The attempted assassination of Trump was historic. In an interview with Breitbart, Trump shared what was going through his mind at the time.

From Breitbart. Former President Donald Trump told Breitbart News exclusively that when he was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, in mid-July he knew instantly it was a bullet that had hit him.

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“A lot of times, and I was thinking about this, it would seem like a surreal moment—like you don’t realize almost where you are,” Trump said when asked to describe what went through his mind in that moment. “I never felt that. I knew immediately I got hit by a bullet.”

Trump’s comments came during a lengthy exclusive interview at Mar-a-Lago a couple weeks ago, where he sat for an hour with Breitbart News after a press conference he held earlier in the day. One of the most interesting parts of the interview was Trump talking about the failed assassination attempt from 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks against him, and it was unbelievable to hear Trump himself describe just how lucky he was that the would-be assassin’s bullets barely missed him. …

“So what are the odds that I’m looking to the right?” Trump said. “The poster is never used early, and it’s never on the right it’s always on the left. If you take the odds of this whole thing it’s like 10 million to one and you only have an eighth of a second.”

As Trump said this, he started moving his head to various angles and pointing out he’d be dead in all but one angle in which he’s alive which he thankfully is today.

“I’m turning, and I’m dead here, I’m dead here, I’m dead here, dead, dead, alive, dead,” Trump said. “So, think, you only have this exact spot right here. This is an amazing phenomena. It’s millions to nothing. There’s about an eighth of a second where I’m good. The rest of the time you’re dead.”

Trump said the shooter was very close to him comparatively speaking, and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump—both avid shooters—are shocked that the shooter missed.

“Because [the shooter] was 130 yards away, which for a shooter is very little,” Trump said. “My son’s a shooter—he says that’s like a two-foot putt. He says it’s impossible. He said it’s like a one-foot putt. It’s impossible. He can’t believe it. Don is a real shooter, and so is Eric. They can’t believe it.” …

Trump said that in the moment he “knew exactly what was happening” and knew that a bullet hit him in the ear. He also said the Secret Service agents who covered him thought he was hit multiple times.

“Don’t forget eight bullets went over me. So if I’m not down, the luckiest was looking this way. Being down is a little different because the bullets were flying over my head. They killed the fireman and they really badly hurt two people who are recovering and are going to make it but they thought those two guys would not be alive—very good guys too. You would think it would be a surreal experience. It wasn’t. I knew exactly what was happening. I knew I was hit in the ear. I had seven very large people on top of me. They wanted me to stay down and they assumed [I was hit more than once] because there was so much blood from the ear. …”

Trump said if the bullet had actually hit his head rather than his ear, “my head would have exploded like a watermelon,” and that America’s adversaries would have used it as propaganda against the United States.

“How about if you had that on slow-motion instant replay?” Trump said. “Couple of things just to think of it because it’s got to be divine intervention.”

Trump said his views on the U.S. Secret Service are mixed. While he said there were some failures that day—particularly with regard to securing the rooftop from which Crooks shot him—he also recognizes the bravery of the agents around him who shielded him.

“So, Secret Service they obviously had a big lapse when they didn’t cover the roof of that building,” Trump said. “Yet, they were very brave when they jumped on me when I went down. I reacted very well because I went down fast.” …

Later in the interview, Trump added that he thought the effectiveness of the Secret Service counter-sniper who took out the shooter was “incredible.”

“The Secret Service sniper was incredible,” Trump said. “One shot from 400 yards right there—can you believe it? He didn’t know about it. He was a shooter—an unbelievable shooter. He heard the noise, he looks around—I guess his eyes are good. That’s four football fields—that’s a lot.” …

“Being president is a dangerous profession,” Trump told Breitbart News. “If you look, how many people have been assassinated? Then you see how many people have been attempted? You know, Reagan almost died—he came close to dying actually. People don’t know that, but they thought they were going to lose him.” …

While Trump understands the intrigue behind the dangers of the job, he also told Breitbart News that no person not even presidents can ever really be prepared for what he nearly encountered: their own mortality at the hands of an assassin.

“You can never be too prepared for that—you don’t want to be prepared for that actually,” Trump said. “But it’s a dangerous profession. Being president is a very dangerous thing. I knew that—I always knew that. Especially if you have strong opinions and strong convictions like you want borders and a strong economy and a strong military and you want things that are important for the nation. The tougher you are in terms of things that are important for the nation the more dangerous it becomes.”

After Trump was shot and he went down, Trump told Breitbart News the Secret Service personnel around him wanted to take him out on a stretcher. But he said he insisted he could and would get up and walk to the waiting vehicle to take him to the hospital under his own strength.

“I wanted to get up because I thought it would look terrible for me to not get up,” Trump said. …

One of the other things Trump found fascinating is the reaction of the crowd behind him and around him.

“But the amazing thing is the audience is there, and it was a massive audience—it was as far as they eye could see,” Trump said. “Then you had some people at the back and you saw how brave they are. They didn’t flinch. That one guy right behind me he’s looking—you want him in a foxhole with you. He’s not hiding.” …

Trump added that the crowd at his rally showed incredible restraint and concern for each other by not rushing out and hurting anyone else in the process.

“Crowd control experts told us when a bullet is fired in a crowd especially in a stadium everyone leaves immediately,” Trump said. “They run. They stampede—they use the word stampede, like cattle. People are often killed, because like if somebody falls the people run right over them. It’s like terrible. They said they’ve never seen anything like this. Here, there were a lot of bullets fired—and then you had the bullets going the other way too.” …

What did you think of this interview? Share your thoughts and prayers below.

(Excerpt from Breitbart. Photo Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)