Former President Donald J. Trump mused to supporters at a private event held near the Republican National Convention on Wednesday about his luck in surviving an attempted assassination.
“This has been our best campaign, and then I got shot! How does that happen?” Mr. Trump said to chants of “fight, fight, fight” from the audience at the event, as seen in a one-minute video clip that was first broadcast by PBS. “But I got lucky. God was with me, I tell you.”
“That’s what they call a close call,” he added. “That was amazing. Horrible thing, amazing thing. In many ways it changes your attitude, your viewpoint on life. And I think honestly, I think you appreciate God even more, I really do, because something happened. Not that it was pleasant. It wasn’t like it was a complete miss. But it was pretty terrible that that can happen. But this has been our best campaign.”
The video, which appears to have been recorded on a cellphone, was “given to PBS News and edited for length,” the news outlet said.
A bullet grazed Mr. Trump’s ear at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday after a gunman fired from a nearby roof. One of the former president’s supporters at the rally, Corey Comperatore, was killed, and two other people were seriously injured.
The Secret Service and local law enforcement are under intense scrutiny for failing to prevent the shooting.
Some of Mr. Trump’s supporters have used the iconography of the attempted assassination for political purposes, distributing merchandise showing a photo of him immediately after the shooting, raising his fist as he was led off the stage. Some attendees at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee have worn ear bandages like Mr. Trump’s in tribute.
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