J.D. Vance told podcaster Joe Rogan that news of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump interrupted a mini golf outing with his family and sent him into "fight or flight mode."
The Ohio Republican told the podcaster that he thought the former president had been killed when he saw video of him ducking to the ground after shots were fired at a July 13 campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, and he gathered his children and retreated to their Cincinnati home.
"When you first see the video he grabs his ear and he goes down," Vance said. "I go, 'Oh, my God, they just killed him,' and I was so pi--ed. Then I go into, like, fight or flight mode with my kids. I'm, like, 'All right, kids!'"
"We were at a mini golf place in Cincinnati, Ohio – grab my kids up, throw them in the car, and go home and load all my guns," Vance added, "and basically stand like a sentry at our front door, and that was sort of my reaction to it."
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Two days after the shooting, which apparently grazed Trump's ear as he turned his head but left one of his supporters dead and wounded two others, the Republican candidate tapped Vance as his running mate.
The pair had huddled at Mar-a-Lago earlier on the day Trump was shot, and he called Vance to formally offer him the job two days later, on the first day of the Republican National Convention.
