He was being questioned by a fawning interviewer in Sarah Huckabee Sanders, his former press secretary and now the governor of Arkansas.
“Mr President, nobody’s ever seen anything like it,” she said, inviting him to retell what happened when he heard shots ring out from between holes five and six at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“I have to say, Secret Service did a hell of a job,” he said. “One of the agents was walking a couple of holes in front and he saw a rifle.”
Image: Trump appeared with former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Pic: Reuters
Trump then joked that a woman who witnessed the suspect running and took photos of his vehicle did so because “women are smarter than men”.
Secret Service agents, who were flanking both sides of the stage as he retold the tale, stared intently into the stands of the arena, scanning for danger.
At one point, Trump excitedly asked the agent who spotted the suspected gunman to identify himself to the crowd, but quickly decided better of it.
Trump had previously, and without evidence, blamed the “rhetoric” of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for inspiring the apparent would-be assassin.
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Image: Pic: Reuters
But that sort of finger-pointing was absent on Tuesday evening.
Instead, he was almost gushing as he told the crowd about phone conversations he had with the president and vice president over the past couple of days.
“President Biden was so nice,” Trump said. “I do feel he’s so, so nice.”
About Harris, he said: “I got a very nice call from Kamala. It was very nice. It was very nice.” Some in the crowd shouted out “she’s a liar”, but Trump shook his head.
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0:32
Trump meets officers who arrested golf course suspect
I ask Brian Menasco, from nearby Columbiaville, if he thinks it was a concerted effort by Trump to lower the political temperature.
“I think so,” he says. “I’ve wanted him to do that since 2016. He’s amazing but sometimes I think ‘why has he said that’.”
Trump was scheduled to appear in Flint, Michigan, before the apparent assassination attempt – but the venue was no accident.
He won Michigan in 2016 but lost it to Joe Biden four years later. If he is to get back into the White House, he must win over voters in key swing states like this.
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Flint, about an hour’s drive northwest of Detroit, is known for a man-made water crisis in 2014.
Lead contaminated the drinking supply here, killing at least a dozen people, poisoning many more and leaving part of the population still traumatised 10 years later.
It’s also known as “vehicle city”, its economy shaped by the auto industry and shattered by its decline.
The North Dort Highway, though, is still peppered with garages selling car parts, others fixing vintage motors and a couple of yards buying and selling scrap metal.
Image: Gary Grundy says both political parties need to ‘calm down’
At Trevor’s Tires, I find Gary Grundy with his friends loading several tyres into the boot of his SUV.
Gary is an independent voter and says there is a shared responsibility of both the Republican and Democratic parties to tone down the rhetoric.
“When I heard, I was like, that’s two attempts on his life, that’s kind of crazy,” he said.
“But the talk on both sides needs to be dialled down. When they said people were in Ohio eating cats and dogs, now they’ve got school bomb attempts and all that.
“So the rhetoric on both sides needs to calm down, it’s collective responsibility.”
Kristin Martinez, a Trump voter, says the Democrats should shoulder some responsibility for the attempts on Trump’s life.
“I really do think that they are responsible for, you know, maybe not calling out somebody to do it, but, you know, their words triggered somebody.”
But even with a nod from Trump to civility from across the political aisle, with 49 days to go until the election and the race intensifying, the potential for political violence persists.
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
Image: The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
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Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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5:07
The latest numbers on tariffs
‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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3:27
How is the world reacting to Trump’s tariffs?
Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”
Tanking stock markets, collapsing world orders, devastating trade wars; economists with their hair ablaze are scrambling to keep up.
But as we try to make sense of Donald Trumps’s tariff tsunami, economic theory only goes so far. In the end this surely is about something more primal.
Power.
Understanding that may be crucial to how the world responds.
Yes, economics helps explain the impact. The world’s economy has after all shifted on its axis, the way it’s been run for decades turned on its head.
Instead of driving world trade, America is creating a trade war. We will all feel the impact.
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0:58
PM will ‘fight’ for deal with US
Donald Trump says he is settling scores, righting wrongs. America has been raped, looted and pillaged by the world trading system.
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But don’t be distracted by the hyperbole – and if you think this is about economics alone, you may be missing the point.
Above all, tariffs give Donald Trump power. They strike fear into allies and enemies, from governments to corporations.
This is a president who runs his presidency like a medieval emperor or mafia don.
It is one reason why since his election we have seen what one statesman called a conga line of sycophants make their way to the White House, from world leaders to titans of industry.
The conga line will grow longer as they now redouble their efforts hoping to special treatment from Trump’s tariffs. Sir Keir Starmer among them.
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President Trump’s using similar tactics at home, deploying presidential power to extract concessions and deter dissent in corporate America, academia and the US media. Those who offer favours are spared punishment.
His critics say he seeks a form power for the executive or presidential branch of government that the founding fathers deliberately sought to prevent.
Whether or not that is true, the same playbook of divide and rule through intimidation can now be applied internationally. Thanks to tariffs
Each country will seek exceptions but on Trump’s terms. Those who retaliate may meet escalation.
This is the unforgiving calculus for governments including our own plotting their next moves.
The temptation will be to give Trump whatever he wants to spare their economies, but there is a jeopardy that compounds the longer this goes on.
Image: Could America’s traditional allies turn to China? Pic: AP
Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister who coined the conga line comparison, put it this way: “Pretty much all the international leaders I have seen that have sucked up to Trump have been run over. The reality is if you suck up to bullies, whether it’s global affairs or in the playground, you just get more bullying.”
Trading partners may be able to mitigate the impact of these tariffs through negotiation, but that may only encourage this unorthodox president to demand ever more?
Ultimately the world will need a more reliable superpower than that.
In the hands of such a president, America cannot be counted on.
When it comes to security, stability and prosperity, allies will need to fend for themselves.
And they will need new friends. If Washington can’t be relied on, Beijing beckons.
America First will, more and more, mean America on its own.