Is Trump Going To Be Softer, Mellower After Shooting Experience?

WASHINGTON, DC (IANS) – Former US President Donald Trump has said that he threw away an “extremely tough” speech prepared for accepting the party nomination at the Republican convention an instead has one calling for unity.

In his first interview since surviving an assassination attempt, Trump told The New York Post, “I’m supposed to be dead; I’m not supposed to be here.”

He also used the words “miracle” and “surreal” for the experience.

The shock and outrage that swept through the country, have given way to the sobering need for peace and unity.

President Joe Biden took the lead in calling for unity within an hour of the shooting and in an address from the White House.

Trump’s campaign prohibited staff from publicly commenting on the shooting, saying dangerous rhetoric on social media will not be tolerated. Calls have been made from both sides of the political divide for lowering the temperature.

Trump, who has tended to use tough language with allusions to physical violence, has endorsed this new spirit after his transformational experience.

He went to tell the interviewer that a new speech was being worked upon now because “I want to try to unite our country. But I don’t know if that’s possible. People are very divided”.

But Republicans are queueing up to take their lead from him. Nancy Mace, a member of the House of Representatives who is among the scheduled speakers at the convention said she would do the same.

“He feels like he has a new lease on life,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who was on the flight with Trump to Milwaukee, told the Post.