I've been saved by luck or by God, says Trump

DONALD TRUMP said today that he was “supposed to be dead” after an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.

- Jitendra Joshi

In one of his first interviews since the attack, the former president, 78, claimed that he felt he had been saved “by luck or by God” as he recalled the moment a gunman opened fire at him on Saturday. He called it a “very surreal experience,” telling the New York Post: “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead.”

He added that the doctor at the hospital where he was treated for a wounded ear said he “never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle”.

Trump vowed an entirely new speech when he accepts the Republican White House race nomination this week, projecting the need for unity even as a furious blame game rages over the attack.

“The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,” the former president said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.” Mr Trump said he would no longer aim to rile up his base at the Republican convention in Milwaukee opening today, after claiming that divine intervention saved him from the sniper’s bullet at the open-air rally. He said: “This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together. The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago.”