In the wake of the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump, he scrapped plans to talk about how bad the current U.S. administration is at the Republican National Convention.
‘‘I had all prepared an extremely tough speech about the corrupt and horrible administration, but I threw it away’’ he told the tabloid New York Post in an interview published late Sunday.
Assassination Attempt on Trump: A Nation on Edge
Trump said he now wants to speak at the Republican Party convention in favour of overcoming the political divide in the country.
‘I want to try to unite our country, but I don’t know if that’s possible. People are much divided’’ Trump said ahead of the four-day convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he would be officially nominated on Thursday as the Republican presidential nominee.
An assassination attempt on Saturday left Trump with an injured ear.
Surreal Experience
Speaking to the New York Post while en route to Milwaukee on Sunday evening for the convention, Trump described the assassination attempt as a “very surreal experience.”
“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead,” he said. The former president explained that at the exact moment the shooter had opened fire, he had tilted his head slightly to the right to read a chart on illegal immigration while addressing the rally.
“By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God I’m still here,” he said.
Trump Praises Secret Service
He praised the Secret Service agents for killing the shooter.
“They took him out with one shot right between the eyes,” he said of the shooter. “They did a fantastic job. It’s surreal for all of us.”
He arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday evening for the convention, which begins Monday. He told the Washington Examiner in an interview Sunday that he had rewritten his speech for the event to focus more on national unity than on the policies of Biden.
“The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,” he told the news outlet.
“This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” he said of his decision to rewrite it.
In a post on his social media site Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said: “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win.
