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Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
A year after Trump's near-assassination, friends and allies see some signs of a changed man
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was on stage at the Iowa State Fairgrounds earlier this month, kicking off the country's 250th anniversary celebration, when he heard what sounded like fireworks in the distance. 'Did I hear what I think I heard?' Donald Trump remarked as he spoke from behind a wall of thick, bulletproof glass. 'Don't worry, it's only fireworks. I hope. Famous last words," he quipped, drawing laughs and cheers. 'You always have to think positive," he went on. "I didn't like that sound, either." The comments, just days before the first anniversary of Trump's near-assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, served as a stark reminder of the lingering impact of the day when a gunman opened fire at a campaign rally, grazing Trump's ear and killing one of his supporters in the crowd. The attack dramatically upended the 2024 campaign and launched a frenzied 10-day stretch that included Trump's triumphant arrival at the Republican National Convention with a bandaged ear, President Joe Biden's decision to abandon his reelection bid and the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor. One year after coming millimeters from a very different outcome, Trump, according to friends and aides, is still the same Trump. But they see signs, beyond being on higher alert on stage, that his brush with death did change him in some ways: He is more attentive and more grateful, they say, and speaks openly about how he believes he was saved by God to save the country and serve a second term. 'I think it's always in the back of his mind," said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a longtime friend and ally who was in close touch with Trump after the shooting and joined him that night in New Jersey after he was treated at a Pennsylvania hospital. 'He's still a rough and tumble guy, you know. He hasn't become a Zen Buddhist. But I think he is, I'll say this, more appreciative. He's more attentive to his friends," he said, pointing to Trump sending him a message on his birthday earlier this week. Graham added: "It's just a miracle he's not dead. He definitely was a man who believed he had a second lease on life." Constant reminders While many who survive traumatic events try to block them from memory, Trump has instead surrounded himself with memorabilia commemorating one of the darkest episodes in modern political history. He's decorated the White House and his golf clubs with art pieces depicting the moment after the shooting when he stood up, thrust his fist dramatically in the air and chanted, 'Fight, fight, fight!" A painting of the scene now hangs prominently in the foyer of the White House State Floor near the staircase to the president's residence. Earlier this year, he began displaying a bronze sculpture of the tableau in the Oval Office on a side table next to the Resolute Desk. And while he said in his speech at the Republican convention that he would only talk about what had happened once, he often shares the story of how he turned his head at just the right moment to show off his 'all-time favorite chart in history' of southern border crossings that he credits for saving his life. During a press conference in the White House briefing room last month, he acknowledged lingering physical effects from the shooting. 'I get that throbbing feeling every once in a while," he said, gesturing to his ear. 'But you know what, that's OK. This is a dangerous business. What I do is a dangerous business.' Trump will spend Sunday's anniversary attending the FIFA Club World Cup soccer final in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Crediting divine intervention Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who as his then-campaign chief was with him at the rally, said in a podcast interview released last week that Trump walked away from the shooting believing he had been 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.' She, too credited divine intervention. 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.' As a result, she said, when 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." She also credited the attack with helping change public perceptions of Trump during the campaign. 'For the American public to see a person who was such a fighter as he was that day, I think, as awful and tragic as it might have been, it turned out to be something that showed people his character. And that's helpful," she said. 'You know, I have an obligation to do a good job, I feel, because I was really saved,' Trump told Fox News Friday. '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 adviser, noted that Trump has had other brushes with death, including a last-minute decision not to board a helicopter to Atlantic City that crashed in 1989 and another near-assassination two months after Butler when U.S. Secret Service agents spotted a man pointing a rifle through the fence near where Trump was golfing. Stone said he's found the president 'to be more serene and more determined after the attempt on his life' in Butler. '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.' ___ Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield contributed to this report from Rome.
Fox News
10 minutes ago
- Fox News
Jillian Michaels, Riley Gaines and more address Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit
incoming update… After the first day of Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit there is still plenty that attendees have to look forward to, including appearances from high profile figures in the Trump administration and across the MAGA movement. One notable figure who is not a politician but will speak Saturday is Ross Ulbricht, the convicted web developer of the dark-net drug marketplace Silk Road. Ulbricht earlier this year,received a pardon from President Donald Trump after being sentenced to life for running the illegal website that connected drug dealers and users. Ulbricht has become a prominent figure in Libertarian circles due to his story. Undercover journalist James O'Keefe, fitness personality Jillian Michaels, actor Russell Brand, Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld, and activist Riley Gaines are among some of the other non-politicians on Saturday's agenda for the youth Republican conference. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is slated to speak Saturday night after Trump border czar Tom Homan, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs and Florida Congresswoman Anna Paulina Morris, an entrepreneur from Kentucky who is running to take the seat held by retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will be the first speaker to begin the day's general programming at 11:30 a.m. A variety of breakout panels for participants on-site will begin earlier at 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. according to the official agenda, which can be viewed here. For those not in attendance, Day Two will be streamed on Rumble, whose CEO Chris Pavlovski, will be speaking Saturday as well. Live Coverage begins here
American Military News
16 minutes ago
- American Military News
Russia Launches More Deadly Air Attacks On Ukraine
This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission. Russia targeted Ukrainian cities with another barrage of overnight drone and missile attacks, killing at least two people and wounding at least 10 others, Ukrainian officials said on July 12. The new air attacks came ahead of what US President Donald Trump, who has been seeking to end the war in Ukraine since he took office in January but has run up against recalcitrance from President Vladimir Putin's Kremlin, said would be a 'major statement on Russia' on July 14. Cities in western Ukraine bore the brunt of the latest overnight attacks, in which Ukraine's air force said it shot down 319 of the 597 drones and all but one of the 26 missiles launched by Russian forces. A 26-year-old woman and a 43-year-old man were killed and at least four other people injured as a result of drone strikes on Chernivtsi, near the Romanian border, regional military administration chief Ruslan Zaparanyuk said on Telegram. In Lviv, near the Polish border, six people were injured in drone attacks, including an 11-year-old boy, Maksym Kozytskiy, who holds the same position in the Lviv region, said on Telegram. Five were treated on site and one man was hospitalized. The western city of Lutsk, which had been hit hard when Ukrainian authorities said Russia launched a record of more than 700 drones and missiles three days earlier, was also targeted on July 12, but no injuries were reported. Three people were injured in Russian strikes on the eastern city of Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. The Russian Defense Ministry said its strikes on Lviv, Lutsk, and Kharkiv targeted defense industry facilities. Russia claims it does not targeted civilians despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Russia has stepped up its missile and drone attacks this year, with numbers increasing every month since December, according to a monitoring group, and has intensified barrages on Kyiv and other cities in recent weeks while also pressing forward on the front lines — albeit with massive casualties among its troops. 'The pace of Russia's aerial strikes demands swift decisions, and it can be curbed now by sanctions,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram on July 12. 'This war can only be stopped through strength,' said Zelenskiy, who also called for more air defense weapons from the West. 'We expect not just signals from our partners, but actions that will save lives.' Trump has voiced increasing frustration recently with Putin, who has rejected his efforts to secure an extendable 30-day cease-fire in the war, now in its 41st month since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ukraine agreed to the 30-day cease-fire when Trump first proposed it in March, but Russia has attached conditions that experts say were meant to drag out talks while its forces continue their attacks. Two rounds of direct Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul, on May 16 and June 2, led to exchanges of prisoners and the remains of soldiers killed in the war but produced no progress toward peace. 'We get a lot of bullshit from Putin. It's very nice most of the time but meaningless,' Trump, who has spoken to Putin by phone six times since his inauguration on January 20, said on July 8. Trump said the United States is 'sending defensive weapons to Ukraine because Putin is not treating human beings right.' That marked a reversal of course days after a Pentagon announcement that delivery of some weapons to Ukraine would be halted over concerns that US stockpiles have declined too much. Two days later, Trump told US broadcaster NBC that the United States is 'sending weapons to NATO, and NATO is paying for those weapons…and then NATO is going to be giving those weapons' to Ukraine. His promise of a major statement on July 14 has led to expectations that he might announce support for new sanctions against Russia, which he has so far refrained from imposing, or pledge more military aid to Ukraine. Trump has said he is studying a bill sponsored by Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican-South Carolina) and Senator Richard Blumenthal (Democrat-Connecticut) that would impose sanctions and tariffs on countries that support Russia's war effort in addition to targeting Russia's banking system. In the NBC interview on July 10, Trump called it 'a very major and very biting sanctions bill' and said he expected it to pass, but added: 'It's at my option if I want to use it.' Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had discussed 'a new and a different approach' to Ukraine peace efforts that Russia proposed when they met on July 10 on the sidelines of an ASEAN gathering in Kuala Lumpur. 'I don't want to oversell it, OK, but it was constructive,' Rubio said on July 11. 'We'll find out, but there are some things that we will potentially explore, and I relayed that to the president and our team last night.'
