Former President Donald Trump emerged from the scene of an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday evening with his right ear pierced, his face covered in blood and his fist raised in a defiant stance.
But in the aftermath of the shooting that missed the 45th president by inches from his brain, Trump “turned down the clearest political opportunity to infuriate the country,” Tucker Carlson said during a speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Thursday.
“I contacted Trump within hours. [the assassination attempt] “He told me that night, he’d just been shot in the face, and he didn’t say a word about himself,” the former Fox News host and founder of the Tucker Carlson Network said. “He just said how surprised he was and how proud he was of the crowd that didn’t run.”
“I thought of two things. The first thought was, ‘Of course they didn’t run away. His courage gave them courage. The courage of a leader gives courage to his people,'” he continued. “And my second thought was, ‘Is this the self-serving man I’ve heard about for the last nine years? Does he really not say a word about himself? Not a word about his own people, that’s all,” he continued.
Tucker Carlson had a smashing success with his speech at the Republican National Convention. It was phenomenal. pic.twitter.com/RTU7fc8s1Q
— Ian Miles Chong (@stillgray) July 19, 2024
“And the second thing I noticed, and I don’t think anybody has mentioned this publicly, is that after he was shot, he turned down the most obvious opportunity in politics to incite the public, which is something that almost any other politician I’ve ever met, and certainly his opponents, would have taken immediately,” Carlson said.
He added that most politicians would use the attack to actively seek answers publicly, including answers to “the real questions that need to be answered.”
“But he didn’t say that immediately after the shootings, or days after, or a week after,” he noted. “He did his best to bring the country together, and I thought, ‘Is this guy divisive? Is he irresponsible?’ No, this is the most responsible, unifying action I’ve ever seen from a leader.”
Defiant: Bloodied Trump pumps fist at crowd after possible shooting at rally
C-SPAN
