Donald Trump says the “rhetoric” of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris led to a gunman showing up at his Florida golf course Sunday in an incident that authorities are treating as a second assassination attempt.
Trump was not harmed in the incident and the alleged gunman—identified as Ryan Wesley Routh—was engaged by the Secret Service at the course where Trump was playing in West Palm Beach before he was later arrested. “He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump said of the gunman in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at, when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country—both from the inside and out,” the former president continued.
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It’s not yet clear if the gunman on Sunday opened fire at the former president, but he may have been referring to Thomas Matthew Crooks—the 20-year-old shooter who wounded Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
In his interview with Fox News, Trump cited comments in which Biden and Harris slammed Trump as a “threat to democracy” while describing themselves as “unity” leaders. Trump claimed they “are the opposite” and are in fact “people that want to destroy our country.”
“It is called the enemy from within,” he said. “They are the real threat.”
He later cautioned Democrats to be careful with their rhetoric. “They use highly inflammatory language,” Trump said. “I can use it too—far better than they can—but I don’t.”
Trump’s statement appears to be part of a concerted strategy in the wake of the second assassination attempt to head off one of the main thrusts of the Harris-Walz campaign in demonizing Trump and warning of the danger to democracy a Republican presidency might present.
The former president’s senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita posted a video of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling Trump a “threat to democracy” and pointed out that the video was running on Harris’ Facebook platforms in a reference to the type of rhetoric being used against the Republican nominee.
Republican lawmakers have also attacked their Democratic counterparts on social media, saying suggestions that Trump was a danger to democracy was likely to lead to further attacks.
Trump continued his tirade with a second post on X/Twitter: “The Rhetoric, Lies, as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC Debate, and all of the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage on Joe’s, then Kamala’s, Political Opponent, ME, has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust. Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!”
