After a failed assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, Donald Trump revealed that a bullet grazed his right ear before Secret Service agents rushed him off stage. The attack killed one rally attendee and injured another before the gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead by authorities.
Trump later described hearing gunshots and “feeling the bullet ripping through the skin” before realizing he had been hit.
His daughter, Ivanka Trump, said she watched the terrifying moment unfold almost in real time on television while at the family golf club with two of her children. Although she felt “horrified and scared,” she said she instinctively believed her father would survive.
“I just knew it wasn’t his time,” she explained during a podcast interview.
Ivanka said the experience reminded her how fragile life can be and made her focus more on love, gratitude, and staying positive rather than living in fear or anger. She called her father surviving the attack “an extraordinary blessing” and said she chooses to focus on the fact that he is still alive today.