Trump’s Close Call in Assassination Attempt Fuels Talk He Was ‘Chosen’ by God

The Washington Post / Drew Harwell, Michelle Boorstein, Josh Dawsey

17:47 JST, July 17, 2024

Former president Donald Trump’s narrow escape from an assassin’s bullet has reinvigorated talk among some of his supporters that the thrice-married billionaire is a messiah figure, anointed by God to save a troubled nation.

Since the attack on Trump’s life during a campaign rally Saturday in Butler, Pa., left him bloodied but otherwise unharmed, some supporters in Congress and on social media have shared Bible scriptures and illustrations showing the Holy Ghost deflecting the bullet. Internet celebrities such as boxer Jake Paul have called the moment proof of “who God wants to win,” and posters on TheDonald, a far-right message board unaffiliated with Trump, have mentioned God seven times as often as they did in the week before the shooting, a Washington Post analysis found.

The idea of divine influence has surfaced at the Republican National Convention, where a bandaged and somber Trump was hailed before a raucous Milwaukee crowd Monday night. Some delegates and Trump aides already convinced that the former president would put the country on a righteous course said they saw that belief confirmed from on high on Saturday night.

“I told him that last night,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), who was in Trump’s box at the convention, said at a Milwaukee town hall on Tuesday. “I said, Sir, the hand of God is on you.” Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Sunshine said Tuesday on Fox News that Trump survived thanks to “divine intervention” and, after calling the left “godless,” added, “It’s important to remember that good does defeat evil.”

The outcome of the assassination attempt, just days before Trump’s unanimous nomination, could set the tone for the rest of the campaign by amplifying a sense of destiny among Trump backers. Some, like the prominent Trump critic and former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, argued that the assassination attempt would give Trump’s campaign an “immense” benefit. But the incident is too recent to be reflected in polling, and even some Trump supporters have questioned whether it would change any voters’ minds.

For many of the former president’s fans in Milwaukee and online, however, Saturday’s close call loomed large. Before Trump took the stage Monday, singer Lee Greenwood said God had saved Trump’s life so he could be the next president.

“The deep state wanted the world to see Trump’s death and God intervened. To me there’s no other possible explanation,” said one commenter on TheDonald. Said another: “God Protect Our GEOTUS” – the acronym for “God-Emperor of the United States.”

“Surviving an assassination attempt just confirms for these folks everything they say and believe – it confirms that he is God’s chosen to bring salvation to the United States and to the world,” said Matthew Sutton, a Washington State University historian of American religion who focuses on apocalyptic Christianity and politics.

Trump has never been particularly religious and rarely attends church or reads the Bible, people close to him say. But in recent days, several people in his orbit have said they were surprised how often he was raising the word “God.”

Trump, who has called the near miss a “miracle,” posted on his social network Truth Social the morning after the shooting, “It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness.”

Franklin Graham, the son of the evangelical icon Billy Graham who is scheduled to deliver a prayer at the convention Thursday night, told The Washington Post that “Trump came very close to having his brains spread over that platform but God, I believe, protected him.”

Graham said he hoped the attempted assassination was a “wake-up call” for Trump and that the Bible is clear that “all authority is given from God.”

“Maybe that’s one reason God saved his life,” Graham added. “I hope Trump understands that it’s not about him making America great again, it’s God making America great again.”

Trump’s family has taken to social media in recent days to claim the involvement of a higher power, with his son Eric calling it “nothing short of divine intervention” and his daughter-in-law Lara, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, posting an image of Jesus gripping Trump’s shoulders. Trump’s second wife, Marla Maples, shared an illustration of Trump at a lectern, overseen by a blonde archangel.

Pastors on Sunday after the shooting and Christian users online also cited scripture as evidence that God had spared Trump. Far-right podcaster Jack Posobiec noted that the bullets were fired at 6:11 p.m. and referenced Ephesians 6:11, which calls on believers to “put on the full armor of God” and stand against the Devil’s schemes. Others online referred to Exodus 29:20, in which God tells Moses to sanctify his brother as a priest by smearing blood on his right ear – the same one bloodied on Trump.

For some, scripture went the other way. On X, some users noted that, in Revelation 13:3, a beast understood to be the Antichrist, or Satan, heals from a head wound and is then globally idolized. Others questioned the spiritual interpretation of the day’s violence, which left one rally attendee dead and two others critically injured.

“Oh but God didn’t care about the guy in the crowd that was actually killed?” one X poster said.

At the McLean Bible megachurch in Northern Virginia, the Rev. Mike Kelsey told his congregation Sunday to confront themselves if their first thought about the rally shooting was “driven by your politics, not the actual people in danger. That might be a sign something is off in your hearts,” he said, prompting a loud “Amen!”

During a 15-minute prayer for the country, and for Trump, Kelsey squeezed his eyes shut and said, “I pray, Father, you give him comfort, peace … [and] wisdom that ultimately leads to humility.”

Some saw further evidence of Trump’s divine protection when federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon dismissed a classified documents indictment against Trump on Monday, giving him a surprise legal triumph. In a group on Truth Social, one user shared the news and said, “GOD IS ABSOLUTELY IN CONTROL, Folks!,” with three praying-hands emojis.

Trump, who gained fame as a New York real estate mogul, initially turned off some Christian believers when he ran for president in 2016, including after The Post revealed a recording of Trump in 2005 bragging that he’d groped women without their consent. In May, he was found guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Daniels alleged they had a sexual encounter in 2006, which Trump has denied.

But Trump won support with his stated willingness to implement the values of White evangelicals, Sutton said. A Fox News poll in 2019 found that 46 percent of Trump’s voters, and 25 percent of Americans, believed “God wanted Trump to be president.”

“Because he’s delivering for them, he must be God’s anointed, and if he is, then God has called them to champion” him, Sutton said. “In recent years they have interpreted Trump through this lens: that we’re living in times of spiritual warfare, angels and demons, and Trump is on the side of God and angels. So everything they’re doing for [Trump] is giving a power boost to the godly side.”

The idea of Trump as a spiritual figure played a pivotal role in the mix of far-right conspiracy theories known as QAnon, which posited that he was secretly waging a holy war against a “deep state” of child-eating Satanists he would vanquish on a day of reckoning known as “the Storm.” Symbols of QAnon, which were outlined through cryptic clues on an anonymous message board, were commonly seen among Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Americans have for decades used a language of providentialism about political figures, said Catherine Brekus, a historian of American religion and culture at Harvard University: Many interpreted the 1865 assassination of Abraham Lincoln, on Good Friday, as a sign of his Christ-like sacrifice for the nation. What’s new with Trump, she said, is that Christians are using such language to sanctify what she called antidemocratic actions and ends.

Sutton said the evangelicals’ focus on political power began building after the Second World War, as religion was injected more directly into campaigns and platforms. It continued as White evangelical leaders such as Jerry Falwell in the late 1970s and early 1980s pushed for the U.S. government to adopt their socially conservative values on topics from abortion to race and protection from competing non-Christian religions. That decades-long effort didn’t stem the rise of secularism and moves toward same-sex marriage and women’s rights, adding up to a feeling among some present-day evangelicals that Trump is their last chance.

In Brazil, when far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro survived a stabbing at a campaign rally one month before winning the election in 2018, some of his followers talked about him as a saint or called him “messiah,” after his middle name, Messias, further solidifying his electoral lead.

“All Brazilians instantly thought of the knife attack that propelled Bolsonaro to victory,” said an X post by Thiago Krause, a historian in Rio de Janeiro, who believed it would boost Trump’s chances and “further radicalize his base.” After he lost reelection, Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed government buildings on Jan. 8, 2023, as part of a failed coup that echoed the U.S. Capitol insurrection two years earlier.

Paul Froese, a sociologist of religion at Baylor University who studies the connection between beliefs in supernatural evil and public policy, said Trump-inspired “Make America Great Again” Christians tend to differ from other conservative Christians in their devotion to anti-immigration policies and their belief that the government should be rooted in Christian beliefs. They are less concerned with traditional issues like salvation, he said, and “are more interested in using God to gain power over others.”

Some religion experts said the reaction to the shooting could make it harder for those seeking political debate or compromise, including among dissenters in the Republican Party hoping to challenge the status quo.

“We’re probably going to see even more religion infused into American politics because this adds another spiritual layer,” Sutton said. “If you believe God saved Trump, to vote for Biden really means you’re voting against God.”

Melissa Shaffert, 51, an English teacher from Grove City, Pa., who attended the rally, said she saw the assassination attempt on Trump as an omen of a dark future for the country and cited some of Trump’s talking points, including the flow of “illegals” over the border and the failures of the criminal justice system.

“Trump has been chosen to do something, to be part of something,” she said. “That’s what people are seeing: There is something there.”