Former President Donald Trump recounted the moment he heard gunshots while golfing in South Florida, in one of his first public appearances since the apparent assassination attempt on his life Sunday.
Donald Trump sat down with internet personality Farokh Sarmad for an interview on X, formerly Twitter, to discuss launching a cryptocurrency platform that will be controlled by his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric. The interview comes a day after Ryan Routh, 58, was arrested in connection with the alleged assassination attempt on Trump while he was playing golf at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The former president said he was golfing with friends, including real estate investor Steve Witkoff, when he “heard gunshots in the air,” estimating he heard “four or five.” Trump said that after the shots were fired, the group got into golf carts and “moved along pretty good.”
“I was with an agent, and the agent did a fantastic job,” Trump added. He also praised the U.S. Secret Service for its “great job” in responding to the threat, as another Secret Service agent saw a man ram the barrel of a rifle through a fence lined with bushes near the golf course. That agent shot the suspect, who fled in a vehicle and was later taken into custody in a neighboring county.
“You wouldn’t want to have somebody like that there, you know,” Trump said, referring to Routh, whom the former president also called a “dangerous person.”
Trump was not injured in the attack, and Routh was charged with possession of a firearm while a former felon and possession of a firearm with the serial number defaced. Law enforcement recovered an AK-47, a GoPro camera and a backpack from where Routh was spotted in the fence.
Sunday’s arrest comes about 60 days after the assassination attempt at Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. That attack injured Trump in the tip of his right ear, and two other rally-goers were shot and wounded. One bystander, firefighter Corey Comperatore, was killed. The shooter was killed by a Secret Service sniper.
Earlier in the day, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump said he blamed the “rhetoric” of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the two incidents. He reiterated in his conversation with Sarmad on Monday: “There’s a lot of rhetoric.”
Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for additional comment Monday.
PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
