Donald Trump walked slowly down the steps of his personal plane onto a New Jersey tarmac just after midnight Saturday. The American flag on the tail section visible just over his right shoulder, he was wearing what appeared to be the same white shirt and blue suit from earlier in the day. He waved.
Other than the Secret Service agent standing guard with an automatic rifle, the video would be entirely unremarkable. Instead, it was the first public image of the former president released by the Trump campaign after he survived an assassination attempt.
Hours earlier, just six minutes into a speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, five Secret Service agents tackled Trump to the ground, shielding him with their bodies, as shots rang out. A Secret Service sniper shot and killed the suspected gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthews Crooks, who had fired multiple times from a nearby rooftop. One of the shots grazed Trump’s ear, leaving a wound he described as “the worst mosquito bite of [his] life.”
“He’s amazed it happened. He understands he is blessed to be where he is today,” reported Fox News anchor Bret Baier after a Sunday conversation with Trump. “The doctor he talked to said if the bullet was a quarter of an inch different position, he would not be talking today.”
Other than a handful of written statements, Trump has not said much since his brush with death. A Republican close to the campaign told RealClearPolitics that ahead of the convention, the former president’s team is “trying to cool temperatures.”
The enduring image from Saturday already said enough: blood streaked across his face, an American flag flying in the background, Trump’s fist raised defiantly in the air. Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci captured the moment, and Time magazine made it their cover.
But Trump still has business he must attend to ahead of this week’s Republican National Convention. He has not yet announced a vice-presidential candidate, a constitutional imperative made that much more important after the attempt on his life. “He’s in a very good mood,” one senior Trump adviser told RCP late Saturday night. “He is resolved to continue this convention. There are no plans to deviate on anything that was planned.” The next morning, the former president said the same, announcing that he would travel to Milwaukee as originally scheduled.
“Based on yesterday’s terrible events, I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin, and The Republican National Convention, by two days, but have just decided that I cannot allow a ‘shooter,’ or potential assassin, to force change to scheduling, or anything else. Therefore, I will be leaving for Milwaukee, as scheduled,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
On the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show on Friday, Trump said that he would love to announce his running mate “during the convention” or “just slightly before the convention, like Monday.” As his plane left New Jersey for Wisconsin, there was still no clear front-runner among the presumed finalists. As of press time, Trump may have managed to achieve what he wants the most: a reveal worthy of “The Apprentice.”
A CBS/YouGov poll on the eve of the convention found 61% of registered Republican voters reported that they would be enthusiastic about and supportive of adding Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to Trump’s ticket. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott had similarly positive numbers (51%) while Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley were acceptable to 43% of those surveyed. Just 34% of Republicans, meanwhile, reported satisfaction with Doug Burgum, although that might be a name identification problem as much as any unease with North Dakota’s governor.
Veep speculation was immediately overtaken by events, however, as Republicans united around Trump. Even former rivals like Haley, who had not planned to attend the RNC, changed plans. The former ambassador accepted a last-minute invitation to speak at the convention, a sign Alex Stroman, former executive director of the South Carolina GOP, said “shows the Trump campaign understands the moment.”
Trump seemed more focused on Providence than politics Sunday. He thanked his supporters for their prayers in a statement, writing, “It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.”
He was not the only member of his family at risk in rural Pennsylvania.
“When I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and Barron’s life, were on the brink of devastating change,” former first lady Melania Trump wrote in a statement, confirming that Trump’s youngest son was present in the crowd. “I am grateful to the brave secret service agents and law enforcement officials who risked their own lives to protect my husband.”
In her first public statement since the attack, she wrote, “We are all humans, and fundamentally, instinctively, we want to help one another ... let us remember that when the time comes to look beyond the left and the right, beyond the red and the blue, we all come from families with the passion to fight for a better life together, while we are here, in this earthly realm.”
Trump landed in Wisconsin Sunday evening, walking down the steps of his plane onto the Milwaukee tarmac, raising and shaking his fist in the air, just a little over 24 hours after the attack.
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