Tucker Carlson Insists Trump’s Attitude Has Shifted Since Shooting: ‘Getting Shot in the Face Changes a Man’

AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

An Axios report on Monday described a shaken former President Donald Trump considering a different approach to his appearance at the Republican National Convention.

Tucker Carlson, who is scheduled to speak at the convention, confirmed to Axios founders Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei that Trump’s change of heart seemed genuine:

“I think it’s real,” Tucker Carlson — who’ll speak in prime time at the convention, and talks to Trump often — told us. “Getting shot in the face changes a man.”

The Axios story dove into reports that the speech Trump planned to deliver for when he formally accepts the nomination of his party will take on a different tone. Trump spoke to a couple of reporters on Sunday, including the Washington Examiner‘s Salena Zito, and said that he was rewriting his speech:

“The speech I was going to give on Thursday was going to be a humdinger,” he said, “Had this not happened, this would’ve been one of the most incredible speeches” aimed mostly at the policies of President Joe Biden. “Honestly, it’s going to be a whole different speech now.”

He added: “It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance.”

As both Trump and President Joe Biden have called for unity following the attempt on Trump’s life, people in the ex-president’s circle are reportedly being asked to adjust their rhetoric ahead of their convention speeches. Axios wrote that “Trump ordered aides not to allow the convention’s prime-time speakers to update their remarks to dial up outrage over the shooting.”