Former President Donald Trump, speaking in a glitch-marred interview with the X platform Monday, said his assassination attempt was “not pleasant” but credited God for saving his life when he turned his face at the “perfect angle” to look at a chart about illegal immigration.
“I knew immediately that it was a bullet, I knew immediately that it was at the ear,” Mr. Trump told X CEO Elon Musk, who has endorsed his candidacy. “I heard people shout, ‘Bullets, bullets.’”
Mr. Trump said the man who died in the attack, Corey Comperatore, was a “great Trumper” and a terrific person. He said that supporters raised a lot of money for his family.
Mr. Trump recounted the July 13 shooting in a heavily promoted interview that started over a half-hour late due to technical problems and spurred online ribbing and recollections of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ill-fated GOP primary launch on the same site.
Mr. Musk, hoping to placate his audience, said there appeared to be a “denial of service” attack on his website.
“We think we’ve overcome most of that, so it’s now time to proceed,” Mr. Musk said. “There’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what Mr. Trump has to say.”
On his assassination attempt, Mr. Trump said there should have been “nobody on the roof” near his Pennsylvania rally where the shooting unfolded.
He also joked about the fact he turned his head at a slight angle to look at a chart about illegal border crossings.
“Illegal immigration saved my life,” Mr. Trump said, prompting chuckles from his host. “That chart was very important for a lot of reasons.”
The former president marveled at the quick actions of the Secret Service and the ability of the crowd to stay in place.
“You didn’t have anybody flee, you didn’t have anyone stampede,” Mr. Trump said, adding that he also was wondering immediately why the rooftop wasn’t covered by security.
“That would have been the spot [for a gunman],” Mr. Trump said.
The interview, scheduled to start at 8 p.m., was a notable return to X for Mr. Trump.
He used the platform to fuel his political rise and launched his own social media company when he was booted from Twitter in 2021.
Users who expected a major interview instead turned into a peanut gallery of sorts, remarking on the irony of the world’s foremost tech companies being unable to host an interview. Also ironically, Mr. Trump derided the botched DeSantis launch at the time as a “disaster.”
Mr. Trump, who is concerned about optics, often complains of technical glitches at his events, such as poor lighting or malfunctioning microphones. He’s joked about refusing to pay vendors who don’t offer good services.
Yet he played off the X glitch, saying: “Congratulations because I see you broke every record in the book,” Mr. Trump said.
Some online commenters criticized the interview itself, noting the former president’s voice sounded odd or slurred, and that Mr. Musk wasn’t lively enough.
The former president is trying to win back momentum in the presidential race after Vice President Kamala Harris took over the Democratic ticket in place of President Biden. She is drawing large crowds in swing states and received media attention from her selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate.
A weekend poll from The New York Times and Siena College showed Ms. Harris with a 4-percentage-point lead in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin and in Michigan. Of the voters surveyed in those states, 50% in each said they would support the vice president and 46% said they would vote for Mr. Trump.
The Trump campaign says Ms. Harris is enjoying a short-lived honeymoon period that will fade as voters get a better understanding of her policies.
Media reports suggest Mr. Trump’s inner circle wants the former president to remain focused on policy issues instead of remarking on Ms. Harris’s racial identity, comparing crowd sizes or picking beefs with celebrities.
Mr. Trump leaned into one of his signature issues — illegal immigration — in the conversation moderated by Mr. Musk, an immigrant who noted he came to the country legally.
“These are people who are not productive,” Mr. Trump said of illegal immigrants, suggesting countries were offloading them.
Mr. Trump said the U.S. is “overwhelmed” and focused on New York, saying he faced a criminal trial even as migrants come “from the Congo” and “are murderers.”
“They’re coming from Africa, they’re coming from Asia, they’re coming from the Middle East, they’re coming from South America,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Musk said the U.S. couldn’t absorb every person from the rest of Earth who might want to live here.
Mr. Trump suggested closing the Department of Education and letting states lead the way. He said forcing states to compete for the best system would help the U.S. rise in global education rankings.
The former president also defended his record on Russia, saying he rejected the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Europe and that the invasion of Ukraine by Kremlin strongman Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have happened on his watch.
“I know Putin very well, we got along very well,” Mr. Trump said. “We would talk a lot about Ukraine. It was the apple of his eye, but I said, ‘Don’t ever do it.’”
Mr. Trump ticked through his greatest hits on foreign policy, including his relationship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, and how he “walked onto his land.”
He also said “nuclear warming” was a bigger threat than climate change and global warming.
Mr. Musk served as a supportive audience and interviewer, saying Mr. Trump embodied the type of authority other nations respect.
One of the world’s richest men, Mr. Musk’s other companies include the Tesla electric vehicle maker and SpaceX, which launches rockets and spacecraft.
Born in South Africa, Mr. Musk also holds citizenship in Canada and the U.S. He purchased Twitter for more than $40 billion in 2022 and pledged to let free speech flourish on the platform without fear of censorship.
Mr. Musk gravitated toward Mr. Trump in recent years, particularly in support of his tough stance on illegal immigration, and formally backed Mr. Trump after the failed assassination attempt.
“I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Mr. Musk wrote on X at the time.
Mr. Trump has done other interviews outside of traditional media.
He sat down with former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson last year and recently spoke to online streamer Adin Ross, who gifted the former president a Tesla Cybertruck after the interview.
Mr. Trump also appeared on a podcast in June hosted by Logan Paul, a YouTuber and professional wrestler.
Yet his return to X is notable because of the platform’s role in Mr. Trump’s rise. At the White House, Mr. Trump used Twitter to make big policy announcements.
Twitter suspended Mr. Trump because of his actions around the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, though Mr. Musk reinstated Mr. Trump after purchasing the platform and renaming it.
Mr. Trump prefers to use his own social media platform, Truth Social, but he posted his mug shot after a criminal booking in Georgia last year. He returned to the platform on Monday with a video attacking Ms. Harris’ policy position, plus teasers for the Musk interview and campaign messages.
The ad called Ms. Harris a “radical” who is trying to paper over a series of extreme liberal stances from years ago, such as getting rid of money-based bail and “starting from scratch” instead of retaining the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that ejects illegal immigrants.
Running just shy of two minutes, the ad features a montage of Harris interviews in which the vice president, who briefly ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primary, endorses free health care for illegal immigrants and says they should not be treated as criminals.
Ms. Harris’ team is using X to bolster her image as a fun and, at 59, younger option than Mr. Trump, 78.
Her husband, Doug Emhoff, recently posted a satirical clip bolstering Ms. Harris’ image as a prosecutor with a teaser for “Law & Order: Kamala Harris for President Unit.”
• Mallory Wilson contributed to this report.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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