Trump assassination attempt aftermath, reactions from inner circle revealed in new book
The book, titled "2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America," was written by Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and Isaac Arnsdorf and is set to be released on July 8.
Susie Wiles, now Trump's chief-of-staff, told those around her to get down as gunshots rang out at the rally on July 13, 2024.
"The shooting stopped. Wiles rushed to the side of the tent to see if she could tell what had happened. She caught a glimpse of Trump just as he was standing up. She saw the blood. She saw him struggling with the agents, looking for his shoes, raising his fist. She couldn't tell where he was hit, but she thought he was going to be okay," the excerpt, published by the Washington Post, read.
Wiles was ushered into a motorcade as she waited for other Trump advisers, Steven Cheung and Dan Scavino, to join her.
"Wiles didn't see adviser Dan Scavino in the car now either. She looked back and saw him some forty feet behind, picking something up off the ground. She rolled down her window and shouted, 'Get in the car!' Only when he got inside and the motorcade started rolling did Wiles notice what Scavino had stopped to retrieve: the red MAGA cap that Trump had been wearing, stained with his blood," the authors wrote.
As the motorcade left the rally, Wiles spoke to the head of Trump's Secret Service team, who told her that the president was breathing and was okay. Trump walked into the hospital, refusing to use a stretcher because he didn't want the "visual," the excerpt said.
Wiles, Scavino and Cheung walked into Trump's hospital room when a doctor alerted them.
"It was bleeding like a b----," Trump told the authors in an interview. "They thought I had four or five bullets in me because there was so much blood."
The authors wrote that his aides realized the president was okay when he started cracking jokes.
The president's wife, Melania Trump, requested the president return to Bedminster, the location of Trump's golf club, and asked the area be evacuated. The book also stated Trump was receiving unexpected phone calls from people who wouldn't normally have reached out to him prior to the assassination attempt.
"Trump was flooded with calls and messages expressing relief, sending strength and wishing him well — some from unusual sources. Sylvester Stallone called. He heard from two of the richest men in the world, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos," the book read.
"Both men, who'd been frequent targets of Trump's criticisms, now told him how courageous he'd appeared when he'd raised his fist and shouted 'FIGHT!' Bezos said Trump's instincts showed who he was, and he wanted them to have a friendship."
Trump also spoke to former President Biden, and said the call was "very nice, actually."
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