PALM BEACH, Florida — Former President Donald Trump exclusively informed Breitbart News that when he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, in mid-July, he immediately recognized that a bullet had struck him.
“A lot of times, and I was thinking about this, it would seem like a surreal moment—like you don’t realize almost where you are,” Trump said when asked to describe what went through his mind in that moment. “I never felt that. I knew immediately I got hit by a bullet.”
Trump’s remarks were made during an extensive exclusive interview at Mar-a-Lago a few weeks ago, where he spent an hour with Breitbart News following a press conference earlier that day. A particularly compelling part of the interview was Trump’s account of the attempted assassination by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. It was striking to hear Trump recount how narrowly he escaped being hit by the would-be assassin’s bullets.
Seated behind his large, ornate wooden desk, Trump explained to Breitbart News that he would have been dead if he hadn’t turned at the precise moment.
“So what are the odds that I’m looking to the right?” Trump said. “The poster is never used early, and it’s never on the right it’s always on the left. If you take the odds of this whole thing it’s like 10 million to one and you only have an eighth of a second.”
As Trump spoke, he demonstrated by moving his head at different angles, indicating that he would have been dead in all but one position— the angle that allowed him to survive, which he is grateful for today.
“I’m turning, and I’m dead here, I’m dead here, I’m dead here, dead, dead, alive, dead,” Trump said. “So, think, you only have this exact spot right here. This is an amazing phenomena. It’s millions to nothing. There’s about an eighth of a second where I’m good. The rest of the time you’re dead.”
Trump said the shooter was very close to him comparatively speaking, and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump—both avid shooters—are shocked that the shooter missed.
Trump noted that the shooter was relatively close to him, and his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump—both experienced marksmen—are astonished that the shooter missed.
“Because [the shooter] was 130 yards away, which for a shooter is very little,” Trump said. “My son’s a shooter—he says that’s like a two-foot putt. He says it’s impossible. He said it’s like a one-foot putt. It’s impossible. He can’t believe it. Don is a real shooter, and so is Eric. They can’t believe it.”
Trump said the likelihood of him turning the exact right way at that precise moment is virtually impossible.
“Number one, I’d never be looking there or there because there’s nobody there and the audience is maybe 55,000 people—it was packed,” Trump said. “The only reason I looked—I use that poster, that chart a maximum of 20 percent. I just don’t use it. It’s always at the end and it’s always on my left. The only time I use it is at the end of the speech. Now I say put up the poster and let’s go, here it is right here. Ping. I never do it during the early part. The only time I do it is at the end of the show and it’s always on my left—this time it was on my right. So what are the odds that I turn there because there’s nobody there and nobody to speak to there, because the fans are all up there and to the right or the left, but there’s no people there. You have the fences.”
Trump recounted the moment he was shot while continuing to explain how the angles ultimately saved his life.
“So when I’m looking at the audience, I’m like this—he’s got me right here,” Trump said. “Then I go look like this when he’s ready to shoot because I have the immigration sign. So I’m going like that. I said ‘you take a look at how well we did,’ and boom. Then remember I took my hand and I looked my hand has blood all over my hand. All over—and I went down. If I didn’t go down I would have been hit. That I don’t consider as lucky because that’s going down. The amazing thing is if my head is even turned like this I get hit. If it’s turned like this I get hit. The only thing I could have been is flat. I’m like this, and he was exactly there 90 degrees—dead parallel.”
Trump said that in the moment he “knew exactly what was happening” and knew that a bullet hit him in the ear. He also said the Secret Service agents who covered him thought he was hit multiple times.
“Don’t forget eight bullets went over me. So if I’m not down, the luckiest was looking this way. Being down is a little different because the bullets were flying over my head. They killed the fireman and they really badly hurt two people who are recovering and are going to make it but they thought those two guys would not be alive—very good guys too. You would think it would be a surreal experience. It wasn’t. I knew exactly what was happening. I knew I was hit in the ear. I had seven very large people on top of me. They wanted me to stay down and they assumed [I was hit more than once] because there was so much blood from the ear. Butler Hospital did a fantastic job. But the doctor explained when you get hit in the ear it’s the bloodiest part because of cartilage. I said ‘how can it be that much?’ It was amazing. He said, ‘sir, you get hit in the ear, and it’s like an explosion of blood.’ If you get hit in the stomach, it’s much different—it’s not nearly as bad—or if you get hit in the leg. Who would have thought that? But when the ear gets cut you won’t be happy. But they thought I was hit in multiple places because there were a lot of shots fired. And they didn’t know those shots went over my head.”
Trump stated that if the bullet had struck his head instead of his ear, “my head would have exploded like a watermelon,” and that America’s adversaries would have used it as propaganda against the United States.
“How about if you had that on slow-motion instant replay?” Trump said. “Couple of things just to think of it because it’s got to be divine intervention.”
Trump described his views on the U.S. Secret Service as mixed. He acknowledged some failures that day, especially concerning the lack of security on the rooftop from which Crooks fired, but he also praised the bravery of the agents who protected him.
“So, Secret Service they obviously had a big lapse when they didn’t cover the roof of that building,” Trump said. “Yet, they were very brave when they jumped on me when I went down. I reacted very well because I went down fast.”
“They were very brave because they jumped when the shots were coming and yet they jumped,” Trump added of the agents who shielded him. “You saw them—the one big guy comes literally from where the bullets were coming trying to cover me.”
Later in the interview, Trump remarked that he found the effectiveness of the Secret Service counter-sniper who neutralized the shooter to be “incredible.”
“The Secret Service sniper was incredible,” Trump said. “One shot from 400 yards right there—can you believe it? He didn’t know about it. He was a shooter—an unbelievable shooter. He heard the noise, he looks around—I guess his eyes are good. That’s four football fields—that’s a lot.”
The then-director of the U.S. Secret Service has resigned, and several Secret Service personnel have reportedly been reassigned to administrative duties as the investigation into the incident continues. Congressional Republicans have pushed for increased accountability and transparency, with some expressing concerns about the agency’s openness. Trump has expressed support for greater transparency and announced at a recent event with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that if elected in November, he will establish a special presidential commission on assassinations to investigate this case and others throughout U.S. history, including the assassinations of RFK Jr.’s father and uncle. John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Texas, and his brother Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles while running for president. RFK Jr. has raised doubts about the official account of his father’s death and the conviction of Sirhan Sirhan, who is currently imprisoned in California. Additionally, there are longstanding questions about JFK’s assassination. RFK Jr.’s endorsement of Trump this weekend brings together the Kennedy and Trump families in a shared pursuit of answers.
It’s not only the Kennedys and Trump involved; former President Ronald Reagan also survived an assassination attempt, and throughout American history, several presidents have been shot, with some fatally.
“Being president is a dangerous profession,” Trump told Breitbart News. “If you look, how many people have been assassinated? Then you see how many people have been attempted? You know, Reagan almost died—he came close to dying actually. People don’t know that, but they thought they were going to lose him.”
Trump pointed out that out of 46 U.S. presidents, four have been assassinated—an unusually high percentage compared to most other professions. The presidents killed in office were Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy, representing about 12 percent of U.S. presidents. Additionally, many other presidents have faced assassination attempts. Ronald Reagan survived an assassination attempt despite being shot while in office. Other presidents who have faced foiled plots include Andrew Jackson, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Both Trump and Teddy Roosevelt were wounded in failed assassination attempts after leaving office. There have also been attempts on the lives of presidential candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy, who was killed while running for president. High-profile American figures like Martin Luther King Jr. have also been assassinated.
“It’s a pretty high number,” Trump said. “And if you talk about attempted, attempted is pretty bad too.”
While Trump acknowledges the fascination with the risks associated with the job, he told Breitbart News that no one, not even presidents, can truly prepare for the reality of facing their own mortality at the hands of an assassin.
“You can never be too prepared for that—you don’t want to be prepared for that actually,” Trump said. “But it’s a dangerous profession. Being president is a very dangerous thing. I knew that—I always knew that. Especially if you have strong opinions and strong convictions like you want borders and a strong economy and a strong military and you want things that are important for the nation. The tougher you are in terms of things that are important for the nation the more dangerous it becomes.”
After Trump was shot and fell, he told Breitbart News that the Secret Service agents wanted to transport him on a stretcher. However, he insisted on getting up and walking to the waiting vehicle himself to be taken to the hospital.
“I wanted to get up because I thought it would look terrible for me to not get up,” Trump said. “They wanted me to go on a stretcher and I said ‘no I don’t want to go on a stretcher. I was hit in the ear. I was only hit in the ear.’ They said ‘no, no you were hit—‘ and I said ‘I’m telling you folks, I want to get up now. I want to get up.’ And they wanted me on a stretcher for obvious reasons because if I was hit somewhere else bad things can happen and you know if they don’t take the person out. I was really actually angry because I didn’t want to go on a stretcher. I wanted to get up and I felt I could get up. I said ‘the only place I’m telling you I was hit was in the ear.’”
Trump stood up, raised his fist, and shouted “fight, fight, fight!” before agents quickly escorted him to the vehicle that took him to the hospital to treat the bullet wound in his ear.
“People think it’s the most iconic moment,” Trump told Breitbart News of the photo of that moment.
Trump also found the reaction of the crowd behind and around him to be particularly fascinating.
“But the amazing thing is the audience is there, and it was a massive audience—it was as far as they eye could see,” Trump said. “Then you had some people at the back and you saw how brave they are. They didn’t flinch. That one guy right behind me he’s looking—you want him in a foxhole with you. He’s not hiding.”
Breitbart News informed Trump about a woman named Renee White, who was behind him at the Butler rally. White was interviewed the following week at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and she can be seen in the video directly behind Trump when the shots were fired.
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She was wearing brightly colored Trump gear, the same shirt and hat she wore to the RNC. White told Breitbart News at the RNC that when she saw the shooting, “I was like, ‘The fight’s on. He’s not done. He’s not down. This isn’t gonna stop him.’ And it gave me hope.”
Told about White’s story, Trump reacted by saying “the women were very brave.”
“The level of love is unbelievable,” Trump told Breitbart News.
Trump noted that the crowd at his rally demonstrated remarkable restraint and concern for one another by not panicking and causing harm to anyone else while trying to escape.
“Crowd control experts told us when a bullet is fired in a crowd especially in a stadium everyone leaves immediately,” Trump said. “They run. They stampede—they use the word stampede, like cattle. People are often killed, because like if somebody falls the people run right over them. It’s like terrible. They said they’ve never seen anything like this. Here, there were a lot of bullets fired—and then you had the bullets going the other way too.”
While very little has come out so far about Crooks—the shooter—so far, Trump told Breitbart News he was “very liberal.”
“I think he was very liberal,” Trump said. “He was very smart—a good student and all of that. But very mixed up.”
Regarding Crooks’s motive and the broader political climate in the U.S., Trump stated that the Democrats’ repeated and inaccurate claims that he is a threat to democracy do not contribute to preventing incidents like these.
“I think it might have had something to do with the left,” Trump said. “I’m not sure. Certainly, the way they took about threat to democracy all the time—I think that’s a terrible statement to make. They don’t believe any of it. A lot of people think it’s their rhetoric that caused this. Their rhetoric is terrible. All I want to do is Make America Great Again. We have a name—Make America Great Again. But it’s a dangerous business. Think of it—the percentage—around 12 percent. That’s worse than going up in space ships, and that’s not a good one either. But it’s a lot safer than this.”
