Via/ABC
Donald Trump recently shared his thoughts on the assassination attempt that targeted him, revealing how it has impacted—or, in his view, not impacted—his life. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Trump spoke from the opulent living room of his Mar-a-Lago mansion, which also serves as his political headquarters. He remarked, “I have had no impact. It’s just amazing,” emphasizing that the incident has not affected him psychologically and that he has not felt the need for counseling.
The former president assured that he had not experienced PTSD-like symptoms, such as nightmares or flashbacks. “I don’t think about it a lot. I don’t want to think about it a lot, but I’ve had no…it’s had no impact. It healed up,” Trump stated. He recounted how, during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, an assailant armed with an AR-style firearm came dangerously close to ending his life. The shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was identified by the FBI after the attack.
Reflecting on the event, Trump claimed that divine intervention played a role in his survival. “And you know what I’d love to think? I would love to think it’s God, and it’s God doing it because he wants to save America. He sees what’s happening…We’re going bad as a country. Even with religion, we’re going bad. You look at the charts, and I would like to say that it is God that saved me. It wasn’t just luck, but the reason would be that he saved me, because I could save this country. I hope that’s right,” Trump said, weaving the incident into his political narrative.
Despite Trump’s assurance that the assassination attempt had no lasting effect on him, some sources suggest otherwise. An unnamed Republican with ties to the Trump campaign told Vanity Fair, “He’s been watching that seven-second clip of how close he was to getting shot right in the head—over and over and over again. He may actually legit have PTSD.”
However, neuroscientist Dr. Seth Norrholm of Wayne State University School of Medicine offered a different perspective. He told The Independent, “If he is going back and watching this—and this is my opinion—he’s not watching this in the vein of PTSD; he’s watching this in a vein of ‘look at this event that happened to me, I took a bullet for democracy.’” According to Dr. Norrholm, this behavior may be more indicative of Trump’s narcissism than post-traumatic stress disorder.
