Former US president Donald Trump tells the New York Post he was “supposed to be dead” after surviving an assassination attempt that he described as a “very surreal experience.”
“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead,” Trump told the Post in an interview aboard his plane en route to Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention where he is set to be confirmed as the party’s presidential candidate.
It was a “very surreal experience,” he recounts, with a white bandage covering his right ear, the paper said.
The 78-year-old Trump was hit in the ear by a gunman at a campaign rally on Saturday.
He was left with a bloodied face while a bystander was killed and two other people were wounded.
Trump tells the Post he would have been dead had he not tilted his head slightly to the right to read a chart on illegal immigrants while addressing the rally.
“By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God I’m still here,” he says.
He praises the Secret Service agents for killing the shooter.
“They took him out with one shot right between the eyes,” he says.
“They did a fantastic job,” he added. “It’s surreal for all of us.”
The image of Trump raising a defiant fist as Secret Service agents bundled him away made front pages around the world and spread virally on social media.
“A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” the former president tells the Post, adding, “They’re right and I didn’t die. Usually you have to die to have an iconic picture.”
