Editor’s note: A previous version of this article, stated that the shooter “opened fire.” This article has been updated to more accurately reflect the most updated account of the shooting from law enforcement sources.
CV NEWS FEED // Former President Donald Trump and his campaign blasted the “rhetoric and lies” of the Democratic Party and its nominee Kamala Harris after the 45th president and Republican nominee survived the second attempt on his life this summer.
The incident, in which a man armed with an AK-47 rifle came within the vicinity of Trump, took place on Sunday afternoon at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
“Yesterday, President Donald J. Trump was the target of a second assassination attempt in as many months,” Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign wrote in a statement Monday.
Previously, on July 13, another gunman’s bullet grazed Trump’s ear while he was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“Thankfully, the would-be assassin was stopped by the heroic action of law enforcement,” Team Trump’s Monday statement continued, “but make no mistake, this psycho was egged on by the rhetoric and lies that have flowed from Kamala Harris, Democrats, and their Fake News allies for years.”
“Democrats used increasingly incendiary rhetoric against President Trump in the days, weeks, and months leading up to the two assassination attempts,” the Trump campaign pointed out.
In the statement, the Republican’s campaign proceeded to highlight dozens of recent quotes from Harris, President Joe Biden, and their allies.
The Trump campaign noted that Harris called her opponent “a threat to our democracy and fundamental freedoms” on multiple occasions.
Furthermore, the campaign indicated that Biden and multiple Democratic members of Congress have specifically referred to Trump as an “existential threat.”
The statement also quoted Rep. Dan Goldman, D-NY, who less than three weeks before the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump wrote on X (formerly Twitter), that Trump “remains the greatest threat to our democracy.”
In the same post, Goldman referred to “Trump and his allies’ plan to march us into fascism.”
Last year, Goldman said in an MSNBC interview, Trump “is not only unfit, he is destructive to our democracy, and he has to be, he has to be eliminated.”
>> JULY: TRUMP INJURED IN FAILED ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT <<
After backlash, the congressman apologized for his word choice stating that he “mistakenly used the wrong word to express the importance for America that Donald Trump doesn’t become President again.”
On Monday afternoon, Trump himself took to X, writing that the “Rhetoric” and “Lies” of Democrats and media outlets have “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!” Trump continued in his post. “Allowing millions of people, from places unknown, to INVADE and take over our Country, is an unpardonable sin.”
The New York Post reported on Sunday that Trump “survived yet another assassination attempt after a sniper with a scoped AK-47 rifle got within a few hundred yards of him as he played golf at his West Palm Beach, Florida, club on Sunday.”
“It is the second time a madman armed with an assault rifle has tried to kill the 45th president in two months,” the Post added.
The Post’s report noted that law enforcement quickly identified the would-be assassin as “Ryan Routh, a 58-year-old Hawaii resident who has championed progressive causes online and was a reliable donor to Democratic causes and candidates.”
