On Sunday, the Secret Service engaged and stopped a suspected gunman from assassinating former President Donald Trump, who was playing golf at Trump International Golf Course.
While the former president’s life was in danger, he told Fox News host Sean Hannity that “he really wanted to finish the hole” he was on when his security detail engaged the suspect.
“When the president found out everybody was safe, and nobody had been harmed … he related to me, ‘Ugh, I really wanted to finish the hole. I was even, and I had a birdie putt, and it was … on the fifth,’” Hannity told fellow Fox anchor Arthel Neville. “It was on the fifth hole, which shows a lot of, I think, guts and gumption and very Trumpian, I guess, in every way.”
Hannity said that he has talked with Trump three times since the shooting on Sunday, and every time, he’s discovered something new, including how the golf course was secured.
“Drone footage was able to give them enough surveillance to identify the exact car that the individual involved in the shooting got into,” Hannity explained. “I would say the time frame was less than a half hour between the time that the shooting actually took place and they identified the car.”
The suspected gunman has since been identified as Ryan Wesley Routh. Routh fled the scene after Secret Service members opened fire on him while he was reportedly within 300 to 500 yards from Trump.
Secret Service members who were on the holes ahead of Trump reported seeing a barrel sticking out of bushes, later believed to be the AK-47-style rifle Routh left behind.
Trump spoke with Fox News Digital on Monday, saying that the rhetoric from Democrats was to blame for the second assassination attempt on him in the last three months.
“He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump told Fox. “Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at when I am the one who is going to save the country, and they are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out.”
The White House has been briefed on the shooting and shared that President Biden and Vice President Harris were “relieved to know that he is safe.”
“I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America,” Harris wrote on X.