Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) meticulously detailed approach to fighting Joe Biden’s border crisis may have saved Donald Trump’s life Saturday.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Johnson detailed the series of events that began with him giving Trump an immigration chart and ended with Trump narrowly avoiding an assassination attempt.
Trump turned to point to Johnson’s chart the moment an assassin fired a bullet at his head, resulting in the bullet striking Trump in the ear and avoiding a fatal shot.
“A little serendipity, or God works in mysterious ways,” Johnson described the divinely orchestrated circumstances.
Johnson told Breitbart how he began compiling border security data into his often-updated chart that has become ubiquitous on Capitol Hill for reporters, staff, and members seeking the latest information on the border crisis.
“Since I became chairman of Homeland Security, first of all, we held some, like 36 hearings on different aspects of illegal immigration,” he said. “And one of the things I started doing is I started charting the number of people being encountered on our Southwest border on a monthly basis [and] average per day.”
Johnson’s chart eventually caught Trump’s eye.
“I had an opportunity to ride on the plane with President Trump from Florida, up to the Green Bay rally, beginning of April, I brought a bunch of the things I wanted to show him,” he told Breitbart. “That was one of them. I showed him the chart, he liked it, said send it to my guys.”
He continued, “He used it that day. And he’s been using it ever since. And that’s the chart that for whatever reason, he felt compelled to look at that precise moment. It’s just really unbelievable.”
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), who served in the White House as Trump’s doctor and frequently speaks with Trump, said Trump himself credits Johnson’s chart and the Border Patrol for saving his life. Trump himself has spoken little publicly since the incident.
Trump will address the RNC Thursday night in a highly anticipated address to the nation.
Johnson, the former top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Oversight Committee, is one of the Senate’s most skilled investigators and made clear he will lead the push for Congressional investigations into the Secret Service failures that enabled the assassin to fire at Trump.
“I’m dedicated to finding out,” he said of learning how such a failure could occur. “We in Congress don’t have the type of investigatory capability as the agency, so we’re gonna have to let them do their investigation. I’ve already written a letter demanding they preserve all records, before and after. We will have to hold oversight over their investigations – I don’t trust them any further than I can throw them.”
He made clear the investigation must be thorough for the American people to get the answers they deserve, regardless of how long it takes.
“We can’t leave any stone unturned. So it’s about demanding transparency,” he said. “In my letter, I also asked all kinds of questions, kind of laying a foundation of, this is just a starting point of what we need to know.”
Johnson credited the assassination attempt for finishing what Trump has begun to unify the party.
“I know what it has done is complete the unification of the Republican Party,” Johnson told Breitbart. He continued:
Most unification occurred because Democratic policies are destroying the nation, that’s a pretty unifying force, right? You throw on top of that the debate, where Biden showed himself completely unqualified, which, we’d better defeat this guy, you’d better come together. Then you throw in the assassination attempt where our candidate narrowly escaped death. We’re gonna get behind him. And I think it’s a good sign that Nikki Haley has come here to speak. It’d be nice if we as Republicans set aside past differences and realize our real political opponent is not us, it’s the Democrats and their agenda.
Johnson then praised Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), Trump’s choice for Vice President nominee and Johnson’s Senate colleague, as someone whose abilities, character, and personal story will strengthen unity in the Republican Party.
“He’s intelligent, personal integrity, and serves as one of the finest among us, in the United States Marine Corps,” he said. “And he’s got a wonderful personal story, it’s going to be a kind of personal story that’s going to resonate with the people that now the Republican Party represents the working class, the middle class in America, the people that the Democrat Party have forgotten in their desire and their woke agenda.”
Johnson predicted Trump’s speech Thursday night would help unify the party while continuing to contrast Trump’s vision of the future of America and agenda with Biden’s failed presidency.
“We absolutely have to point out the differences between our vision for this country and the Democrats’,” he said. “So what we would do and what we did to turn the economy around, produce a record economy, versus what the Democrats did to make your dollar worth only 83 cents. So you have to point out those differences. That’s completely legitimate. There’s nothing vitriolic about that.”
Johnson said Trump’s near-death experience would unquestionably impact Trump and steel his resolve to lead the nation’s return to prominence and prosperity:
What happened to President Trump would change anybody – that that’s a life changing experience. And I can imagine being in that position realizing “I got a new lease on life” – whether you’re a person of faith or not – “I’m here maybe for a purpose, something much larger than myself. If I win this election, if I got four years, I’m going to put that to good use.” And one of the things we have to do is we have to unify and heal this nation. I think he’s already indicated he wants to do that. I agree with that.
“We have enormous challenges facing America,” he said in closing. “It’d be a whole lot easier tackling these problems if we did it by and large working together.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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