Former President Trump on Monday for the first time recollected what he was doing the day before when Secret Service officers engaged an assassination attempt outside his Florida golf club.
President Trump spoke with crypto influencer Farooq Sarmad at the X Space event, marking his first comments since the assassination attempt.
The former president was playing golf with businessman Steve Witkoff and other friends when “all of a sudden I heard gunshots in the air. Maybe four or five, they sounded like gunshots, but what do I know about that?”
“We went as a group, we all got in carts and we were on our way. I had an agent with me, and he did a great job,” Trump added.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was charged with two gun offenses on Monday after he was accused of pressing a rifle against a fence around Trump's golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, and being shot by a Secret Service agent.
Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rouse told reporters on Monday that Rouse did not see the former president or fire a shot. The suspect fled the scene and was arrested a short time later.
“Following reports of gunfire, the former president's security forces immediately evacuated the president to a safe location,” Rowe said.
“I wanted to make that last putt but decided not to,” Trump joked Monday night. The former president praised the work of the Secret Service, the sheriff's office and other law enforcement agencies at the scene.
The incident comes amid scrutiny of the Secret Service following the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, and with several Republican lawmakers calling on Monday for the service to increase security for Trump to the same level as President Biden.
Biden called Trump on Monday after the incident, and Trump said Biden “couldn't have been more gracious” during their conversation in Space.
Trump added that he needed more security personnel because of the size of the crowds that attend his campaign events.
