(NewsNation) — Nearly one year after a gunman fired at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, attempting to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, a new book reveals unique insight into the president’s thoughts and reaction in the immediate aftermath.
Sitting just 4 feet from the president on July 13, 2024, was journalist Salena Zito, who was tackled by a campaign staffer when bullets began flying. She released “Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America’s Heartland” on July 8, offering a new lens into the assassination attempt.
The day after 20-year-old Thomas Crooks shot at Trump, grazing his ear with a bullet, the president called Zito, apologizing for not being able to do an interview due to the shooting, she said.
“I had talked to him just four minutes before he went out on the stage, so he was well aware of the fact that I was there,” Zito told NewsNation’s “Vargas Reports.” “So, he called me the next day. He says, ‘Good morning, Salena, this is President Donald Trump. I wanna make sure you’re OK, your daughter’s OK, and I’m really sorry for not being able to do that interview.’”
Zito said she asked him questions like why he put the chart he was holding down and why he turned his head at the moment he did.
“These conclusions always came back to God, the hand of God and purpose. I have a purpose now, and I was spared. And I have an obligation to meet that purpose,” Zito said, paraphrasing Trump’s answers to her.
Zito would go on to speak to the wounded president seven times, also asking him why he chanted, “Fight, fight, fight,” when he stood up after the gunfire stopped.
“He said, ‘Well, in that moment I wasn’t Donald Trump. I was representing America.”