Donald Trump‘s voice cracked with emotion on Thursday night as he described the moment an assassin’s bullet sliced through his ear.
‘I’m not supposed to be here,’ he told his supporters at the Republican convention in Milwaukee.
‘Yes you are, yes you are,’ chanted the crowd.
Friends, aides and his family say the experience changed a former president known for his barnstorming rally speeches and punchy language.
During Thursday’s address he kissed the helmet of former fire chief Corey Comperatore who died in the shooting, described how he survived only by the grace of God and called for a united nation.
‘The discord and division in our society must be healed. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart,’ he said.
For all the talk that he would moderate his tone, the old Trump quickly returned as he veered off script.
He railed against President Joe Biden, praised the fictional psychopath Hannibal Lecter, called Nancy Pelosi ‘crazy,’ and offered up some of the greatest hits from his rally speeches as he rambled on for 92 minutes.
