Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump recently credited God for sparing his life following an assassination attempt last month and claimed he would win California if Jesus were the “vote counter.” During a recent interview with Dr. Phil McGraw for an interview on his television program “Dr. Phil Primetime,” posted on YouTube Tuesday, McGraw first began the conversation by addressing the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump, where a bullet grazed his ear as he was speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Experts said, frankly, you shouldn’t be here right now,” and “experts said a kill shot was almost a certainty, but yet here you sit,” McGraw told Trump before asking him whether he had asked himself, “How am I here and why am I here?”
“The big thing was the turn,” Trump said in response. “It had to be a perfect 90-degree turn, or … I wouldn’t be with you today. And I had to be looking at something to the right.”
According to The Christian Post, he also acknowledged the “massive crowds” at the event, noting how “they were in front” and “there was no reason to be looking to the right.” At the time, Trump was using what he called his “all-time favorite graph” documenting illegal immigration statistics at the beginning of his speech even though he previously always referenced it at the end of his speeches, and it would be positioned on the left rather than the right.
When McGraw asked the question, “Why did you survive?” Trump responded, “There had to be some great power,” as he reflected on the low odds of the assassination attempt on his life. “The only thing I can think [of] is that God loves our country, and He thinks we’re going to bring our country back; He wants to bring it back.”
“It has to be God,” he added. “How can you say it’s luck when it’s… 20 million to one?”
McGraw also questioned whether Trump believes he has “more to do, you aren’t done, you were spared for a reason. ” Trump responded, “God believes that, I guess.”
Later in the interview, Trump recalled concluding that “there’s no way I could lose California” after delivering a speech to a massive crowd. At the same time, however, he lamented that “automatically, they mark it down if you’re a Republican, as a loss.”
In his reaction to losing the state by 5 million votes during the 2020 election, Trump claimed, “I guarantee if Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California. ” He further clarified that he meant that he would win the state “if we had an honest vote counter, a really honest vote counter.”
During the 2020 election, he lost California, a prominent Democratic state, by a margin of approximately 5 million votes and 29 percentage points. Four years earlier, Trump lost the state by a margin of over 4 million votes and 30 percentage points.
WATCH: Donald Trump Opens Up to Dr. Phil in Latest Interview | Dr. Phil Primetime
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