Washington: Former US President Donald Trump has said that he threw away an “extremely tough” speech prepared for accepting the party nomination at the Republican convention starting Monday and will go instead with one calling for unity.
In his first interview since surviving an assassination attempt on Saturday, Trump told The New York Post, “I’m supposed to be dead, I’m not supposed to be here.”
He also used the words “miracle” and “surreal” for the experience.
The former President was shot at at an election rally in Pennsylvania by a shooter perched on the roof of a building overlooking the venue. A bullet grazed his right ear as he turned his face to direct the audience’s attention towards a chart on the arrival of undocumented migrants.
As he dropped to the floor, secret services agents threw themselves on him to protect Trump. The shooter was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
The shock and outrage that swept through the country, which has seen multiple assassinations of Presidents and one candidate for President, have given way to the sobering need for peace and unity.
President Joe Biden took the lead in calling for unity within an hour of the shooting and in an address from the White House.
Trump’s campaign prohibited staff from publicly commenting on the shooting, saying dangerous rhetoric on social media will not be tolerated. Calls have been made from both sides of the political divide for lowering the temperature.
Trump, who has tended to use tough language with allusions to physical violence, has endorsed this new spirit after his transformational experience, saying, “I had prepared an extremely tough speech, really good, all about the corrupt, horrible administration. But I threw it away.”
He went to tell the interviewer that a new speech was being worked upon now because “I want to try to unite our country. But I don’t know if that’s possible. People are very divided”.
But Republicans are queueing up to their lead from him. Senator J.D. Vance, who is one of the contenders for Trump’s running mate slot, has also said that he is toning down his speech for the convention. The same goes for Nancy Mace, a member of the House of Representatives who is among the scheduled speakers at the convention.
Trump reached Milwaukee on Sunday evening for the four-day convention that will end on Thursday after formally crowing Trump as the party’s nominee for the White House.
Trump has said that he will address the convention as is the practice, but he may have felt compelled to reaffirm it, squashing any uncertainty caused by the assassination bid.
He also spoke at length about the experience in the interview.
“The doctor at the hospital said he never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle. It’s surreal for all of us. By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God that I’m still here,” he said.
The experience has been transformational for Trump.
“He feels like he has a new lease on life,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who was on the flight with Trump to Milwaukee, told the Post.
