Election 2024 Latest: Trump and Harris resume campaigning after apparent assassination attempt
Sep 17, 2024, 7:09 AM | Updated: 5:16 pm
The presidential campaign is moving forward after another apparent attempt on Donald Trump ‘s life. Trump was safe after the incident in Florida and praised the Secret Service for protecting him but didn’t shy away from blaming his opponents. The Republican nominee claimed without evidence that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris ‘ comment that is a threat to democracy had inspired the attempt on Sunday.
The man suspected in the incident, Ryan Wesley Routh, camped outside the golf course in West Palm Beach with food and a rifle for nearly 12 hours, according to court documents filed Monday. Additional and more serious charges are possible as the investigation continues and prosecutors seek an indictment from a grand jury.
Trump is expected to travel to Michigan while Harris will speak at a Black journalists forum in Pennsylvania.
Here is the Latest:
Florida law enforcement will launch a state-level criminal probe of the apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday.
DeSantis told reporters that the “suspect is believed to (backslash)have committed state law violations.” DeSantis’ announcement comes a day after Ryan Routh was charged with federal firearms crimes.
Routh did not fire any shots, never had Trump in his line of sight and sped away after an agent who spotted him shot in his direction, officials said. He was arrested in a neighboring county.
Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are kicking off a week of action to encourage young voters in battleground states to sign up to vote in the Nov. 5 election.
Walz has events on Tuesday in Macon, Georgia, and Atlanta, followed by a rally in Asheville, North Carolina, while his wife, Gwen, appears in Las Vegas.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and actor Jane Fonda are among a group of high-profile Harris supporters who are set to participate in the registration drive.
More than 130 voter registration events will be held on college campuses — at basketball tournaments, football games and more — in the handful of states where Harris and Walz and the Republican presidential ticket of former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, are focusing their campaigns, the Harris-Walz campaign said.
The campaign will also have a presence at historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions, including setting up kiosks to assist students with registration.
As he participated in an event on his X social media platform, Trump gave a shoutout to Elon Musk, saying the tech billionaire “endorsed me for president so strongly.”
Trump also called Musk his “friend,” commending his efforts on space travel in particular.
Musk deleted a post on X in which he said “no one is even trying to assassinate” Biden and Harris in the wake of the apparent assassination attempt on Trump.
Early Monday, after taking down the post about the apparent Trump assassination, Musk wrote on the platform: “Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X.”
Musk, who has nearly 200 million followers on the social media site he bought for $44 billion in 2022, has increasingly embraced conservative ideologies in recent years and endorsed Trump for president.
Trump says the apparent attempt on his life was a “much better result” than when he was shot in July because no others were wounded or killed.
“That was some crazy day, and yesterday you had another one with a different result, actually much better result,” Trump said.
The host noted that some of Trump’s sons were in the room for the interview.
He and his friends playing golf “heard shots, being fired in the air, and I guess probably four or five.”
Trump said they got into carts “and we moved along pretty good.”
“I would have loved to have sank that last putt,” Trump said, of not being able to finish the round of golf.
Trump said an agent had seen a gun barrel “and started shooting in the bushes … and ran toward the target.”
Trump also noted that a civilian woman in the area drove her vehicle to the back of Routh’s vehicle and took pictures of the license plate, which she then gave to authorities, who were able to track the suspect down.
Trump is participating in his first speaking appearance since the apparent assassination attempt on Sunday.
The former president is taking part in an X Space about the launch of World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform controlled by his sons Donald Jr. and Eric.
From his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, Trump commended the Secret Service for doing an “excellent job.”
Farokh, the event’s host, began by applauding Trump for not canceling his appearance.
