The bullet that grazed Donald Trump’s ear felt like the “world’s largest mosquito” to the former president, he appears to be telling Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a leaked video.
In the video, widely circulating on social media sites, Kennedy, an independent candidate for president in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, holds up a phone with Trump’s voice coming from the speaker, describing the failed assassination attempt.
“I just turned my head to show the chart and something rapped me. It felt like a giant… it felt like the world’s largest mosquito,” the Republican nominee can be heard telling Kennedy.
“It was a bullet going around,” he continues, “What did they call that? AR-15 or something? That was a big gun. Those are pretty tough guns.”
Kennedy has since apologized for the leak.
“When President Trump called me I was taping with an in-house videographer. I should have ordered the videographer to stop recording immediately. I am mortified that this was posted. I apologize to the president,” Kennedy posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Shots rang out at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday evening in a dramatic scene that had the former president huddled underneath the podium while his protective detail surrounded him. Trump grabbed his ear before ducking behind the podium.
Trump, face bloodied, gave a defiant upraised fist to the crowd as he was ushered offstage by his security detail.
President Joe Biden on Sunday condemned the attempted assassination of his predecessor as “contrary to everything we stand for as a nation” and said he was ordering an independent security review of how such an attack could have happened.
Two days after surviving an attempted assassination, Trump appeared triumphantly at the Republican National Convention’s opening night with a bandage over his right ear.
GOP delegates cheered wildly when Trump appeared onscreen backstage and then emerged in the arena, visibly emotional, as musician Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the USA.” That was hours after the convention had formally nominated the former president to head the Republican ticket in November against Biden.
— With files from Global News’s Alex Boutilier, Aaron D’Andrea and the Associated Press