Former United States President Donald Trump recently revealed his wife Melania Trump’s first reaction after he was shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Mr Trump was hit in the ear in an assassination bid by a gunman at a campaign rally. Blood was visible on his cheeks and mouth. The shooter was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. He and a bystander were killed, while two spectators were critically injured.

“What was Melania’s reaction, I hope you don’t mind me asking, I know this is very personal, when she learned about what happened on that field in Butler?” Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked the former president. “She was watching live. It was all over the place, it was on television,” Mr Trump said.

“And I asked her that, I mean I wasn’t there, I was on the ground-when the world started to, when you could talk to people and said, ‘So what was your feeling,’ and she was ah, she can’t really even talk about it-“

The 45th US President continued, “Which is OK, because that means she likes me or she loves me. Let’s say if she could talk about it freely, that would be, I’m not so sure which is better but ah, she either likes or loves me, that’s nice.”

Meanwhile, the former first lady said that the gunman who opened fire at Mr Trump was a “monster”. “A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to ring out Donald’s passion — his laughter, ingenuity, love of music, and inspiration,” Melania Trump said in a statement shared on X.

“When I watched that violent bullet strike my husband, Donald, I realized my life, and Barron’s life, were on the brink of devastating change,” she said, referencing the couple’s 18-year-old son.

“I am grateful to the brave secret service agents and law enforcement officials who risked their own lives to protect my husband,” she added.