Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., spoke at the second Donald Trump rally of the day on Sunday, sharing his own attempted assassination story.
"I have personally seen God perform miracles," Scalise told the Kinston, North Carolina, rally. "I was shot on a ballfield, and I would not be alive today without miracles performed by God — without heroism by the way of our great police officers that they want to defund."
Scalise, R-Pa., was shot by a Sen. Bernie Sanders supporter seeking to kill Republicans at a June 14, 2017, early morning congressional baseball practice.
Scalise said that would-be assassin was targeting Trump before settling on Republicans that morning, which was Trump's 71st birthday, the first of his presidency.
"I want to tell you something else about that day, because it's a side of Donald Trump that very few people get to see," Scalise told the North Carolina rally that was underway, despite Trump expected to be late after going long and off-script in Pennsylvania on the bulletproof glass that left angles of him uncovered.
"I sure saw it that night."
Scalise said his wife flew into Washington, D.C., from New Orleans and told a story of a kind then-President Trump leaving a White House birthday party to visit a comatose Scalise who had taken a bullet that might have been planned for Trump himself.
"She didn't know if her husband was going to make it through the night," Scalise continued. "I was in a coma for three days, so I didn't know what was going on.
"But I do know this: When we were at our lowest point and my wife was there at the hospital with our kids wondering if I was going to make it through, it happened to be June 14, which was Donald Trump's birthday.
"And they were having a party at the White House to celebrate his birthday. He left his birthday to come to the hospital to check on me and, more than that, to console my family in our moment of grief.
"And it didn't end there."
Scalise said he was hospitalized for 3 1/2 months and his kids under 15 had to spend their summer months in the hospital with their father.
"Donald Trump would call Jennifer: 'Jennifer, bring the kids over to the White House,'" Scalise said. "And he would show them around. He would just take care of them while he was doing his job.
"This is the side of Donald Trump: He cares about people. He loves this country, but more than that, he loves the people of this country.
"And we need a president who is going to show that kind of love and caring and commitment, because there is too much as stake. This is too great of a nation to watch failure after failure."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.