Former US President Donald Trump said on Monday that he refused to use a stretcher after being injured in a shooting at his rally in Pennsylvania. He was shot in the ear during an assassination attempt by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.
“They wanted to put me on a stretcher. They had a stretcher and they wanted to put me on the stretcher, and I said I’m not going to go on the stretcher because I thought it was an ear injury,” Trump told Fox News.
He said, “There was a lot of bleeding. But I understood. They thought I was hurt somewhere else…I said, ‘I’m telling you I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m going to get up. I want to get up. I’m not going to be carried out on a stretcher.'”
Crooks opened fire on Republican US presidential candidate Trump with an AR-style assault rifle just minutes after he began a speech at a campaign event in Butler.
Crooks, sitting on the roof of a nearby building with a clear view of the stage, was shot by a Secret Service sniper approximately 26 seconds after the first of eight shots was fired.
The shooting killed 50-year-old firefighter Corey Comperatore, while two other rally attendees were seriously injured.
Investigators concluded the 20-year-old, who lived in a town about 80 miles from Butler, acted alone.
Trump-Biden conversation
In his interview to Fox News, Donald Trump also talked about his conversation with US President Joe Biden.
Trump said Biden told him, “You’re lucky you turned to the right.” He said this when Biden tilted his head half a second before he was shot. The bullet hit his head and grazed his right ear.
“I said, ‘I think so,’” he said, describing his conversation with Biden as a “good conversation.”
He also said that embattled Secret Service chief Kimberly Cheatle visited him after the shooting. She has been under fire after the Secret Service failed in its mission to prevent an assassination attempt on Trump.
“She came to see me. And, I mean, it went very well. She was very nice, I thought. But, you know, somebody should have made sure there was nobody on that roof,” Trump told Fox News.
Cheatle served as a Secret Service agent for 27 years and moved to become the head of security for PepsiCo in North America in 2021. She was then appointed by Biden to head the agency in 2022.