Dana White, Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO, urged Donald Trump to quit the 2024 presidential race after the July assassination attempt — but Trump refused, insisting that “God has spared his life to be the president.”
A lone gunman opened fire at Trump’s July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one spectator and injuring others, including the Republican candidate. In the aftermath of the harrowing incident, White encouraged his “friend” Trump to drop out of the race, he said in an interview on Piers Morgan’s show Uncensored that aired Monday.
The incident occurred when White was flying to Italy, he said. When he landed, he called Trump, who was already home at that point. He was “unfazed” by the harrowing encounter, White recalled.
“Why are you doing this? Stop. Stop,” he said. “I told him to stop so many times.”
“You have such a good life and you can do so many things,” White recalled telling Trump at the time. “He believes he believes in God…he’s very religious.”
Aside from comparing himself to Jesus Christ on more than one occasion and selling “God Bless the USA” bibles for $60 a pop, Trump rarely speaks about his own religious leanings. In 2020, he said in a statement: “I now consider myself to be a non-denominational Christian.”
Trump also told Morgan that “he thinks God must’ve had a plan for me. God wanted me to survive that bullet,” the veteran British presenter revealed.
Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet, the FBI said in the weeks following the attack.
White agreed: “He believes that to his core. That God has spared his life to be the president and do the things that he’s going to do over the next four years.”
When White insisted Trump ditch the presidential race, he remembered Trump saying: “I can’t. You don’t ever quit.”
In the first few minutes of Trump’s remarks at the Butler rally, gunfire erupted and Trump fell to the ground. His Secret Service detail fled to the stage and shot dead the shooter at the scene. The Republican candidate sprung to his feet moments later as blood streamed down his face, threw his fist in the air and yelled: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
That moment created a lasting image — and can now be purchased on Trump-branded mugs and t-shirts.
Months later, in October, Trump returned to the site where he survived his first assassination attempt.
“We talk about what it means to be a fighter. Nobody embodies that more than President Trump,” White said.
Other Republicans have also claimed that Trump was spared by God. After the second unsuccessful attempt on the President’s life at his Palm Beach golf course, Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News: “Someone has tried to take his life twice now. No one can deny God spared Trump’s life twice. These things aren’t accidents. It’s not luck.”
