I learned a lot, folks. And I learned that it makes a difference. This was the campaign rally area, and I was one of the attendees. And it wasn’t allowed to – it was a big rally. And if you got too close, you landed on the media pit over there.
And Trump was a big figure. And he ran a big show. And back in those days – to show how things have changed – one of the things you had to use, if you were a candidate, was a teleprompter. And so he was up on the stage and wouldn’t listen to the teleprompter. I said, ‘Hey, Don, you! Stick to the script, or I’ll come up and help you out.’
Well, he kept going, and he said, ‘I’ll do it my way.’ My car this – it was mostly, these were all public events behind us. My car – there was a barricade here. I parked my car outside the barricade. And I – and suddenly, shots rang out. Someone said, ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’
He was waiting for Trump with an AR-15, not a joke. There was a guy named Secret Service Sam, the best in the business. And I said, ‘What are we gonna do?’ And he said, ‘Come down here, in the basement, where the security team is.’ You know the chain, there used to be a chain that went across the stage. And he cut off a six-foot length of chain and folded it up. And he said, ‘You walk out with that chain, and you walk to the motorcade and say, ‘You may shoot me, man, but I’m gonna wrap this chain around your head.’
I said, ‘You’re kidding me.’ He said, ‘No, if you don’t, don’t come back.’ And he was right. So I walked out with the chain. And I walked up to the stage. And in those days, you remember the AR-15s, you had to clean 'em, keep ‘em ready, keep ‘em in good condition?
And I looked at Trump, but I was smart then. I said, ‘First of all,’ I said, ‘when I tell you to stick to the script, you stick to the script, and I’ll back you up again, but I shouldn’t have called you unprepared, and I apologize for that. I apologize.’
But I didn’t know that apology was gonna work. He said, ‘You apologize to me?’ I said, ‘I apologize but not for trying to help you out, but I apologize for what I said.’ He said, ‘OK,’ closed that wound, and my heart began to beat again.