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This is the most important election in the history of our country. I'm not a threat to democracy at all. It's been seven or eight weeks since Woodby Assassin fired eight rounds. How can you say it's luck when it's 20 million to one or that bullet could have missed? And has it changed you? Being president is a dangerous job. I never realized how dangerous. R.F.K. Jr. has offered his support to you and your campaign. Will he have a role in your administration? [Music] You are catching up with me in Las Vegas, Nevada, where I am catching up with former President Donald Trump and Republican nominee for president ten weeks from the actual election. We're going to sit down and talk about a lot of things as we close in on the day. We're going to talk about where he stands after having an attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. We're going to talk about how he feels about now Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. We're going to talk about what he thinks the challenges are leading into this election and what has to happen to get independents to hear his message and come down on his side of the fence. We're going to ask him some hard questions and get some clear answers. Today, ten weeks from the election. Mr. President, thank you for sitting down with me again. Thank you. Very proud to be talking to you. You've been really busy and I have to ask you, it's been seven or eight weeks since Woodby Assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed on top of a roof on a shockingly close building right in front of you and fired eight rounds from an AR-style assault rifle shooting you in the ear. Take a look at what happened. Experts said, frankly, you shouldn't be here right now. Experts said a kill shot was almost a certainty. But yet, here you sit, you had to have asked yourself, you had to have reflected on this, how am I here and why am I here? How do you answer that question? It's a very hard one to answer. When it happened, it was a whack. I mean, I said something's going on there. It was a real whack to the ear. But you're not thinking about that. And I was lucky I went down quickly because if I didn't go down quickly, bullets were coming right over my head when I was down. I heard them, they were moving along. They moved pretty fast. How fast does a bullet go? They said about 3,000 miles an hour. That's a lot. They gave it to me in feet, and then they gave it to me. I said, no, no, I want to know in miles per hour. And it's more than 3,000 miles an hour. And you hear the whipping sound. So I was lucky in that regard. But the big luck was because that's something you can control. You go down quickly. If you don't go down quickly, you have a problem. But the big thing was the turn. And it wasn't only the turn. It had to be a perfect 90-degree turn, or I wouldn't be with you today. And I had to be looking at something to the right. And the people, we had massive crowds, and they were in front. So there was no reason to be looking to the right. You had no people right or left. And you know the graph, my all-time favorite graph, showing my great numbers on immigration, stopping immigration virtually at the border, which is a big subject. And I was very proud of that graph, but I only use it about 20% of the time. It's always on my left, and it's always at the end of my speeches, always. And this was the very beginning of the speech. I mean, like the very beginning. It was on my right. So if you add it all up, it's like millions to one, millions to the odds. But I made that perfect turn. I just see it on television again. It's today, just before I came in. It's up big on the screen again today. And in finding out, you know, I have the endorsement of the NRA, but I don't know, I have no knowledge of guns like, as an example, I have two sons that have extreme knowledge, they're great shooters. And Don and Eric both told me separately that that's a guaranteed shot for a bad shooter from that distance. And 30 yards sounded like a long way away. As a shooter, that's a very close target. They said to relate it to me, they said it would be like sinking a one-foot pot. And I said, that's not good. So why were you spared? You've had to reflect on this alone, in the middle of the night, in the golf cart, riding down the way, thinking about it. How do you answer that? Why were you spared? So there had to be some great power. Because you just can't say millions to one, millions to one. I used to say a million to one. It's much more than that, because, again, you have to pull down the sign. There has to be a reason to go right, and never go right. There's no reason. And not only go right, it's for about an eighth of a second. It's not just right. Out of all the time that we're on this planet, it's one eighth of a second, right? So I shouldn't be with you. Is there a purpose? Is there a reason you think you were spared? I mean, the only thing I can think is that God loves our country, and he thinks we're going to bring our country back. He wants to bring it back. It's so bad right now, what's happening when you look at the crime, the horrible things that are happening inside our country. And it can be solved. It can be solved fairly quickly. It has to be God. It has to be the handicap. And today it's luck when it's, you know, 20 million to one, okay? I mean, it's just not possible that I was in that position. It's the only position where that bullet could have missed. And you believe in God? I do. I do. You believe God's hand was in this that day? I believe so, yeah. I do. And you talk about the country, you believe you have more to do. You weren't done. You were spared for a reason. Well, God believes that, I guess. We'll have to see. Number one, I'm in an election with a very vicious group of people. I won the election against Biden. I was up by 17 or 18 points after the debate. And they said, you know what, he's going to lose. They went and told him he's going to lose, and we're going to change you out. And he said, no, I'm not going to do it. In fact, he said only God will change me. But so who knows what happened there? But he said, I'm not leaving. He got 14 million votes, and Kamala got done zero. She ran against him. She got zero. She never made it to Iowa, which is the first state. And here she is. She's on the other side. But, you know, it's like nobody ever had this before. You have an opponent. In politics, you have an opponent, and you win or you lose. But you don't have an opponent, and then you're doing well against the opponent. They take them out. They give you a new opponent. They give you a nice, fresh opponent. And so I have to win that. And if I win that, that would really serve to say that there's some incredible power up there that wanted me to be involved in saving. And maybe it's more than saving the nation. Maybe it's saving the world. You know, I get along with all those tough guys. And Russia wouldn't have gone into Ukraine. You'd have a million people living right now. You'd have cities all over Ukraine. I mean, these magnificent cities with the domes and the golden domes and towers, they'd all be up. They're right now demolished. So many cities, the country is just demolished. Israel wouldn't have happened. October 7th would have never happened. Iran was broke with me. And I don't want them to be broke, but I don't want them to have a nuclear weapon. So you think you're meant to take those challenges on. You're meant to serve in that way. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. In thinking about it, it's beyond any of us, I guess, to really know that. But I can say that for that bullet to have gone along this path right here and for that bullet to have gone along that path and hit the top of my ear as opposed to any other place would have been no good. And it traveled that path for a long way, relatively speaking. That path was traveled for a long way. It killed a man behind you. It did. It killed a man. Corey Comperatore and it critically injured two others. Who thought they weren't going to make it? You know, the doctors said they will not make it, and they did. The doctors were incredible. You've been very attentive and involved with those families. And I understand a lot of support and help for those families. It's taken place. Well, we gave a friend of mine who's a pretty rich guy, was very moved by what happened. And he said, do you mind if I give Corey? He called him Corey. Everyone calls him Corey now. Firefighter, great firefighter, fire chief of a small town. Volunteer, right? Volunteer. No substantial money, obviously. You know, they live comfortably. They love each other. They have a great family, a beautiful family, actually, but not money. And I said, good. What do you want to give? He said a million dollars. He wrote out a check right in front of me for a million dollars, and we presented it to the wife. That's more money than they have ever even thought about. On top of that, we raised close to $6 million in GoFundMe. And that's going to be split up. We're doing it now, obviously, with Corey's family getting more. The other two made it, and they're going to be in good shape. I can't stress how good those doctors were. It was going to be three dead, and it turned out to be one. But they were hit hard. And they just -- I mean, they just made it. They were very close also. And so they're going to be getting probably close to a million and a half dollars each. How'd you feel about the Secret Service and the job they did? Well, I -- look, they were very brave, because when those bullets were coming at me and you saw it, I was down, because I went down quickly, fortunately. Otherwise -- because the bullets were going right over my head. So that was another thing. But see, I don't talk about that as -- that was a question of going down. The other was a question of you had to be in an exact, perfect position, and it's almost impossible to have achieved that position. You have to be right. You have to have used the graph. The whole thing is just so crazy. You never use it at the beginning of the speech. Never. I've never used it at the beginning. I just said, "Pull down the graph." And I look over at the graph, and I get whacked, sort of like a bolting deer. My son, Don, said, "It's like a bolting deer. Great shots can miss a bolting deer." They shoot simultaneously with the deer bolting, and it bolts for some reason. I guess that was my bolt. But it was -- it was absolutely amazing. But the Secret Service, obviously somebody should have been under the roof. You can't -- the roof was empty. And there was a lack of communication between local law enforcement and Secret Service. It seems to be coming out. So they're going to have to work that out. I can say this. On stage, we had great bravery, because bullets were coming at me, and they were coming right on top of me. And within about three or four seconds, I was covered with bodies. Had the sniper -- the Secret Service sniper -- and it may have been somebody else in addition. It may have been a local police shot also. I don't know. But had that shot not been made from a long distance, much longer, and hit its target, one bullet, then they would have been dead, probably, because there would have been a pile, and he would have been shooting into the pile. And in addition, you would have had a lot of people killed. This could have been like that Las Vegas disaster, where that horrible human being killed a lot of people at a concert. Has this changed you? Has it changed your appreciation for life? Has it changed anything about you? Did you hug your kids extra hard? I mean, has it changed you? A lot of people ask me, and a lot of people say, "Look, have you developed any fear of, you know, doing this?" Because you're -- look, being President is a dangerous job. It's much more dangerous than a race car driver than anything. It's probably the most dangerous profession, if you think about it. Just go up and down the list. So you have 46, and numerous left early or got hit. It's a very dangerous job. It's a -- I never realized how dangerous. But I was at the border yesterday, and they were a dangerous place. He allowed it. They -- he and her allowed it to become dangerous. It's a very, very dangerous place. I was doing an interview in Secret Service that said, "Sir, please, no more standing up." They don't want me to stand up. You know, people, especially with the kind of weapons they have today, that people have shots, and -- but it is. It's an interesting -- it's a great job. It's an interesting job. You can do so much good, but it's a dangerous job.

Transcribed automatically. Expect errors in names and numbers.