Now-President Donald Trump said that he was bleeding so much on the hospital bed after the assassination attempt on his life in July last year that top aides thought he had been shot “four or five” times, according to a new book.
An excerpt from 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, published in The Washington Post, has revealed new details from the attack in Butler, Pennsylvania, almost a year later.
Trump, who was speaking on stage at the campaign rally on July 13, had been bundled to the ground by Secret Service agents and rushed to the hospital after 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks fired at him from the roof of a building approximately 100 yards away.
“Trump was sitting up in bed, still wearing his suit. A bandage covered his ear. There was blood everywhere,” according to the book.
“It was bleeding like a b****,” Trump later told the book’s authors in an interview. “They thought I had four or five bullets in me because there was so much blood,” the president said, referring to his would-be White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, future director of communications Steven Cheung and future deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino.
The three soon realized Trump was OK “because he started making jokes” in his hospital bed, according to the book.
It was a turning point for the campaign. What followed was an outpouring of support for Trump from Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, two of the world’s richest men, who had been outspoken critics of his in the past.
“Bezos said Trump’s instincts showed who he was, and he wanted them to have a friendship,” according to the book. “Wiles marveled that before, some of these people wouldn’t give him the time of day. Trump loved it. He was having a great time.”
Zuckerberg later said that seeing Trump “pump his fist in the air” after getting shot was “one of the most badass things” he’d seen his life.
July 13 was also the day future “first buddy” and Department of Government Efficiency architect Elon Musk officially endorsed Trump. “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” the Tesla boss said in a post on X that day.
Trump had a brief call with then-President Joe Biden, who was still grappling with the fallout from his disastrous debate performance against the Republican.
“The exchange was awkward after their tense debate just two weeks earlier,” the book says. “The call was brief. But Trump described it as ‘very nice, actually.’”
Trump left the hospital and flew to Bedminster, New Jersey, where his wife Melania was waiting for him.
The book is due to be published on July 8.
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