Trump breaks silence on assassination attempt: ‘I’m not supposed to be here’

Former President Trump is now breaking his silence on the assassination attempt against him at a rally Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead,” Trump told the New York Post. “I’m supposed to be dead.”

“The doctor at the hospital said he’d never seen anything like it, he called it a miracle,” Trump also told the newspaper aboard his private plane en route to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for this week’s Republican National Convention. “By luck or by God, a lot of people say it’s by God that I’m still here.”

Trump told the Post that if he had not turned his head slightly to the right to read a chart about illegal immigration, the bullet that grazed him would have been fatal.

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He described the Secret Service agents who rushed at him as “linebackers,” saying another took out the shooter “with a single shot, right between the eyes.”

“They did a fantastic job,” he told the Post. “It’s surreal for all of us.”

As Secret Service agents led Trump off stage, he was heard saying he wanted his shoes back.

“The officers hit me so hard my shoes fell off, and my shoes are tight,” he told the Post.

Reacting to images of him raising his fist and surrounded by Secret Service agents in the seconds after the shooting, Trump said: “A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen.”

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“They’re right, I’m not dead. Usually you have to die to have an iconic photo,” he added. “I just wanted to keep talking, but I got shot.”

Trump also told the New York Post that he appreciated the “excellent” and “very nice” call he received from President Biden following the event, noting — without elaborating — that the race between them could be more civil in the future.

He praised the rally participants for remaining calm throughout the incident.

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“In a lot of places … when you hear one shot, everybody runs. Here, there was a lot of shooting and they stayed,” Trump said. “I love them. They’re great people.”