Former President Donald Trump, who was seen pumping his fist in the air after he got shot at during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, said that he was glad he didn’t have to die for an iconic picture.
“A lot of people say it’s the most iconic photo they’ve ever seen,” Trump said to the New York Post on Sunday. “They’re right, and I didn’t die. Usually, you have to die to have an iconic picture.”
He added: “I just wanted to keep speaking, but I just got shot.”
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Trump was seen ducking for cover after gunshots rang out at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Photographers later captured snapshots of Trump as he stood and pumped his fist at the crowd in defiance with streaks of blood across his face.
Trump was then escorted off-stage and whisked away by Secret Service agents.
The top of his ear was pierced with the bullet, he wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday.
The “iconic” photo is certainly doing him favors. It is being reposted and widely shared by Republican lawmakers and Trump supporters on social media.
Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., posted the photo by the Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci, writing: “He’ll never stop fighting to Save America.”
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio also shared the photo, saying: “God protected President Trump.”
Vucci, who has covered Trump for years, said he understood the significance of the moment when he heard gunshots ring out.
“I knew immediately it was gunfire,” Vucci said in a video posted on the AP’s website on Saturday. “So I looked at the stage, and I saw the Secret Service agents rushing to President Trump.”
“In my mind, it all happened really fast,” Vucci added. “At the moment I heard the shots being fired I knew that this was a moment of American history that had to be documented.”
Trump told the New York Post he was lucky to be alive.
“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead,” Trump said.
“By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God I’m still here,” he added.
He also told the Post that he thinks agents did a “fantastic job” gunning down the shooter. The authorities have identified the gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20.
The shooting left one spectator in the rally dead and left two others critically injured.
Following the shooting, senior lawmakers like House Speaker Mike Johnson have asked people to dial down the heated political rhetoric as the country gears up for the November presidential elections.
“We’ve got to turn the rhetoric down,” Johnson said on Sunday. “We’ve got to turn the temperature down in this country.”
“We need leaders of all parties, on both sides, to call that out and make sure that happens so that we can go forward and maintain our free society that we all are blessed to have,” he added.
Trump and Biden have also called for unity in the US after the shooting.
A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
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