How Trump Credits an Immigration Chart for Saving His Life and What the Graphic is Missing

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON / AP
October 3, 2024 7:48 AM EDT

Ever since the assassination attempt at his rally in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump has professed a unique fondness for a bar chart he credits for saving his life.

Trump was addressing the crowd in Butler about illegal immigration and reviewing a chart that detailed U.S.-Mexico border crossings during his administration and President Joe Biden's term. Trump had his head turned to the right to review the graphic on a projection screen when the gunfire began. One bullet nicked his right ear.

He has said having his head turned “probably saved my life,” that he loves the chart “more than I even love the police” and that he will “sleep with that chart for the rest of my life.” He has made it a recurring campaign prop and is likely to show it again when he returns to Butler on Saturday.

The chart helps the Republican presidential nominee connect a defining moment from his 2024 campaign to his signature issue since he entered politics. It also is representative of how the Trump campaign has addressed immigration, making a strident argument for tougher border measures while erasing or misstating key parts of his record.

Here are more details about the chart and how Trump has used it.

A senator gave Trump the chart while on his plane

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said he was aboard Trump’s plane in April to hitch a ride from an Easter family holiday in Florida to campaign events in the Midwest. While on the flight, Johnson showed Trump the chart, which depicts a dramatic increase in encounters with migrants at the southern border using statistics that are tallied by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Trump asked Johnson to send it to his communications team, which changed the title, description and edited some of the annotations, to begin rolling it out that same day at an event with law enforcement officers in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At that event, Trump referred to people in the U.S. illegally who are suspected of committing crimes as “animals.”

“It’s obvious what the Biden administration has done in that chart. It shows what Trump had to deal with and how he successfully dealt with it," Johnson said in an interview. "And then it shows just the explosion of illegal immigration under President Biden and Vice President (Kamala) Harris.”

Border crossings hit record highs during the Biden administration but have fallen since Biden instituted a curb on asylum claims by executive order earlier this year.

Harris' presidential campaign blames Trump for pressuring Republicans in Congress not to support a bipartisan border security package that Democrats say would have helped fix a broken immigration system.

The chart shows border crossings hit record highs

The Border Patrol has tallied about 7.1 million arrests of people crossing illegally from Mexico from the start of the Biden administration through July, but many of those arrests were repeat crossers. Trump regularly hammers Biden and Harris for allowing record-high numbers, often claiming without evidence that the figure is upward of 30 million.

The chart notes policies Trump instituted such as “Remain in Mexico,” a program that makes asylum seekers wait south of the border that Biden halted when he took office. The policies are intended to show Trump drove down border crossings during his term.

The description of the chart says “Biden world record illegal immigrants, many from prisons and mental institutions,” a claim Trump usually makes in rallies even though there is no evidence countries are sending their criminals or mentally ill across the border.

The chart leaves out family separation

The graphic incorrectly identifies the month Trump left office, marking it as if it had happened during the spring of 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic prompted travel restrictions and vastly lowered the number of arrivals. Before the pandemic, the Trump administration struggled to manage large influxes of migrants, too.

Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., showed the chart recently at a hearing in Congress to point out this error.

“It’s important to note and to point out how incorrect it actually is,” he said, as he pointed out that border encounters had started to trend upwards in the months that followed and while Trump was still in office.

The chart also leaves out what perhaps was Trump’s most controversial immigration policy. Between 2017 and 2018, border agents separated children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border in a policy that was condemned globally as inhumane and one that Trump himself halted under pressure from his own party.

Trump rarely talks about family separation. Last weekend, Trump claimed not to understand what Harris meant when she said he was responsible for taking children from their parents.

The former president has pledged to conduct the largest mass deportation operation, prioritizing migrants with criminal records. Trump has said he could rely on like-minded governors to provide National Guard support to carry out deportations.

Trump frequently shows the chart

The chart was displayed on numerous screens on stage during his Republican National Convention speech less than a week after the Butler rally.

“The last time I put up that chart, I never really got to look at it,” he said. “But without that chart, I would not be here today.”

Trump also took the chart on his recent border visit to Arizona, displaying it on a piece of paper as he spoke from a podium below a desert hill. He has been using it increasingly more since the assassination attempt, often retelling the story of how it saved his life.

Johnson says he is happy to have played "a small little role."

“Either the hand of God or just plain serendipity is why he avoided being assassinated, quite honestly," he said. “That's just the historical fact now.”

He wouldn't say if Trump has mentioned anything about the chart to him since the assassination attempt. “Those are private conversations,” he said.