God saved me to save the world: Trump

The former president used an interview with Dr Phil to relive his assassination attempt and claim he would win California if Jesus counted the votes.

Donald Trump sits down for an interview with Dr Phil

Donald Trump said that God spared him from an assassin’s ­bullet so that he could save the US and maybe the world, as he ­echoed the belief of fervent supporters that his survival was due to divine intervention.

Mr Trump also sought to pin some of the blame for last month’s shooting on US President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice-president who is now his rival for the White House, in an interview with Phil McGraw, the ­television personality known as Dr Phil.

The former president’s attempt to fuel the idea that his victory in November is not only righteous but preordained appears aimed at encouraging evangelical voters, who strongly back the Republicans, to vote. But it also has ­detractors worried about the reaction of his most devout followers if he loses and refuses to accept the outcome of the election.

Mr Trump told his party convention that he would talk only once in detail about the attempted assassination on July 13, because it was “too painful to tell”. Describing it again to Dr Phil, he mused on God’s purpose in ensuring that he turned his head to look at a chart showing illegal immigration at just the right moment for the ­bullet to graze his ear, rather than kill him.

“I mean, the only thing I can think is that God loves our country and he thinks we’re going to bring our country back,” he said in the interview on McGraw’s Merit Street Media, a digital television channel.

“It’s so bad right now, what’s happening when you look at the crime, the horrible things that are happening inside our country, and it could be solved. It could be solved fairly quickly. It has to be God. I mean, how can you say it’s luck when it’s 20 million to one?”

Asked if he believed he was “spared for a reason”, Mr Trump said: “Well, God believes that, I guess. We’ll have to see.”

Mr Trump returned to the same theme after discussing how the Democrats had swapped Ms Harris for Mr Biden, adding: “They give you a nice, fresh ­opponent and ... if I win that, that would really serve to say that there’s some incredible power up there that wanted me to be involved in saving, and maybe it’s more than saving the nation. Maybe it’s saving the world. You know, I get along with all those tough guys.”

Almost two-thirds of Americans (64 per cent) say it is important to have a president who stands up for people with their religious beliefs, according to polling this week by the Pew Research Centre think tank. Talking about God and Christian faith plays especially well for Republican candidates, with a big majority of white Christian voters backing the party.

Ms Harris, who is influenced by the Hindu tradition of her mother and her father’s Christian Baptist background, and married into a Jewish family, has spoken about her own faith only briefly in public this year. In January she told a Women’s Missionary Society meeting that “my pastor ... often says that as people of faith, we are called to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God”.

In her 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold, Ms Harris wrote that her “earliest memories of the teachings of the Bible were of a loving God, a God who asked us to ‘speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves’ and to ­‘defend the rights of the poor and needy’.”

In the interview, Mr Trump also alleged that Mr Biden’s rhetoric and failure to provide sufficient ­Secret Service protection were ­behind the assassination attempt.

“I’m the opponent … They weren’t too interested in my health and safety,” he said.

THE TIMES