OAN Staff James Meyers
10:05 AM – Monday, September 16, 2024
45th President Donald Trump said Monday, that the man who allegedly tried to assassinate him on the golf course on Sunday, was inspired by the “rhetoric” of President Joe 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.”
The former president noted that the suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, used almost identical language to Biden and Harris when speaking about how the ex-president poses a threat to American democracy if he were to take back the White House.
The suspect was discovered hiding in the bushes near Trump’s West Palm Beach, Florida, as the former president played a round of golf. Additionally, 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.”
Meanwhile, Routh posted multiple political comments on social media and was interviewed by multiple outlets in recent years about his efforts to recruit Afghans to support Ukraine against Russia in the war.
Routh wrote that “DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose,” back in April.
The 81-year-old Biden has been known for using the phrase “democracy is on the ballot” before ending his campaign for another term on July 21st, and endorsing Harris to keep the White House.
Meanwhile, Harris has claimed that Trump is a threat to democracy, both before and after he was grazed by a bullet during the first assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, opened fire with a semi automatic rifle.
“Donald Trump wants to turn our democracy into a dictatorship,” Harris said July 9th in Las Vegas, which was four days before the first assassination attempt against Trump.
Just a month later, Harris had returned to saying that “our fundamental freedoms are on the ballot and so is our democracy,” making the same statements twice on July 31st.
Furthermore, Routh has made other posts online in the past, including that he was a disillusioned former Trump supporter who had supported him in 2016.
The suspect also wrote that he believed that two former Trump rivals, former Governor Nikki Haley (R-S.C.) and GOP entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, should run together as an independent presidential ticket.
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