Thanking God — Reagan and Trump

March 30, 1981 seemed like it would be a routine day for President Ronald Reagan. That afternoon he was speaking to a friendly crowd at the AFL-CIO convention in the International Ballroom at the Washington Hilton Hotel. He had no idea how dramatically things would soon change outside.

The speech went well. Yes, it was a union audience — guys who for years had been blue-collar Democrats. But these were the kind of Rustbelt Americans who uniquely rallied to Ronald Reagan’s side in a way that no Republican president would experience until Donald Trump decades later.

At 2:25 p.m., leaving the hotel through a side door, Reagan, surrounded by staff and Secret Service and curious onlookers, smiled as he happily strolled to his car. One unsmiling face in the crowd was an unstable individual named John Hinckley, an early 20s loner, an outcast. He was looking to make his mark. (WATCH NOW Paul Kengor and Grace Reilly: The Weekend Spectator Ep. 3: Trump the Fighter)

A reporter yapped out a question, which Reagan tried to deftly and literally wave off with his left hand. The target was set. It would be under that left arm, near his armpit, that John Hinckley’s bullet would enter his body.

Reagan and those around him suddenly heard what sounded like firecrackers, followed by chaos and bodies scrambling, ducking, falling. One of them, the press secretary, James Brady, in an instant was lying face down on the pavement in his suit, struck in the head by a bullet intended for the president. Reagan was thrust into the backseat of the limo by diligent Secret Service agent Jerry Parr, who covered the president’s body with his own. “Jerry, get off,” pleaded Reagan, “I think you’ve broken one of my ribs.”

The pain near his chest was not from anything Parr had done. It came from the bullet fired into his chest by Hinckley. Parr noticed frothy blood bubbles coming from between the president’s lips and immediately suspected a lung wound. He ordered the driver to head straight to George Washington University Hospital.

Parr’s snap-call saved Reagan’s life. No one yet knew it, but the 70-year-old was losing a lot of blood under his coat. When the surgeons opened up Reagan, they discovered that the bullet had just missed his main aortal valve. A few centimeters over, and Reagan would have bled to death.

After the surgery, Ronald Reagan learned how close he had come to dying. Reagan recorded in his diary: “I know it’s going to be a long recovery. Whatever happens now I owe my life to God and will try to serve Him in every way I can.”

He immediately began telling friends, family, and intimates that he believed his life had been spared by God.

On Good Friday just two-and-a-half weeks later, New York’s Cardinal Terence Cooke met with Reagan at the White House. “The hand of God was upon you,” Cooke told Reagan. A humbled Reagan said simply, “I know.” He then told Cooke: “I have decided that whatever time I have left is for Him.”

Reagan said the same to the Rev. Billy Graham, to the Rev. Louis Evans, who was his pastor at the National Presbyterian Church, to his son Michael, to Mother Teresa.

The Mother Teresa moment was especially touching. It occurred on June 4, 1981. She and another nun visited the White House. She looked Reagan in the eye and said of herself and her fellow sisters: “Mr. President Reagan, do you know that we stayed up for two straight nights praying for you after you were shot?” She then leveled her brow at the president: “We prayed very hard for you to live.”

Deeply moved, Reagan thanked her, but she wasn’t finished. She looked at the president pointedly and explained: “You have suffered the passion of the Cross and have received grace. There is a purpose to this. Because of your suffering and pain, you will now understand the suffering and pain of the world.” She told the president: “This has happened to you at this time because your country and the world need you.”

Nancy Reagan dissolved into tears. Her husband, the great communicator, was at a loss for words, unsure what to say. But he knew what to do. Reagan had learned quite acutely that his life could end at any moment. It was time to act, to make good on his campaign promise to “Make America Great Again” (yes, that was Reagan’s 1980 slogan), to return the nation to greatness, and to fight and defeat the evil of Soviet communism that threatened the world.

For Reagan, the near assassination was quite a wakeup call. It was a life changer in many ways, for him, for his sense of mission, and for his nation.

Let us fast forward 43 years later, to a field in western Pennsylvania — the Butler Farm Show grounds. That’s a place where I’ve treaded many times as a native of Butler, Pennsylvania (Butler High School Class of 1984). I almost attended that Trump rally last weekend to cover the event for The American Spectator. I didn’t go, but my 16-year-old son was there, the mother of one of our Spectator writers was there, and countless friends and others who have emailed me since last Saturday were there.

That was a Trump crowd — MAGA country. Butler is an old steel town (the town also once made Pullman cars and invented the Jeep). It’s filled with the kind of blue-collar Reagan Democrats who supported the Gipper in the 1980s. Trump loved that Butler crowd in 2020 and loves it still in 2024, despite what happened there.

In his Republican National Convention speech this past Thursday evening, he saluted the “incredible” folks in Butler who, after the bullets struck and he rose up with fist in the air and yelled “Fight! Fight! Fight!,” exploded in applause and started chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” As Trump noted, the undaunted, brave crowd didn’t turn into a chaotic, dangerous stampede; rather, the people stayed and urged on their hero. They were ready to fight like him. Like their survivor.

As with Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981, if the bullet fired by this early 20-something young man — a loner, an outcast — had struck Trump merely a few centimeters over, he would have been dead.

And just as with Reagan, Trump immediately that evening thanked God, crediting “Him” with his survival. As with Reagan, he didn’t hesitate to say just that to friends, family, and intimates.

He has said it several times since last Saturday. He said so in a private event in Milwaukee, the site of the Republican National Convention, saying to a small group, “God was with me,” and then said it to the world in his truly historic RNC speech on Thursday evening, where he accepted his party’s presidential nomination. “I had God on my side,” said Trump. He quite vulnerably told the audience, “I’m not supposed to be here tonight.” The delegates shouted back, correcting him: “Yes, you are! Yes, you are! Yes, you are!”(READ MORE: In My Hometown — Trump the Fighter)

As if agreeing with the audience, Trump a few moments later added: “I stand here in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God.” He called his survival a “Providential moment.”

Trump’s children agree. Eric Trump, speaking at the RNC on Thursday, looked up at his seated father and said, “Dad … By the grace of God, divine intervention, and your guardian angels above, you survived.”

In all, the experience seems to have profoundly affected Donald Trump. One could see that in his countenance the first time he walked onto the floor in Milwaukee last Monday — incredibly, just two days after he was shot in the ear. He looked like a very different man. He was pensive, mellow, humbled.

A literal brush with death will do that to you.

Trump’s speech on Thursday revealed that changed man, especially the riveting first 30 minutes. That was a different Donald Trump for sure.

The big question, of course, is how this will affect Trump going forward. Like Ronald Reagan, Trump believes that God has spared him. He has credited God. He has thanked God. Does Trump likewise also now believe that, “Whatever time I have left is for Him?”

And as with Reagan, to borrow from the words of Mother Teresa, did this happen to Donald Trump because his country and the world need him? Does it have a truly Providential purpose?

Those are answers that your humble columnist cannot know. Truly, only God knows.

But I do know this. The last few months of presidential politics have been plainly astounding, at times profound. Let us see how the next months play out. Buckle up.

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