Lago home, which serves as his political headquarters. And he talked frankly about the moment that could have ended his life and what it means for his 2024 run.
Trump had looked invincible in the aftermath. He followed it up with a Lazarus-like appearance at his party’s convention in Milwaukee, where attendees talked about miracles, divine intervention and the religious symbolism of the date, July 13 ( when the Holy Mother revealed the third secret of Fatima in 1917 .) But his solid lead in the polls evaporated when Joe Biden bowed to pressure from his party and stepped aside to allow his vice president, Kamala Harris, to become the Democratic nominee.
Even so, Trump said he could not shrug off the idea that something divine happened when he turned his head to look at a chart of border data just at the right moment to all but avoid a shooter’s bullet. ‘And you know what I’d love to think, I would love to think it’s God, and it’s God doing it because he wants to save America,’ he said.
‘He sees what’s happening. God sees what’s happening in America. ‘We’re going bad as a country. Even with religion, we’re going bad.
‘You look at the charts, and I would like to say that it is God that saved me. It wasn’t just just luck, but the reason would be that he saved me, because I can save this country. I hope that’s right.’ He spoke to DailyMail.com during a day at home, in between campaign stops around the country.
Nothing was off limits. He said he was happy with the state of his campaign, days after winning the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who ended his run as an independent. And he laid out his position on abortion and plans to resume federal executions.
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