“It’s a dangerous business being president,” Donald Trump said to rapturous applause inside the Dort Financial Center in Flint, Michigan.
This was his first public appearance since his golf course became a crime scene on Sunday afternoon.
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.”
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.
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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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.
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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.
