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A solemn Trump recounts details of assassination attempt: 'I'm not supposed to be here'

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks after officially accepting the Republican presidential nomination on stage on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 18, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Leon Neal
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Getty Images
Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks after officially accepting the Republican presidential nomination on stage on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 18, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

For updates from the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, head to the NPR Network's live updates page.


Former President Donald Trump opened his presidential nominating speech with an emotional recounting of the shooting at his rally last week that left him injured and killed another.

"As you already know, the assassin's bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life," he said. "So many people have asked me what happened. 'Tell us what happened, please,' and therefore I will tell you exactly what happened, and you'll never hear it from me a second time, because it's actually too painful to tell."

For more than 10 minutes, Trump recounted to the Republican National Convention in vivid details his observations of the attack on the "warm, beautiful day in the early evening In Butler township in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

Trump, in a more subdued and somber tone than his usual bombast, said that he felt something hit his ear, and that he "felt very safe, because I had God on my side."

"I'm not supposed to be here tonight," Trump said as the crowd responded "Yes you are!" "Not supposed to be here... I thank you, but I'm not, and I'll tell you, I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God."

Trump also offered condolences to the family of Corey Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter who was killed in the shooting, walking over to a display of Comperatore's fire gear before leading a moment of silence.

It's his first public address since Saturday's rally.

Trump said in the days leading up to this address that he rewrote his grand nominating address to strike a tone of unity after the near-death experience, vowing to unify a divided country.

"As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny," he said. "We rise together, or we fall apart. I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America."

Copyright 2024 NPR

Stephen Fowler
Stephen Fowler is a political reporter with NPR's Washington Desk and will be covering the 2024 election based in the South. Before joining NPR, he spent more than seven years at Georgia Public Broadcasting as its political reporter and host of the Battleground: Ballot Box podcast, which covered voting rights and legal fallout from the 2020 presidential election, the evolution of the Republican Party and other changes driving Georgia's growing prominence in American politics. His reporting has appeared everywhere from the Center for Public Integrity and the Columbia Journalism Review to the PBS NewsHour and ProPublica.