A photograph of Donald Trump raising his fist in the air after being shot yesterday has been seen by millions, becoming a defining image of the attempted assassination.
But this wasn’t the only reaction from the former president in the moments immediately following a bullet grazing his right ear, nearly killing him.
As bodyguards swarmed around him to escort him away from the stage, the former president can be heard repeating a phrase four times, ‘Let me get my shoes’.
The five words caused speculation about if they could have been code for something else, but Trump said he genuinely just wanted to get his shoes on as they were knocked off by Secret Service agents.
Security was eager to move him off the platform to safety, with one agent appearing to tell him ‘Sir, we got to move to…’ but he insisted he needed his shoes on first.
After he got his shoes on and managed to get his head around what was happening, he then raised his fist to the air and told supporters ‘Fight, fight, fight’.
Clearing up the mystery, Trump told the NY Post: ‘The agents hit me so hard that my shoes fell off, and my shoes are tight.’
He said they came flying in ‘like linebackers’ as soon as the shooting started, showing the reporter a bruise on his arm.
People on social media soon began discussing the video and trying to make sense of it, with many coming to a similar conclusion that it was a normal instinctive reaction.
Redditor AdventureofAnything wrote: ‘The reaction to wanting his shoes is a very normal reaction. Adrenaline is pumping and when in a confusing situation you try to make sense of whatever doesn’t seem right and try to gain control which can sometimes be the most unimportant things (like getting your shoes back on).’
The incident has dominated headlines for days, with the former president and presumptive Republican nominee adding: ‘The thing [bullet] was an eighth of an inch away.
‘That I would turn exactly at that second, where he [the gunman] wouldn’t stop the shot is pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. I’m really not supposed to be here.’
Volunteer firefighter and father Corey Comperatore was killed by shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, on Saturday evening, while another two men in the audience were critically injured.
The gunman had climbed a nearby roof to an elevated position, where he was able to fire on Trump in an assassination attempt.
Read our full coverage of the attack in our live blog.
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