The Republican candidate has turned philosopher king in his latest, wide-ranging interview, mulling everything from the existence of god and the afterlife to how the human ear is a “big bleeder.”
But perhaps the most controversial of Trump’s claims during his recent sit-down with New York magazine was his assertion that Meta’s CEO called him shortly after the attempt on his life at a Pennsylvania rally in July.
“Mark Zuckerberg called up and said, ‘I’ve never supported a Republican before, but there’s no way I can vote for a Democrat in this election,’” the presidential nominee said. “He’s a guy that, his parents, everybody was always Democrat. He said, ‘I will never vote for the people running against you after watching what you did.’”
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Meta has responded to Trump’s claims by repeating Zuckerberg’s prior insistence that the Facebook founder will not be “endorsing anybody in this race,” adding that he “has not communicated to anybody how he intends to vote.”
It follows a previous interview in which Trump said the attempted assassination had “no impact” on his mental wellbeing, enjoying an “amazing” lack of PTSD symptoms even as those in his circle have pressed on whether he had considered counseling after the shooting that left one person dead and several others injured.
In both sit-downs, Trump also turned to the question of religion, repeating his previous claims that he survived the attempt on his life only by the will of god. “This is actually an interesting situation,” he told New York magazine. “I’ve had people that didn’t believe in God that said now they do because of this. No, this is divine intervention.”
Trump appeared, however, decidedly less philosophical on the question of why an interventionist deity might have chosen to save his life and not that of 50-year-old father-of-two Corey Comperatore, who was killed by one of the shots fired by Thomas Crooks at the July rally in Butler County.
“I haven’t wondered why. I should wonder why. I’ve been so—I’ve been working very hard on the campaign, and I also business during the time that I’m here, you know, with my family,” he reflected, adding that he had paid Comperatore’s widow around a million dollars since the shooting took place. “But no, I’ve never asked myself that. I’ve never thought of it. I don’t like thinking about it too much, because it’s almost like you have to get on with your life. So I don’t really like thinking about that too much.”
