Former President Donald Trump warned that the July 13 assassination attempt on him may have made him “worse.”
“I want to be nice,” Trump told rally-goers in St. Cloud, Minnesota, on Saturday. “They all say, ‘I think he’s changed. I think he’s changed since two weeks ago. Something affected him.’”
“No, I haven’t changed,” he continued. “Maybe I’ve gotten [sic] worse, actually. Because I get angry at the incompetence that I witness every single day.”
Trump’s remarks effectively abandoned Republican sentiments that followed the shooting at a rally for the Republican presidential nominee in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Trump, along with his family and supporters, have championed the idea that his survival was a sign of divine intervention. Moreover, people in his orbit have described him as “emotional,” “serene” and “spiritual” since the shooting.
The former president has played into the idea. In the first part of his speech at the Republican National Convention earlier this month, Trump told attendees that he “had God on [his] side” during the assassination attempt.
Like other Republicans in recent weeks, he has also called for unity, saying at the convention, “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”
However, he immediately returned to his usual tone and misleading messaging for the remaining hour of his 92-minute convention speech, referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) as “crazy Nancy Pelosi” and claiming that Democrats are “destroying” the United States.
Trump, who has vowed to be a dictator for just “day one” if he wins another term, called on support from Christians at an event on Friday, claiming that if they vote for him “just this time” in November, they “won’t have to do it anymore.”