BBC blunder as reporter hangs up on Donald Trump halfway through interview

By John Varga, World News Reporter

Donald Trump spoke to the BBC on the phone (Image: Getty)

A BBC reporter almost blew a unique chance to interview Donald Trump after fumbling his telephone. Gary O'Donoghue is the BBC's chief North America political correspondent, reporting from Washington DC and from around the USA.

The veteran journalist was among the crowd at a Trump rally last year in Butler, Pennsylvania when 20-year-old Michael Thomas Crooks attempted to assassinate the then Republican-Presidential candidate. The BBC journalist won plaudits for his coverage of the events on that fateful day, including from Trump. O’Donoghue said he and the BBC had been trying for some time to get an exclusive interview with the White House incumbent.

Gary O'Donoghue is the BBC's chief North America political correspondent (Image: BBC)

He admitted there had been a “few false starts” and he had feared that it might never take place. But then late one night, he was awoken by the a phone call from one of Trump's top political aides and told the US President was on the line.

"I had to run into the living room, grab a digital recorder and do what I could,” O’Donoghue recounted. He continued: “When I woke up, I accidentally hung up the call to start with, which is not good is it when you hang up on the president. Anyway, they rang back.

“I pressed go on a little recorder of mine, I prayed that I had pressed go, and I had pressed go, and we got the interview.

"I was trying to think at a million miles an hour. We were told we would have five minutes, we ended up with 20.”

O’Donoghue asked Trump whether the assassination attempt in butler - which happened on July, 13 of last year - had changed him.

"I don't like to think about if it did change me," he replied. Dwelling on it, he added, "could be life-changing".

One attendee was killed, two others wounded and a bullet grazed Trump’s ear, before a Secret Service sniper shot dead the would-be assassin. Following the shooting , Trump gestured to the crowd, raising his fist in the air as blood dripped down his face.

In a moment that fast went viral on social media, he defiantly shouted: "Fight, fight, fight!"