Former President Donald Trump was widely mocked after claiming to a crowd of supporters that he has "wounds all over my body" that they could see if he took his shirt off.
Trump delivered the keynote address at the "Road to Majority" conference in Washington, D.C., organized by the conservative Christian political advocacy group, Faith and Freedom Coalition, on Saturday.
The group fervently supports a nationwide abortion ban. Trump's speech occurred just two days before the second anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had established a constitutional right to abortion.
He then portrayed himself as a martyr for the cause, even claiming he has more "wounds" than "any president ever":
"I have the wounds all over my body. If I took this shirt off, you would see a beautiful, beautiful person. But you would see wounds all over."
"I've taken a lot of wounds, I can tell you. More than I suspect any president ever."
You can hear what Trump said in the video below.
Trump's statements are absurd considering there are past presidents who clearly suffered worse fates.
For example, Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy were assassinated while still in office.
Notably, Ronald Reagan was the victim of an attempted assassination in 1981 when a bullet fired by John Hinckley Jr. shot him in the underarm, broke one of his ribs, and punctured one of his lungs, causing significant internal bleeding. Reagan went on to serve two terms in office.
In one of the more oddball moments in American history, Andrew Jackson in 1835 was attacked by an unemployed house painter whose pistols misfired—and promptly beat his failed assassin with his walking cane.
And it is perhaps darkly comic that Theodore Roosevelt survived a 1912 assassination attempt after the assassin's bullet became lodged in a folded copy of a speech Roosevelt was carrying in his breast pocket at the time.
By contrast, Trump has never been in a similar position. Nor has he ever served in combat or sustained any wounds whatsoever considering he infamously dodged the Vietnam War draft by claiming he had bone spurs in his foot (a fact he has periodically downplayed).
Many ridiculed Trump's claim with some historical reminders.
Trump's appearance before the Faith and Freedom Coalition was his ninth in recent years.
He used his speech to lay out what he could offer the Christian right in a second term. He endorsed Louisiana’s new law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public classroom, questioning how anyone could oppose such inclusion in schools and stating that “the right to religion does not end at the door of a public school.”
In one of the evening's most striking moments, Trump also pledged to “shut down the federal Department of Education” if elected, a promise that received a standing ovation from those in attendance.
@EdwardLawrence/X
