Donald Trump [00:00:00]
This is the most important election in the history of our country. I'm not a threat to democracy at all. 

Dr. Phil [00:00:05]
It's been seven or eight weeks since would be assassin fired eight rounds. 

Donald Trump [00:00:10]
How can you say it's luck when it's 20 million to one where that bullet could have missed? 

Dr. Phil [00:00:15]
And has it changed you? 

Donald Trump [00:00:16]
Being president's a dangerous job. I never realized how dangerous. 

Dr. Phil [00:00:19]
RFK junior has offered his support to you and your campaign. Will he have a role in your administration? You are catching up with me in Las Vegas, Nevada, where I am catching up with former President Donald Trump and republican nominee for president. Ten weeks from the actual election, we're going to sit down and talk about a lot of things as we close in on the day. We're going to talk about where he stands after having an attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania. We're going to talk about how he feels about now democratic nominee Kamala Harris. We're going to talk about what he thinks the challenges are leading into this election and what has to happen to get independents to hear his message and come down on his side of the fence. We're going to ask him some hard questions and get some clear answers today, ten weeks from the election. Mister President, thank you for sitting down with me again. 

Donald Trump [00:01:24]
Thank you. 

Dr. Phil [00:01:25]
Very proud to be talking to you. You've been really busy. And I have to ask you, it's been seven or eight weeks since would be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks climbed on top of a roof on a shockingly close building right in front of you and fired eight rounds from an AR style assault rifle, shooting you in the ear. 

Donald Trump [00:01:52]
Take a look at what happened. 

Dr. Phil [00:02:01]
Experts said, frankly, you shouldn't be here right now. Experts said a kill shot was almost a certainty. But yet here you sit. You had to have asked yourself, you had to have reflected on this. How am I here and why am I here? How do you answer that question? 

Donald Trump [00:02:31]
It's a very hard one to answer. When it happened, it was a whack. I mean, I said, something's going on there. It was a real whack to the year. You're not thinking about that. And I was lucky I went down quickly because if I didn't go down quickly, bullets were coming right over my head. When I was down, I heard them, they were moving along, they moved pretty fast. I said, how fast does a bullet go? They said about 3000 miles an hour. That's a lot. They gave it to me in feet and then they gave it to me. I said, no, no, I want to know in miles per hour, and it's more than 3000 miles an hour. And you hear it, you hear the whipping sound. So I was lucky in that regard. But the big luck was because that's something you can control. You go down quickly. If you don't go down quickly, you have a problem. But the big thing was the turn. And it wasn't only the turn, it had to be a perfect 90 degree turn or you would have been. I wouldn't be with you today. And I had to be looking at something to the right. And the people, we had massive crowds and they were in front, so there was no reason to be looking to the right. You had no people right or left. And you know, the graph, my all time favorite graph showing my great numbers on immigration, stopping immigration virtually at the border, which is a big subject. And I was very proud of that graph, but I only use it about 20% of the time. It's always on my left and it's always at the end of my speeches, always. And this was the very beginning of the speech. I mean, like the very beginning. It was on my right. So if you add it all up, it's like millions to one, millions the odds. But I made that perfect turn. I just see it on television again. It's today just before I came in. It's up big on the screen again today. And in finding out, you know, I have the endorsement of the NRA, but I don't know, I have no knowledge of guns. Like as an example, I have two sons that have extreme knowledge. They're great shooters. And Don and Eric both told me separately that that's a guaranteed shot for a bad shooter. From that distance, 130 yards sounded like a long way away. As a shooter, that's a very close target. They said to relate it to me. They said it would be like sinking a 1ft pot. I said, that's not good. 

Dr. Phil [00:04:58]
So why were you spared? You've had to reflect on this alone in the middle of the night, in a golf cart, riding down the way, thinking about it. How do you answer that? Why were you spared? 

Donald Trump [00:05:09]
So there had to be some great power. Because you just can't say millions to one. Millions to one. I used to say a million to one. It's much more than that. Because again, you have to pull down the sign. There has to be a reason to go right. And I never go right. There's no reason. And not only go right, it's for about an 8th of a second. It's not just right, it's out of all the time. That we're on this planet. It's one 8th of a second, right? So I shouldn't be with you. 

Dr. Phil [00:05:40]
So is there a purpose? Is there a reason you think you were spared? 

Donald Trump [00:05:45]
I mean, the only thing I can think is that God loves our country and he thinks we're going to bring our country back. He wants to bring it back. It's so bad right now, what's happening. When you look at the crime, the horrible things that are happening inside our country, and it can be solved. It can be solved fairly quickly. It has to be God. It has to be. How can you say it's luck when it's, you know, 20 million to one? Okay. I mean, it's just not possible that I was in that position. It's the only position where that bullet could have missed. 

Dr. Phil [00:06:21]
And you believe in goddess? 

Donald Trump [00:06:23]
I do. I do. 

Dr. Phil [00:06:24]
You believe God's hand was in this that day? 

Donald Trump [00:06:26]
I believe so, yeah, I do. 

Dr. Phil [00:06:28]
And you talk about the country. You believe you have more to do. You weren't done. You were spared for a reason. 

Donald Trump [00:06:35]
Well, God believes that. I guess we'll have to see. Number one, I'm in an election with a very vicious group of people. I won the election against Biden. I was up by 17 or 18 points after the debate. And they said, you know what? He's going to lose. They went and told him, he's going to lose, and we're going to change you out. And he said, no, I'm not going to do it. In fact, he said, only God will change me. But, so who knows what happened there? But he said, I'm not leaving. He got 14 million votes, and Kamala got done zero. She ran against him, she got zero. She never made it to Iowa, which is the first state. And here she is. She's on the other side. But, you know, it's like nobody ever had this before. You have an opponent in politics, you have an opponent and you win or you lose, but you don't have an opponent. And then you're doing well against the opponent. They take them out, they give you a new opponent, they give you a nice, fresh opponent. And so I have to win that. And if I win that, that would really serve to say that there's some incredible power up there that wanted me to be involved in saving. And maybe it's more than saving the nation, maybe it's saving the world. You know, I get along with all those tough guys, and Russia wouldn't have gone into Ukraine. You'd have a million people living right now. You'd have cities all over Ukraine. I mean, these magnificent cities with the domes and the golden domes and towers, they'd all be up. They're right now demolished. So many those cities, the country is just demolished. Israel wouldn't have happened. October 7 would have never happened. Iran was broke with me, and I don't want them to be broke, but I don't want them to have a nuclear weapon. Bill. 

Dr. Phil [00:08:21]
So you think you're meant to take those challenges on? You're meant to serve in that way? 

Donald Trump [00:08:26]
I don't know. I mean, I don't know. In thinking about it, it's beyond any of us, I guess, to really know that. But I can say that for that bullet to have gone along this path right here and for that bullet to have gone along that path and hit the top of my ear as opposed to any other place, would have been no good. And it traveled that path for a long way. You know, relatively speaking, that path was traveled for a long way. 

Dr. Phil [00:09:02]
It killed a man. It killed a man behind you. 

Donald Trump [00:09:05]
It did. It killed a man. 

Dr. Phil [00:09:06]
And it corre compiratore and it critically injured two others who thought they weren't. 

Donald Trump [00:09:13]
Going to make it. You know, the doctors said they will not make it, and they did. The doctors were incredible. I have no problem. 

Dr. Phil [00:09:19]
You've been very attentive and involved with those families, and I understand a lot of support and help for those families. What's taking place? 

Donald Trump [00:09:29]
Well, we gave a friend of mine, who's a pretty rich guy, was very moved by what happened, and he said, do you mind if I give Corey? He called him Corey. Everyone calls him Corey. A firefighter. Great firefighter. Fire chief of a small town volunteer. 

Dr. Phil [00:09:48]
Right. 

Donald Trump [00:09:49]
Volunteer. No substantial money, obviously. You know, they live, they live comfortably. They love each other. They have a great family. Beautiful family, actually, but not money. And I said, good, what do you want to give? He said, a million dollars. He wrote out a check right in front of me for a million dollars, and we presented it to the wife. That's more money than they have ever even thought about. But on top of that, we raised close to $6 million in Gofundme, and that's going to be split up. We're doing it now, obviously, with Corey's family getting more. The other two made it, and they're going to be in good shape. I can't stress how good those doctors were. There was going to be three dead, and it turned out to be one. But they were hit hard. They just, I mean, they just made it. They were very close also. And so they're going to be getting probably close to a million and a half dollars each. 

Dr. Phil [00:10:50]
Bill, how'd you feel about the Secret Service and the job they did? 

Donald Trump [00:10:56]
Look, they were very brave, because when those bullets were coming at me and you saw it, I was down because I went down quickly, fortunately, otherwise, because other bullets, the bullets were going right over my head. So that was another thing. But see, I don't talk about that. That was a question of going down. The other was a question of, you had to be in an exact perfect position, and it's almost impossible to have achieved that position. You have to be right. You have to have used the graph. The whole thing is just so crazy. You never use it at the beginning of the speech. Never. I've never used it at the beginning. I just said, pull down the graph. And I look over at the graph and I get whacked. Sort of like a bolting deer. Don, my son Don said, it's like a bolting deer. Great shots can miss a bolting deer. They shoot simultaneously with the deer bolting, and it bolts for some reason. I guess that was my bolt, but it was absolutely amazing. But the secret service, obviously, somebody should have been on the roof. You can't. The roof was empty, and there was a lack of communication between local law enforcement and secret service. It seems to be coming out, so theyre going to have to work that out. I can say this on stage, we had great bravery because bullets were coming at me and they were coming right on top of me, and within about three or 4 seconds, I was covered with bodies. Had the sniper, the secret service sniper, and it may have been somebody else. In addition, it may have been a local police shot also. I don't know. But had that shot not been made from a long distance much longer and hit its target, one bullet, then they would have been dead, probably, because there would have been a pile and he would have been shooting into the pile. And in addition, you would have had a lot of people killed. This could have been like that Las Vegas disaster, that horrible human being killed a lot of people at a concert. 

Dr. Phil [00:13:08]
Has this changed you? Has it changed your appreciation for life? Has it changed anything about you? Did you hug your kids extra hard? I mean, has it changed you? 

Donald Trump [00:13:18]
A lot of people ask me, and a lot of people say, like, have you developed any fear of, you know, doing this? Like, because you're. Look, being president's a dangerous job. It's much more dangerous than a race car driver than anything. It's probably the most dangerous profession, if you think about it, just go up and down the list. So you have 46 and numerous left early or got hit. It's a very dangerous job. I never realized how dangerous. But I was at the border yesterday and they were a dangerous place. He allowed it, they, he and her allowed it to become dangerous. It's a very, very dangerous place. I was doing an interview and secret service said, sir, please, no more standing up. They don't want me to stand up. You know, people, especially with the kind of weapons they have today, people have shots and, but it is, it's an interesting, it's a great job. It's an interesting job. You can do so much good, but it's a dangerous job. 

Dr. Phil [00:14:29]
You say that you may have been spared to serve and to do that as president of the United States, you have to defeat Kamala Harris on November 5 1st. What do you think of her as a person? What do you think of Kamala Harris as a person personally? 

Donald Trump [00:14:47]
Well, I don't know her. You get to know people when you watch them on television or when you see them and read them and all. But. 

Dr. Phil [00:14:58]
So you don't know her personally. 

Donald Trump [00:14:59]
She's a marxist. Well, I can see by action she's a person that wanted to defund the police very strongly, bailed out a lot of people in Minnesota from jails who did some really bad things. I saw that very loud and clear. Then when that took place, a lot of bad things. I mean, she's done a lot of bad things. There will be no fracking. There'll be no drilling. She doesn't want to drill, which will mean our country is going to shrivel up and die. You can't run the country without fossil fuel, at least not for quite a while because you don't have the, you don't have the power. They don't have the power. They have all sorts of nice contraptions, but they don't have, wind is fine. It kills the bird birds. It destroys the fields. Destroys the fields. What it does, you know how economists and various, they go over it? Wind is the most expensive energy in the world and the environmentalists love it. Why do they love it? It kills all the birds. Walk to the bottom of a windmill and take a look. It looks like a bird cemetery. But you need the fossil fuel. She's totally against it. And you know politicians, when theyre against something early, thats what theyre, thats where theyre going to be. And if she got in, she would not allow fracking in Pennsylvania. She will not allow drilling all over the place. The only reason shes allowing it now is they were ending everything and all of a sudden prices started to go up through the roof. And they say go back to the Trump policy for a little while. But if she won this election, shed go to things that wont work. The green new scam, I call it, and itll be very bad. I think shed be worse than Biden. Biden was the worst president in the history of our country. Shes gone down as the worst vice president. I mean, she was known five weeks ago, she was known as a joke. She was known as a terrible vice president, laughed at, scoffed at. They wanted him out, but they didnt want her. They would have done anything to get anybody on the list. You know, they had a list of ten people and they put her on the list and she came in 11th. She was the last on the list, actually, in terms of professionalism, in terms of everything else. Then all of a sudden they realized thats not going to be politically acceptable. They didnt want to do it. They didnt have the guts to make that move, and they ended up with her. And then the fake news media, of course, got right behind her. And at this moment, she can do no wrong. But if you follow politics and if you see what she said, she'll destroy this country with her tax increases and everything else. 

Dr. Phil [00:17:45]
You don't have anything against her personally. 

Donald Trump [00:17:47]
No. 

Dr. Phil [00:17:47]
You're just talking about her values and her belief. You don't know her. 

Donald Trump [00:17:50]
No, I don't. I don't know her. I don't know. 

Dr. Phil [00:17:53]
But these are things that she said then. But is she saying different things now about fracking and that sort of thing? Because the things you're saying she said, I've heard her say those things in the past. But is she saying different things now? 

Donald Trump [00:18:12]
Well, a lot of things, I would say 95, maybe almost 100% is totally different. She's like my policy. She's like energy and this, you know, we were energy independent four years ago. Today it's a whole different story. But her, everything's changed. She's gone from no fracking under any circumstances. We're not talking a long time ago. We're talking about three years ago. And we're talking about when she was running. She was, when she was running against Biden and I guess that close to 22 people, she was the first one to leave. She was out. She did very badly. Thats why its so crazy. She was last out of 22 and now shes the one that is running and shes getting, shes getting a free press. Her speech, when you examine it, was very bad for our country. Shes going to raise taxes tremendously. Shes going to force companies out of our country. You know, these are great international companies. They don't have to be here. They can be in other countries. You know that better than anybody. And if other countries, maybe in Europe or other places, are going to say, we're going to charge you 10% tax and the US is going to be at 54%. When you add local and state taxes, I mean, they get paid for how much money they make. It's a simple business. Very simple business is the company making. And if you're going to have to pay 54% here, you're gone. You're going to move to another country. They have some very nice countries to live in and they're very loyal to their shareholders. They almost have an obligation to do it. So she's going to chase a lot of companies out of our country with what she's talking about. 

Dr. Phil [00:20:00]
You've been commander in chief. She's been commander in chief on the border. As commander in chief, how would you grade her paper on the border? If you want to see more of our conversation, we have an app, merit plus. It's free. Download it and you can watch us on your phone or your iPad. Take us wherever you go. It doesn't matter.