Donald Trump said he was trying to send a message when he raised his fist moments after he survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The former president told the Washington Examiner on Sunday that he wanted his audience to know he was all right and that “America goes on, we go forward, that we are strong.”
In an image that has been seen around the world, Trump is being pulled off the stage after a gunman fired at him. Blood is streaming from his ear and trickling across his face, possibly from a bullet grazing him, but he pauses to pump his first before he is led away.
“The energy coming from the people there in that moment, they just stood there,” he told the newspaper. “It’s hard to describe what that felt like, but I knew the world was looking. I knew that history would judge this, and I knew I had to let them know we are OK.”
The gunman was killed at the scene and later identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Law enforcement officials have said they don’t yet know what motivated him.