Donald Trump reports hearing “gunshots” while golfing

Former President Donald Trump, in one of his first appearances since the alleged assassination attempt on him on Sunday, described the moment he heard gunshots while golfing in South Florida.

Trump met with internet star Farokh Sarmad for an interview streamed on X (formerly Twitter) to discuss the launch of a crypto platform controlled by his two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric. The interview comes a day after 58-year-old Ryan Routh was arrested in connection with the alleged assassination attempt on Trump as he played golf at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The former president said he was golfing with friends, including real estate investor Steve Witkoff, when he “heard gunshots in the air” and estimated he heard “four or five.” Trump said after the shots rang out, the group got into golf carts and “got pretty, pretty good going.”

“I was with an agent and the agent did a fantastic job,” Trump added. He also praised the U.S. Secret Service for its “excellent job” in responding to the threat, as another Secret Service agent saw a man sticking the muzzle of a rifle through a bush-lined fence at the golf club. That agent shot the suspect, who fled in a vehicle and was later taken into custody in a nearby county.

“You don’t want someone like that out there, you know,” Trump said of Routh, whom the former president also described as a “dangerous person.”

Trump was unharmed in the attack and Routh was charged with possession of a firearm as a former felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Police officers recovered an AK-47, a GoPro camera and a backpack from where Routh was discovered at the fence.

Sunday’s arrest came about 60 days after the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In that attack, Trump suffered an injury to the tip of his right ear and two other rally attendees were wounded by gunfire. One bystander, firefighter Corey Comperatore, was killed. The gunman was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.

Trump said earlier that day in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital that he blamed the “rhetoric” of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for both incidents. In his conversation with Sarmad on Monday, he reiterated: “There’s a lot of rhetoric.”

Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign on Monday for further comment.