Former President Donald Trump said Monday that the man who allegedly tried to assassinate him as he golfed Sunday was motivated by the “rhetoric” of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” the Republican presidential nominee, 78, told Fox News.
“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.”
Trump cited suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, using near-identical language to Biden and Harris about the ex-president posing a threat to American democracy if he retakes the White House.
Routh was discovered hiding in the bushes near Trump’s West Palm Beach, Fla., golf course as Trump played a round. Authorities discovered a tactical rifle, a scope and a GoPro camera.
“These are people that want to destroy our country,” Trump said of Biden and Harris. “It is called the enemy from within. They are the real threat.”
Routh posted a range of political comments on social media and was interviewed by major news outlets in recent years about his efforts to recruit Afghans to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.
In April, Routh wrote that “DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose.”
Biden, 81, repeatedly used the phrase “democracy is on the ballot” before ending his campaign for a second term on July 21 and endorsing Harris as his successor.
Harris, 59, also has claimed that Trump is a threat to democracy — both before and after Trump was grazed with a bullet on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pa., when Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle in an attack with a still-unclear motive.
“Donald Trump wants to turn our democracy into a dictatorship,” Harris said July 9 in Las Vegas — four days before the first assassination attempt against Trump.
Less than a month later, Harris had returned to saying that “our fundamental freedoms are on the ballot and so is our democracy,” making identical utterances twice on July 31.
The Democrats point to Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat in the 2020 election, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Biden and Harris have drawn criticism for taking Trump out of context to make that argument, including saying this year that Trump has threatened a “bloodbath” if he loses, when the ex-president actually was referring to the possible election effects on the auto industry.
Spokespeople for Biden and Harris have not commented on Routh using similar language as they have.
Routh made a range of other posts online — including claiming in 2020 that he was a disillusioned former Trump supporter who had backed the populist conservative in 2016.
Also this year, he wrote that he believed former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) and GOP businessman Vivek Ramaswamy should run together as an independent presidential ticket.
