Donald Trump breaks silence after surviving assassination attempt

Donald Trump insisted he was “supposed to be dead” in his first interview after surviving an assassination attempt.

The former US president was shot in the ear in an attack at a campaign rally on Saturday, leaving one audience member dead and two seriously injured.

Trump believes that turning his head to look at a screen may have saved his life, resulting in an injury to his right ear.

The Republican explained that he had turned slightly to the right so he could read a chart about illegal immigrants.

Donald Trump says he’s ‘supposed to be dead’ in first interview after surviving assassination attemptGetty

“I rarely look away from the crowd. If I hadn’t done that at that moment, well, we wouldn’t be talking today, would we?” he told the New York Post.

“The most incredible thing is that not only did I manage to shoot, but I managed to shoot at exactly the right time and in exactly the right measure.”

He added that he survived “by luck or by the grace of God.”

“If I just make a U-turn, it hits the back of my brain. The other way goes through my skull. And because the sign was up high, I’m looking up. The chances of me making a perfect turn are probably a tenth of a percent, so I’m not supposed to be here.”

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“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead.”

The former president added: “Because the thing was an eighth of an inch away from me. The fact that I turned around at that exact moment, and he (the shooter) didn’t stop shooting, it’s pretty unbelievable. It’s pretty unbelievable. I’m really not supposed to be there.”

Speaking about the moment he raised his fist in the air and said “fight” after being shot, Trump said: “A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen.

“They’re right, I’m not dead. Usually, you have to die to have an iconic photo.”

Trump said “reality is just beginning to set in” after the incident in which the suspected shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was killed by the Secret Service “with a bullet right between the eyes.”

Donald Trump reacts to Saturday’s shooting

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The would-be assassin, 20, shot Trump from a rooftop 130 yards from the rally scene in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Trump said: “I’ve been fighting for a long time against a group of people who I consider to be very bad people, and they’re fighting me, and we’ve put up a very good fight.

“We had a very tough speech, and I gave it last night, I said I couldn’t say these things after what I’ve been through.”

“I would like to achieve unity if you could achieve it, if it is possible. There are a lot of good people on the other side… But there are also people who are very divided. Some people want open borders and some people don’t want open borders.

“The question is can these two camps get along? Can camps where there are people who want to see men play women’s sports, and there’s a camp that doesn’t even understand the concept of allowing that to happen, get along?”