Miracle Monday: GOP Convention Opens With Talk Of Providence

MILWAUKEE — Do you believe in miracles?

Trump faithful turning out for a rousing opening day of the Republican National Convention on Monday in Milwaukee are true believers.

“Honestly, I’m telling you that God saved this guy,” Nirmal Paul, a delegate from New York, told The Federalist above the din of the convention floor at the Fiserv Forum, home of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks in downtown Milwaukee.

Paul wore a red and white sash bearing the words “Trump 2024” and “Avatar.” The Bangladesh-born American said an avatar — angel or divine spirit — must have been standing next to Trump on that campaign rally stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, when a gunman’s bullet came within a fraction of an inch of assassinating former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s three-peat presidential candidate.

“I think he was protected by God,” Paul said, gravely adding, “One inch, he’s done.”

‘I’m Supposed to be Dead’

Divine intervention seemed to be on the minds of a lot of conventiongoers on a languid July evening inside the security perimeter of Milwaukee’s famed Deer District. Several attendees mentioned providence in connection with the attack on Trump that left a courageous rally attendee dead and two others critically injured. A Secret Service agent fatally shot the gunman but not before the gunman fired several shots, including the one that grazed Trump’s right ear.

“I thank God that His hand was on President Trump,” U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said during a convention speech hammering President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats for, among other things, promising unity but delivering division.

Perhaps the senior U.S. senator from the host state played a part in Trump’s death-defying moment. The former president told the New York Post that he happened to turn his head to look at a document on illegal immigration supplied by Wisconsin’s Sen. Ron Johnson — just before shots rang out.

“That chart that I was going over saved my life,” Trump told his former White House doctor, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, by phone shortly after the attempt on his life, according to The New York Times.

“The doctor at the hospital said he never saw anything like this, he called it a miracle,” Trump told the New York Post. “I’m not supposed to be here, I’m supposed to be dead.”

That point was not lost on his supporters in Milwaukee.

“If he had turned his head, what, a millimeter, he would not be here,” said Kirsten Lucas, a delegate from Idaho, who says her prayer group prays weekly for the Republican Party presidential nominee.

‘God’s Protection’

Faith is foundational for many conservatives, particularly for the Republican Party’s evangelical core making up nearly two-fifths of the GOP’s voters. But faith in real time seemed to take a front seat at the convention in the wake of Saturday’s near miss.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., who was seriously injured when a Sen. Bernie Sanders supporter shot up a congressional baseball game in 2017, said the world witnessed miracles at the Pennsylvania rally.

“Yesterday there were miracles, and I think the hand of God was there too,” Scalise told “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday. “You can just see one centimeter over and we’re having a very different conversation.”

While some on the left scoffed at such faith-based sentiments, some pastors talked about God’s divine providence on Sunday.

“It doesn’t matter what your political thoughts are, that’s not the issue at all,” Gregg Matte, senior pastor at Houston’s First Baptist Church, told his flock the day after the assassination attempt, according to the Beaumont Enterprise. “That for a bullet to graze the ear is a moment of God’s protection over a person — not a political candidate, over a person — God’s protection in that way.”

‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’

In Wisconsin, the swing state’s GOP convention host city is known for its beer, brats, and socialist mayors. And Milwaukee has some experience with assassination attempts on former Republican presidents seeking another term in the White House. In 1912, when old socialist Emil Seidel was running Milwaukee, a former saloonkeeper fired on former President Theodore Roosevelt while he was campaigning for president under the Bull Moose campaign banner in the Lake Michigan city. The bullet burrowed into Roosevelt’s chest, but it was blunted by Teddy’s steel eyeglass case and a copy of his speech he had tucked away in his jacket pocket. Roosevelt finished the speech with the bullet lodged in his chest. He survived the assault.

“You see, it takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose,” the former president told the early 20th-century Milwaukeans. Interestingly, T.R. urged his fellow Republicans to “stand at Armageddon” and “battle for the Lord” in rejecting then-Republican President William Howard Taft, Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor.

In the tradition of T.R., Trump emerged from the Pennsylvania stage, bloodied but defiant, pumping his fist and mouthing the word “fight” to the stunned rallygoers. They cheered the former president as Secret Service agents surrounded him and escorted him from the stage. “Fight” has become a kind of de facto campaign slogan for Trump and a Republican Party committed to reelecting him.

As the former president and his freshly minted running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, came into view on the Fiserv Forum’s massive, 60-display LED digital system, convention attendees erupted in cheers. His ear bandaged, the man many see as a miracle in motion stepped into the arena to thunderous applause.

“Fight! Fight! Fight!” the Trump faithful chanted.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.