NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump on Monday blamed without evidence President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for inspiring another apparent attempt on his life, deriding their criticism of him as a threat to democracy despite his own long history of inflammatory campaign rhetoric and advocacy for jailing or prosecuting his political enemies.
With the election now just 50 days away and early ballots already being mailed out in some places, this year’s presidential campaign was among the most turbulent in American history even before Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt. Trump was safe after the incident in Florida and praised the Secret Service for protecting him, but didn’t shy away from quickly blaming his opponents.
“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 said in comments to Fox News Digital.
The Republican former president’s statements are a sharp departure from how he reacted after an assassination attempt in July during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which a bullet grazed his ear.
Then, Trump called for national unity, saying in a social media post that “it is more important than ever that we stand United.” A few days later, though, the former president returned to his usual commentary where he has sharply criticizes Democrats and relishes political bombast.
While authorities continue to investigate the motives of both the gunman in Pennsylvania and the person arrested Sunday in Florida, Trump has made clear that he sees attempts on his life as politically motivated — and blames his rivals for them.
That’s despite Trump himself drawing repeated criticism for his rhetoric. He has talked about prosecuting his political rivals and alleged without evidence that Democrats have brought the felony cases against him for political reasons.
The former president during last week’s debate and in the days after it amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets. The community days later evacuated schools and government buildings amid bomb threats, adding to the sense of an especially unstable and tense moment in America even before Sunday’s stunning development.
Biden, by contrast, steered clear of politics on Monday. As he boarded a helicopter to fly to Delaware before a trip to Philadelphia, Biden said “thank God the president is OK” while also saying that the Secret Service “needs more help” and urging Congress to provide additional resources to help the agency.
After Trump’s shooting in Pennsylvania, Biden initially called on the nation to lower the political temperature, though he too eventually pivoted back to criticizing Trump as a threat to the nation’s founding principles.
Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley said Sunday’s “deeply troublesome” event coming on top of an already dramatic year with an election looming has created “a kind of uncertainty across the land.”
Said Brinkley, “2024 has just unspooled in a chaotic and frightful fashion. It’s impossible for anybody to get footing in their daily lives with a news cycle that is so constantly grim and absurd.”
Trump had already been scheduled to spend Monday at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, according to a person familiar with his schedule. That now includes a briefing in person from Ronald Rowe, acting director of the Secret Service, according to the person who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Rowe arrived in West Palm Beach on Monday morning.
On Monday night, Trump is expected to speak about cryptocurrency live on the social media site X for the launch of his sons’ crypto platform, followed by an expected return to the campaign trail on Tuesday for a town hall in Flint, Michigan. He has appearances later in the week in New York, Washington and North Carolina.
Harris, meanwhile, was meeting with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters at the 1.3 million-member group’s headquarters in Washington as the Democratic presidential nominee hopes to lock yet another labor union’s endorsement. She was scheduled on Tuesday to campaign in swing-state Pennsylvania and planned later in the week to speak in Washington, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Harris’ husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, was planning to attend campaign receptions in Washington and New York on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Their returns to the campaign trail are likely to be overshadowed by questions about the armed man engaged by Secret Service agents at the former president’s Florida golf course. The FBI was leading the investigation and working to determine any motive.
Beyond the first attempt on Trump’s life when he was grazed by a bullet at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the campaign was whipsawed over the past six months by Trump’s historic criminal trial and conviction; the crisis and eventual end of Biden’s reelection campaign after his floundering debate performance; and Harris taking his place, fundamentally shifting the race.
In August, Trump’s campaign disclosed it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. The Justice Department is preparing criminal charges in connection with the hack.
Trump blaming the Democrats for saying he was a threat to American democracy is a theme his allies have also picked up on, seeking to link those arguments to Sunday’s detention of a suspect. Investigators have not commented on the suspect’s potential motives.
Republican strategist David Urban, a Trump ally, said it was too soon to know how that might affect the days and weeks ahead in the campaign, but in his conversations with those in Trump’s orbit, he was picking up a deep sense of shock and uncertainty.
“We’ve said unprecedented so many times this year,” Urban said. “I don’t know if we can even say the word anymore.”
Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Steve Peoples in New York and Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, contributed to this report.
