It was a harrowing 90 minutes between the time he found out his father was shot before he got to speak with him on the phone, Donald Trump Jr. told Newsmax on Monday.
The son of the former president told "Rob Schmitt Tonight" that he was with his children in Jupiter, Florida, when his fiancee, Kimberly Guilfoyle, called him to tell him that someone tried to assassinate his father during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
"I was out with my kids just being a dad and Kim gave me a call and said, 'Your dad's been shot,' but that was literally the only information that we had out there," Trump said from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. "I didn't know anything for a while.
"I tried calling everyone, just tried to get my kids home and secure. They weren't sure if it was a bigger thing.
"No one really knew what to expect, and it took me about 90 minutes for me to actually break through to anyone that had any kind of information or any kind of detail. So, as you can imagine, that was sort of an interesting time," he continued.
"I knew he'd been shot, but I didn't have any other details or any real information. Couldn't get ahold of anyone on the team. So it was a pretty rough, somber evening."
Trump said it helped that he was able to concentrate on his children and make sure everyone else in the family was OK. He said he saw the images of his father pumping his fist after he was shot and telling his supporters to "fight."
"I finally got on the phone and he was actually in great spirits, you know, understanding the sort of the gravity of the moment," Trump said.
"I just said, you know, man, that fist pump, that fight after getting shot — everyone thinks they're a tough guy, especially these days with the internet. But watching that, that was true resolve. And I just told him, I said, 'Man, I think you're the biggest bad*** I've ever met. And I couldn't be more proud to be your son.' And, you know, that was sort of the icebreaker.
"And finally, everyone was like, OK, like, we can be a family and have some fun. … That was a long 90 minutes. But it was actually after that conversation, you sit down, and you start watching the videos and you read the stories and it's like, that's when it hits you, that adrenaline dump finally releases. And that was pretty crushing."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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