Former President Donald Trump delivered his acceptance speech for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on the final night of the Republican National Convention.
Trump spoke in great detail for the first time about the assassination attempt before criticizing the Biden administration and touting his record in office.
The former president said that if he had not turned his head when he was shot last Saturday at a rally in Pennsylvania, he would be dead: “The assassin’s bullet was a quarter of an inch away from taking my life,” he said in his first speech after the incident.
“If I hadn’t moved my head, the assassin’s bullet would have gone in perfectly and I wouldn’t be here tonight, we wouldn’t be together,” said the Republican presidential candidate in an emotional account of what happened, which he said he won’t tell more about because it is “very painful” for him.
Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who died after being shot by a 20-year-old man who was killed by law enforcement, was prominent in his speech closing the Republican National Convention. Trump showed off his firefighter uniform on stage, which was donated by his family, with whom he spoke by phone.
He also spoke to the families of the three people injured in the assassination attempt, which has shaken the United States.
In his account of the events, Trump began by describing it as “a beautiful, warm day at dusk in Butler Township” when “everyone was happy.”
Trump began speaking at that rally and turned to the right to see a graphic on a screen when he heard “a loud sound.” “I said to myself, wow, what happened? It could only be a bullet and as I moved my right hand to my ear it became covered in blood.”
“I knew immediately that it was very serious, that we were under attack. And then, at one point, I fell to the ground,” he continued in a slow tone, very different from his usual aggressiveness, while several people in the audience cried.
“There was blood everywhere and yet in a way I felt very safe because I had God on my side,” he said.
The crowd, he added, instead of running away, “bravely stood up looking for where the sniper might be” and began pointing at him.
“They didn’t move. The reason is that they knew I was in serious trouble and they saw me suddenly fall,” said the former president, who said that after the officers lifted him up, he felt calm.
When he got up, he added, he saw the crowd “confused because they thought he was dead” and felt “great pain.”
“I could see it and I wanted to do something to let them know I was okay. I raised my right arm, looked at the thousands and thousands of people who were referring to you waiting and started yelling Fight, fight, fight,” he said.
Trump vowed that after Saturday’s shooting, “Nothing will stop me in this mission. Because our vision is just and our cause is pure.”
“No matter what obstacle is put in our way, we will not give in. We will not bow down. We will not back down. And I will never stop fighting for you, your family, and our great country,” he said.
Trump also pledged “everything I have to give, with all the energy and fight in my heart and soul.”
Keep reading:
• Trump leads Biden nationally and in key states: poll
• RNC stages total unity around the figure of Donald Trump
• Lara Trump, Donald Trump’s great political move on his way to the White House