Exclusive — Rep. Jim Banks: America Loves Trump Because ‘He Never Backs Down from the Fight’

A photograph captured the moment former President Donald Trump nearly lost his life in an assassination attempt on Saturday, with his right ear clipped and blood smeared across his cheek, surrounded by Secret Service with his fist defiantly up in the air — a moment Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) said will “live for ages to come.”

“It’ll be in history books a hundred years from now — Donald Trump standing on his feet and raising his fist,” Banks said during a sit-down interview with Breitbart News at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Banks, who called the assassination attempt “just shocking,” said Trump sounded “upbeat” when they spoke on the phone on Monday morning, and that the former President is excited about his speech at the RNC on Thursday, because “He knows there’s so much at stake.” He also reflected on advice Trump gave to him once as a young congressman, early in Trump’s presidential term, that showed the depths of the former president’s warrior spirit.

“He was talking to me as a young congressman and giving me advice, and he said, ‘Never back down. If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile,”‘ Banks said during the interview with Breitbart’s Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle.  “And that’s what this country has seen with this man. He is the toughest man we have ever met in our lives in this moment in history. He will always be remembered for that. I mean he never backs down from the fight. And on Saturday, he didn’t back down either.”

“He stood back up and raised his fist — let the country know that he was going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. He’s going to win in November, and we’re going to get this country back on track. And that’s why America loves him,” the congressman continued.

Trump’s relentlessness in the face of so much opposition — now including an attempt on his life — has transformed the RNC into something more than just a political convention, Banks added. 

“You don’t just sense unity at this convention. You sense purpose, and you sense history. And I think that’s what’s different about any political convention I’ve ever been to before,” he said. 

“Donald Trump is the new Republican party. It’s a Republican Party that he built. Those old school Republicans that used to be in charge of our party are not at this convention,”  he continued. “…This doesn’t feel like a political convention — it feels like something much bigger than that. It’s not about the Republican Party, it’s not about Donald Trump: it’s about the country, and it’s about making history. And I sense that every delegate at this convention feels that today.”