Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, greets supporters at a campaign rally in Las Vegas on September 13, just two days before an apparent assassination attempt while he was golfing in Florida.
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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
In an interview on social media platform X, former President Donald Trump spoke publicly for the first time about the attempted assassination that the US Secret Service thwarted on Sunday.
The interview focused on his son’s new cryptocurrency initiative and was conducted by a crypto influencer, covering many of the usual talking points of Trump’s campaign.
He began by praising the Secret Service, saying they did “a fantastic job” on Sunday protecting him during the incident while he was playing golf at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida. He said he heard four to five gunshots and was taken away in a golf cart.
He joked that he “would have loved to hit that last shot”.
He recounted how agents spotted the barrel of a gun in the bushes at the golf course’s perimeter and began shooting. He went on to describe the arrest of the alleged gunman, who authorities said did not fire the gun.
Trump also recalled an assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pa., in June. He said Sunday’s assassination had a “much better outcome” because there were no casualties, as happened in June, when one man died and two others were injured, in addition to Trump, who suffered an ear injury.
He also recalled his conversation with President Biden on Monday, saying he was “very nice” on the call and that Biden asked if Trump needed more people to follow him.
“We need more people to monitor because there are 50,000, 60,000 people attending the events,” Trump said.
“And he couldn’t have been nicer,” Trump added of Biden. Trump has been heavily critical of the Biden administration’s policies, as well as Biden and Vice President Harris, as is often the case in his campaign appearances.
This comes after Trump blamed Biden and Harris’ “rhetoric” for the assassination attempt on him in an interview with Fox News. In a post on X, he called Harris a “deplorable person.”
His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, echoed that sentiment on the campaign trail Monday night at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Georgia Victory dinner in Atlanta.
“Nobody has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last few months and now two people have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last few months,” Vance said. “I think that’s pretty clear evidence that the left needs to tone it down and needs to stop this nonsense.”
