Former president Donald Trump blamed the Democratic Party’s overheated rhetoric for the failed assassination attempt on his life in July, saying during Tuesday night’s debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that he “took a bullet to the head” because of her reckless attacks.
“I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me,” Trump said, pointing to Harris on stage. “They’re the threat to democracy with the fake Russia, Russia, Russia investigation that went nowhere,” he added.
The response came after Harris claimed her opponent would be terrible for American democracy should he return to the White House. “Understand what it would mean if Donald Trump were back in the White House with no guardrails, because certainly we know now” that the court system or his running mate J.D. Vance “won’t stop him,” she said. “It’s up to the American people to stop him.”
On July 13, Trump was shot in the ear while delivering a campaign speech in western Pennsylvania. He has gone on record numerous times, recounting how fortunate he was to have survived the attack.
Earlier Tuesday, former first lady Melania Trump criticized law enforcement for the blatant failures that enabled would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks to climb up to a nearby rooftop and fire eight shots into the crowd at Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pa. The FBI has yet to determine the shooter’s motive.
“I can’t help but wonder: Why didn’t law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech?” she said in a video used to promote her upcoming memoir. “There is definitely more to this story and we need to uncover the truth.”
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt, President Biden urged political leaders to lower the rhetorical temperature. But less than two weeks later, in an Oval Office address announcing Harris’s ascension to the top of the ticket, Biden warned that the future of the country — and the world — would be at risk if Trump were to be reelected.