Trump Ascendant

IT'S NOW THE FORMER PRESIDENT'S RACE TO LOSE

- ERIC CORTELLESSA, BRIAN BENNETT

AN HOUR AFTER DONALD TRUMP WAS SHOT AT a Pennsylvania rally, he called his son Eric from his room at Butler Memorial Hospital and asked him to conference in other family members. When they all got on the phone, Trump was lighthearted about his brush with death, and the mood shifted from collective shock to hopeful levity. Eric and Don Jr. joked that their father, now missing a chunk of his ear thanks to one of the would-be assassin's bullets, would have something in common with Evander Holyfield, the heavyweight boxing champion who lost part of his when Mike Tyson bit it off.

"You always wanna be like the great ones," the elder Trump quipped. Then he got down to business. He would fly back to his home in Bedminster, N.J., that night, but he wouldn't be there for long. "We're not changing anything about Milwaukee," Trump told them. "We're going to the convention. Not a single thing changes."

In fact, much had. The shooting on July 13 capped an extraordinary run of luck for the former President. Despite multiple lost elections for the GOP under his leadership, two impeachments, and the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol, the Republican Party had fallen into total obeisance behind him.