Trump claims ‘only consequential presidents get shot at’ after second assassination attempt

Donald Trump has claimed that “only consequential presidents get shot at” following the latest attempt on his life.

At a town hall in Flint, Michigan, on Tuesday night, Trump spoke to moderator Sarah Huckabee Sanders – the Arkansas Governor who was formerly his White House press secretary – about the assassination attempt at his Florida golf course on Sunday.

“You know, only consequential presidents get shot at,” the Republican presidential nominee said, before reflecting on the threats routinely faced by those running for the highest public office.

“It’s a dangerous business running for president,” he said.

“Being president, it’s a little bit dangerous. It’s... you know, they think race car driving is dangerous – no. They think bull riding, that’s pretty scary, right? No, this is a dangerous business, and we have to keep it safe.”

Trump praised the Secret Service for doing “a hell of a job” in protecting him, after an agent opened fire on suspect Ryan Wesley Routh.

He also revealed he had received “very nice” phone calls from his rival Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden in the aftermath.

According to authorities, the would-be suspected gunman, 58, had allegedly lain in wait for almost 12 hours close to the golf club.

Investigators allege he pushed the barrel of a rifle through the fence around the club’s perimeter but that it was spotted, prompting the agent to open fire.

The suspect fled the scene but was apprehended around 40 minutes later on Interstate 95 after a quick-thinking member of the public took a photo of his black Nissan SUV, according to authorities.

Routh has since appeared in court in West Palm Beach and charged with two federal gun offences.

The latest incident came two months after Trump was shot in the ear by a sniper in Butler, Pennsylvania, during a campaign rally.

The fallout from that shooting ultimately led Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign following a heated hearing on Capitol Hill.

This time, the reaction has largely centered on conservatives like JD Vance, Eric Trump and Tim Scott blaming Democrats for their “inflammatory political rhetoric” and regular characterisation of Trump as a “threat to democracy”, a response that Democrats have pointed out overlooks Trump’s spreading of such rhetoric and joking about political violence.

On Monday, Trump met with Acting Secret Service Director Richard Rowe at his Mar-a-Lago home.

In the meeting, they discussed the difficulty of protecting Trump in sprawling, wide-open spaces like his semi-public golf courses, with Rowe reportedly advising Trump not to play golf again without improved security arrangements.

Elsewhere during Trump’s campaign event in Flint, he argued that his rambling oratorical style was really just further evidence of his “genius”, only to then confuse an Alaska wildlife reserve with an American air base in Afghanistan.

He also argued that rising sea levels caused by climate change could provide a boon to the seafront property sector, claimed without evidence that China had deliberately unleashed Covid-19 on the world to sabotage his presidency and bizarrely warned that Michigan’s auto manufacturing industry was under threat from nuclear weapons.