The former president told his former White House doctor that he would have died if he didn't turn his head to look at an immigration statistics chart.
Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump might have lost his life on Saturday if he hadn't tilted his head to look at an immigration statistics chart.
Trump had a close brush with death during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. A gunman tried to assassinate the presumptive GOP nominee but failed. The suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper shortly after.
"I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Saturday.
But things could've been so much different, according to Texas Rep. Ronny Jackson, who said he spoke to Trump a few hours after the shooting.
Jackson, who used to be Trump's White House doctor, recounted the conversation with The New York Times in a report published Sunday.
"He goes, 'The border patrol saved my life,'" Jackson told the outlet. "He said, 'If I hadn't pointed at that chart and turned my head to look at it, that bullet would have hit me right in the head.'"
Trump, who was left wounded by the attack, said on Saturday that a bullet had "pierced the upper part of my right ear."
Although Trump managed to survive, Crooks' bullets were still deadly. The Secret Service said that one rallygoer died in the attack while two others were left critically injured.
"I'm not supposed to be here, I'm supposed to be dead," Trump told the New York Post on Sunday. "By luck or by God, many people are saying it's by God, I'm still here."
Representatives for Trump didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
