(NewsNation) — Pundit Tucker Carlson told the Republican National Convention he believes Donald Trump became the “leader of this nation” as soon as he raised his hand after surviving an attempted assassination.

Carlson said he reached out to Trump the night of the shooting and that after “having just been shot in the face, he said not a single word about himself.” Trump told Carlson “how amazed he was and how proud he was of the crowd, which didn’t run.” 

Carlson credits Trump and said “his courage gave them heart.”

The former Fox News conservative commentator also poked fun at President Joe Biden amid concerns about his age and mental fitness.

“Just ’cause you call yourself the president doesn’t mean that much inherently. I can call my dog the CEO of Hewlett Packard, it doesn’t mean she is,” Carlson said, prompting uproar from the audience.

“You could take, I don’t know, a mannequin, a dead person and make him president. … I’m just saying, theoretically possible.”