ATLANTA, Ga. — J.D. Vance said he spoke to former President Donald Trump in a phone call just minutes after he was the target of a second assassination attempt on Sunday.
“He said, 'J.D., believe it or not, they tried to do it again,'” Vance said Trump told him in a phone call 10 minutes after Secret Service agents spotted the barrel of an AK-47-style rifle peering out from under the former president's West Palm Beach golf course.
Vance was at home in Cincinnati with his children on Sunday when his phone rang. “It's Donald J. Trump,” he told a crowd gathered at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event in Georgia.
“I said, 'No, you're kidding, but what the hell is going on?'” the vice presidential nominee reportedly told his running mate.
Trump then said the gunman, later identified as Ryan Wesley Routh of Hawaii, was planning his second assassination attempt in about three months.
“I was playing golf and the Secret Service spotted someone trying to shoot me,” Vance said Trump told him.
“I said, 'Oh, your excellency, I'm so glad you're safe,'” he recalled.
Vance said the former president said he was OK but was “upset” about missing the final birdie putt.
At about 2 p.m., a Secret Service agent one hole before Trump's hole spotted a gunman pointing a rifle through the course's chain-link fence and opened fire, causing the suspect to flee.
Routh, 58, was reportedly between 300 and 500 yards from Trump but did not pull the trigger before being shot.
He ran to his car and drove north for about 40 miles, but was stopped a short time later on I-95 and arrested.
He was arraigned on federal firearms charges Monday morning, and additional charges may be filed against him as the investigation continues.
In July, a bullet grazed Trump's ear during an assassination attempt at a campaign event, killing one attendee and seriously wounding two others before the suspect, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot and killed by police at the scene.
