Former president Donald Trump on Monday blamed the “rhetoric” of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the potential assassination attempt he faced Sunday.
“[The suspected gunman] believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump said in a Fox News interview published Monday morning. “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 Harris campaign did not respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment.
The former president echoed the claims again Monday afternoon on his Truth Social platform, writing: “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!”
Harris and Biden have routinely portrayed Trump as a threat to democracy because of his refusal to accept the 2020 election results and his role in stoking rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to overturn the election.
Trump’s claims come the day he was scheduled to host a virtual address on Spaces, X’s live audio platform, from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. on the launch of “World Liberty Financial,” a cryptocurrency platform. The former president is also expected to appear on Fox News’s “Hannity” at 9 p.m. Eastern time. The appearances are the first public event Trump has done since the possible assassination attempt at his golf course on Sunday.
Police arrested Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old man, on Sunday after he pointed a rifle through a fence around a golf course where Trump was playing, authorities said. The FBI is investigating the episode as an apparent assassination attempt. Trump, who survived an assassination attempt this summer in Pennsylvania, was not harmed in the Florida incident.
Authorities have not said Routh shot at Trump on the golf course. They have said a Secret Service agent opened fire on Routh after seeing his rifle poking through the fence.
Routh’s social media activity quickly came under scrutiny. He reportedly wrote on X that “DEMOCRACY is on the ballot” in the November election, a refrain Biden and Harris have used on the campaign trail. Routh also had expressed past support for Trump, suggesting he backed him in 2016 but became disillusioned with him.
Biden and Harris said Sunday that they were relieved Trump was safe and condemned any kind of political violence. Biden, talking to reporters Monday morning outside the White House, said “thank God” Trump was okay and urged “more help” for the Secret Service.
On X, Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. described having conversations with his young children about the second attempt on Trump life.
“No person should ever have to do this in America or anywhere else and yet I had to have that conversation five times again yesterday,” he said.
After Trump criticized Biden and Harris online and on Fox News, some of his critics noted that he has long spread hateful rhetoric against his political opponents. In a post shared on X, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who was part of a now-defunct House select committee tasked with investigating the deadly Jan. 6 riot, pointed to Trump’s political rhetoric as a source of tension.
“Look violent rhetoric is wrong, and has no place,” Kinzinger wrote. “But MAGA pretending they didn’t light this fire is gaslighting to the 100th power. Since Trump showed up our politics has gone to crap.”
“Literally just accused a group of people of eating our pets,” Kinzinger added, a reference to Trump’s baseless claims that Haitian migrants are eating their neighbors’ cats in Springfield, Ohio.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) on X also shared a response to Donald Trump Jr.’s post asking if he has apologized to the grandchildren of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former House speaker, after he posted a tweet mocking the attack on Pelosi’s husband’s life.
Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who is also now a Trump critic, said in an X post that two things can be true at the same time: “1. This potential assassination attempt on Donald Trump is horrible and should be strongly condemned by ALL of us.” and “2. There is no politician in America today who spews as much hate or incites as much violence with reckless/dangerous rhetoric as Donald Trump does.”