Donald Trump might not be preparing to accept the Republican nomination this week in Milwaukee if he hadn’t turned his head to look at a graphic of immigration statistics during his now-infamous rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last Saturday.
Seconds after the former president walked away from the podium, crazed gunman Thomas Crooks, 20, opened fire, striking Trump in the ear and killing retired fire chief Corey Comperatore, 50.
Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who served as Trump’s doctor, was quoted by The New York Times as saying that Trump believes it was the fact that he was speaking out about the southern border crisis that saved his life.
“He said, ‘Border Patrol saved my life.’ He said, ‘If I hadn’t pointed to that graphic and turned my head to look at it, that bullet would have hit me right in the head.'”
Crooks was quickly shot dead by Secret Service snipers, but questions remain about the agency’s security protocols following the shooting.
A shocking new animation shows how close Trump came to death as the bullet whizzed past his brain and hit his ear.
With so many questions surrounding the shooting, including Crooks’ exact location, this illustration is based on what is known so far.
A new animation shows Donald Trump turning his head at just the right moment to avoid being fatally wounded.
The bullet from crazed gunman Thomas Crooks passed through the president’s brain and struck his ear.
Trump credits the fact that he was turning to point at a graphic as the reason his head turned at just the right moment.
“He’s not supposed to be here, he’s supposed to be dead,” Trump said.
However, Trump only suffered damage to his ear.
“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead. By luck or by God, a lot of people say it’s by God that I’m still here,” Trump later told his hometown newspaper. The New York Post.
For his part, Trump praised the Secret Service for the way they handled the evacuation when, speaking to the Post, he said they did a “fantastic job.”
“It’s surreal for all of us,” he added.
Aaron Cohen, a veteran of Israel’s Special Operations, reiterated this view in an interview with Fox News.
“Snipers are typically trained to shoot at the cerebral cortex of the cerebellum, at the top of the brain stem,” he said.
‘It incapacitates you, it prevents you from moving your hands… It’s all about the distance of the shot. One hundred and thirty yards. That’s a putt. Anyone can aim a scope two, two, three at a target from that distance and hit it. It’s not a difficult shot to hit.’
“The fact that he was turned that way just as the shot came in was what saved his life,” Cohen added.
Meanwhile, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has been criticised for her “stupidity” and “absurd excuse” that there were no snipers on the roof used by would-be assassin Thomas Crooks because it was “too steep”.
Speaking to ABC News on Tuesday, Cheatle claimed that agents were not positioned at the top of the tilted building, deeming it too dangerous, despite images from the scene showing Secret Service snipers positioned on a tilted roof behind where Trump was delivering his speech.
Former Army Ranger Sean Powell was among those who expressed outrage at Cheatle’s “garbage excuse” anger-filled tweet.
“Holy crap. A slanted roof? That’s a totally absurd excuse,” he wrote.
“Our snipers used to attack from the tops of mountains in Afghanistan, or even from the slopes if necessary. The stupidity of this statement goes a long way to explaining why the situation broke out that day. It was absolute incompetence,” he added.
Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas quoted Trump as saying that his turning around to point at an immigration graphic likely saved his life.
Trump was shot in the ear about 10 minutes after taking the stage.
Cheatle’s claims were heavily criticized as it emerged that the snipers who were positioned in the building on the left had also been set up on a sloped roof behind Trump’s podium, while Crooks was positioned on the right.
Authorities are still investigating the motives of crazed gunman Thomas Crooks
Following Cheatle’s bizarre comments, a former US senator from South Carolina, Jim DeMint, also weighed in, saying: “This sorry excuse defies credibility.”
While former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino claimed that Thomas Crooks’ vantage point was supposed to be covered, no one showed up, agency director Kimberly Cheatle came under fire for her “excuse” that the roof was “too steep” for snipers.
The radio and television political commentator, who worked as an operative for more than a decade, told Donald Trump Jr.’s Triggered podcast Tuesday that the rooftop spot where Thomas Crooks tried to assassinate the former president should have been occupied by police.
“According to my source, that roof was supposed to be a police booth… there was supposed to be someone up there,” Bongino said from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.