Carolyn Haman closed her eyes.
In a riverside park outside eight-foot-tall iron barricades, her prayer group found a moment of quiet.
“God, we just thank you for the opportunity to love you while we’re down here at the RNC,” she began.
She prayed for, among other things, a safe convention for both political parties. Haman leads a community ministry in Racine, Wisconsin. It was the second day her prayer group met outside the convention.
She, like her prayer partner David Pitzo, believes something many Florida Republican politicians believe — Donald Trump’s assassination attempt was thwarted by divine intervention.
“You don’t get that millisecond of tilt in your head when a bullet is already on its way,” Pitzo said.
“That’s God.”
Inside the RNC — past the guard dogs, metal detectors and security checkpoints — Florida delegates murmured in assent and applauded when the Sunshine State’s delegation chairman, Eric Trump, said in a Tuesday morning speech divine intervention saved his father’s life.
“What happened there should never have happened,” he said of the survival of his father.
Later, the crowd burst into applause when Florida state Sen. Ben Albritton reminded attendees God “saved Donald Trump’s life.”
Florida delegates such as Michelle Terris echoed the points made in both speeches. She said angels were looking out for Trump.
“We know that he has been chosen for a time such as this,” she said.
These comments come at a time of heightened religious rhetoric from Republicans, who have made a point to use their primetime speeches to develop the comparison.
On Tuesday night, Texas Senator Ted Cruz opened his convention floor speech by thanking God for Trump’s safety. Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump’s survival meant God wasn’t finished with America. Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson said he immediately thought about the Book of Isaiah when he heard about the attempt on the former president’s life. In his closing remarks, he encouraged attendees to be “joyful warriors of Christ.”
RNC co-chair Lara Trump mirrored comments made on Monday night by South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. Trump’s comment compared her father-in-law to a bold lion. In a dramatic Monday performance, Scott referred to the 20-year-old would-be Pennsylvania assassin as the devil and called Trump a roaring “American lion.”
The near assassination of Donald Trump has marked a shift in his campaigning tactics. The former president embraced his spiritual narrative, saying “it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening” in a Truth Social post.
Recent discussion of Donald Trump mirrors that around former president Andrew Jackson after he narrowly escaped assassination in 1835. Historian Robert Brammer said “a sentiment arose that the President had been spared by divine providence” in an article for the Library of Congress.
While many Florida Republicans are unified in their spiritual belief, Florida delegate Rosario Licciardello doubts the reality of divine intervention. He said he believes in miracles but questioned the rhetoric.
“Was it part of divine intervention or was the guy a bad shot?” he asked.
“With or without that event,” he said, “the man has the right ideas for the country.”