KRISTEN WELKER: This does mark the one year anniversary since the horrific assassination attempt against then-candidate Trump who is now serving his second term. Tyler, you write about the moment in your book in extraordinary terms in the sense that it was a pivotal moment in the campaign. What did you determine? What did you learn?
TYLER PAGER: Yeah, I think even Donald Trump would say that it was a pivotal moment in his campaign. In an interview with us, he said, “I think I would've won, but maybe it would've been a little bit closer.” I think one of the biggest parts of that assassination attempt was what it did for some of the supporters for Donald Trump- particularly Elon Musk. Elon Musk was a reluctant supporter of the president, and then after that assassination attempt went full throttle and gave him more than $250 million to affiliated efforts. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg came out to praise him, so really it coalesced this movement behind Donald Trump. Also, another remarkable about that day is that Joe Biden- this was the day that Joe Biden met with Chuck Schumer and Chuck Schumer basically said, “you have to drop out”, he met with lawmakers who were also putting pressure on him. So this split screen of what was happening on that day a year ago is quite extraordinary.
