Former President Donald Trump claimed Ryan Routh, the would-be assassin who targeted him on Sunday (September 15), was motivated 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,” Trump 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, 78, claimed that Routh, 58, used language similar to Biden and Harris in their campaigns against Trump. Routh previously posted "DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose," in April and is reported to have frequently posted about politics online, donated to Democratic candidates and causes since 2019, and had a Biden-Harris bumper sticker on the back of a pickup truck parked at his Kaaawa, Hawaii, home, according to the New York Post.

Biden, 81, had repeatedly used the phrase "democracy is on the ballot" before ending his re-election campaign and endorsing Harris, 59, as his successor. The vice president has also called Trump a threat to democracy, which included claiming he "wants to turn our democracy into a dictatorship" during an appearance in Las Vegas on July 9, four days prior to the first assassination attempt targeting the former president at a Pennsylvania rally.

Biden and Harris both issued statements condemning the assassination attempt on Sunday.

Mike McConnell