By Mark Ellis —
On July 13, 2024, Former President Trump, the presumptive nominee in the 2024 presidential election, narrowly survived an assassination attempt while speaking at an outdoor rally near Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was shot and wounded in his upper right ear by a 20-year-old gunman, who also killed one audience member, firefighter Corey Comperatore, and critically injured two others.
One year later, those closest to President Trump say the failed assassination attempt changed his personality in meaningful ways, with him expressing more gratitude and attentiveness to those around him.
He also believes God intervened to save his life for a purpose, to save the country in a second term, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who was with him at the rally, said in a recent podcast interview that Trump believes he was spared for a reason.
“I would say I think he believes that he was saved. I do. And he would never — even if he thought it before, I don’t think he would have admitted it. And he will now,” she told “Pod Force One.”
Wiles gives credit to God, because of the unusual sequence in which Trump turned his head at a critical moment to view a chart at the rally, sparing his life.
The chart, she noted, “was always the last chart in the rotation. And it was always on the other side. So to have him ask for that chart eight minutes in, and to have it come on the side that is opposite, caused him to look in a different direction and lift his head just a little because it was higher. And that just doesn’t happen because it happened. It happened because, I believe, God wanted him to live.”
Trump says things that “are perfunctory — every president says ‘God bless America’ — well, it’s more profound with him now, and it’s more personal.”
“You know, I have an obligation to do a good job, I feel, because I was really saved,” Trump told Fox News on July 11. “I owe a lot. And I think — I hope — the reason I was saved was to save our country.”
Roger Stone, a longtime friend and informal advisor, said the president is “more serene and more determined after the attempt on his life. He told me directly that he believed he was spared by God for the purpose of restoring the nation to greatness, and that he believes deeply that he is protected now by the Lord,” he said.
Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, agreed.
“I think for people who know the president, it is commonly believed that it changed him. I mean, how could it not? Imagine if you were who he was and if you don’t turn your head at that instant,” he said. “He knew he was lucky to be alive.”
Given how close Trump came to a very different outcome, Reed said, “it’s hard not to feel on some level that the hand of providence protected him for some greater purpose. And there are people that I’ve talked to who said they were confident that he would win for that reason. That there must have been a reason.”
