Trump recounts assassination attempt in Butler at the top of his RNC address, pays tribute to slain firefighter

On the final night of the Republican National Convention, former President Donald Trump gave a firsthand account of the assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., which he survived days earlier, in a speech that underlined how the shooting could continue to define the next four months of his campaign.

“I will tell you exactly what happened and you’ll never hear it from me a second time because it’s actually too painful to tell,” Trump told thousands of fervent supporters packed in the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee and millions watching around the nation.

Speakers over four days of the convention have made frequent mention of Saturday’s shooting, the first assassination attempt on a president or presidential candidate since 1981, when Ronald Reagan was shot in Washington.

Nearly every speech at the convention has noted Trump’s brush with death and hailed his safety as divine intervention. It’s motivated an already energized group of supporters in Milwaukee.

For the first 15 minutes of Trump’s speech on Thursday, he gave an introspective retelling of those 90 seconds. Then, the next hour became a more standard stump speech. The full speech lasted more than 90 minutes.

Trump told the audience how he turned to reference a chart about border crossings while on stage and heard a loud whizzing sound when he “felt something hit me, really, really hard on my ear. I said to myself, wow what was that?”

“I immediately knew it was very serious, that we were under attack, and in one movement, proceeded to drop to the ground.”

He called Secret Service agents “very brave,” saying they “rushed to the stage,” and called them “great people at great risk.”

“There was blood pouring and yet, in a certain way I felt very safe because I had God on my side,” he said.

At one point he told the crowd he wasn’t supposed to be here, his voice close to a whisper.

Thousands of people chanted back: “Yes you are!”

Trump has always been a politician who knows how to create political moments. His defiant fist pump on Saturday showed that, as did his theatrical entrance on Thursday.

Before Trump took the stage, two people rolled out a firefighter jacket and a helmet with the number 27, both of which belonged to Corey Comperatore, who was shot and killed at Trump’s rally on Saturday.

Trump walked on stage as Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the USA” live.

At one point Trump went over to kiss Comperatore’s helmet. He told the crowd his campaign had raised more than $6 million for Comperatore’s family and the families of the two rally attendees seriously injured in the shooting, David Dutch and James Copenhaver. He called all three “serious Trumpsters.”

Trump said he’d spoken to Comperatore’s wife and called the husband and father of two daughters “a highly respected former fire chief.”

“He lost his life selflessly acting as a human shield to protect them from flying bullets,” Trump said. “He went right over the top of them and was hit. What a fine man he was.”

The former president asked for a moment of silence for Comperatore.

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for others,” Trump said. “This is the spirit that forged America in her darkest hours, and this is the love that will lead America back to the summit of human achievement and greatness. This is what we need. Despite such a heinous attack, we unite this evening, more determined than ever. I am more determined than ever, and so are you. So is everybody.”

The rest of the speech sounded, more or less, like Trump’s standard stump speech, with jokes, exaggerations and little moderation, albeit delivered in a more soft-spoken monotone.

When he started talking about undocumented immigration, the chart he had turned to reference in Butler appeared on the screens behind him.

“The last time they put up that chart I didn’t really get to look at it,” he said to laughter. “But without that chart, I wouldn’t be here today.”