Former President Trump blamed the Biden-Harris administration's denial of speech and security “to some extent” for the deadly incident.
Many Americans, and especially President Trump himself, are still trying to make sense of the attempted assassination of President Trump that took place at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in July of this year. While key elements of the assassination attempt have yet to be uncovered, President Trump asserted to Dr. Phil in an interview published on Wednesday that there were other partisan factors involved in the attack as well.
“I was always angry, talking about the Secret Service, Biden has always made it very difficult to get the right number of Secret Service agents,” Trump said of President Biden.
“I don't know who's to blame, but I'll say this: I held huge rallies with over 50,000, 60,000 participants. Our people were constantly fighting for more security, more Secret Service, but he knew we didn't have enough security,” he alleged.
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“I'm not a big fan of the president,” former President Trump told Dr. Phil during an interview in late August.
“So when this happens, people are going to ask who's to blame? And to some extent, I think it's Biden and Harris' fault,” Trump said of the assassination attempt.
“And I was the enemy. They were trying to weaponize the government against me. They were trying to mobilize the entire Department of Justice to get me. They didn't really care about my health and safety,” he alleged. “I would have if I were them, but they didn't care very much. But they made it very difficult, from what I understood and felt, to adequately staff the Secret Service at all times.”
The Secret Service acknowledged that it had rejected some requests by President Trump's team for extra security after the assassination attempt.
Dr. Phil asked, “I'm not saying you wanted them to shoot you, but do you think they would have minded if you got shot?”
“I don't know,” Trump responded. “I don't know, there's so much hate out there.”
“But when you do something like that, it creates a lot of hatred from those who are against it or who don't want to do it for whatever reason,” Trump said, citing his accomplishments as president.
He cited being called a “threat to democracy” as an example of hatred, saying, “But they'll say it, that's the cliché, they'll just keep saying it. And that can embolden assassins or potential assassins. And that's a frightening thing.”
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Former President Trump speaks to Dr. Phil. (Merit Street Media)
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He added: “But maybe the bullets are because of their rhetoric. Really bad rhetoric.”
The former president argued that this was not just a pattern of rhetoric, but that actual policy had been attacked instead of being discussed.
“My name was mentioned hundreds of times at the Democratic Convention,” he said, alleging that other serious threats facing the country were ignored. “And yet my name was mentioned about 300 times. I think she mentioned my name 19 times in her speech alone. 19 times.”
The Biden administration and Harris campaign did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital by time of publication.
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