Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans are blaming the heated rhetoric of Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, for Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt on the former president in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The suspected gunman “believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it," Trump said in an interview with Fox News Digital on Monday morning. "Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at.”

Trump was playing golf on his West Palm Beach course when a Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of an AK-style rifle in the surrounding shrubbery 300 to 500 yards from where Trump was, authorities said. The agent opened fire, and the gunman fled in a vehicle, according to law enforcement officials. 

A suspect — Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Kaaawa, Hawaii — was later arrested on I-95. Authorities have not publicly identified a motive.

Routh was charged Monday with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

It was the second apparent attempt on Trump’s life in a little more than two months. On July 13, a gunman perched on a roof near a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, wounded the former president in the right ear. A Secret Service agent fatally shot the gunman.

In a post on his Truth Social platform Monday afternoon, Trump wrote: “The Rhetoric, Lies, as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC Debate, and all of the ridiculous lawsuits specifically designed to inflict damage on Joe’s, then Kamala’s, Political Opponent, ME, has taken politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust. Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!”

Since Sunday’s incident, Republicans have cited Democrats’ attacks on Trump, including calling him a fascist and claiming he’s a threat to Democracy. Trump pushed false claims of widespread voter fraud as he sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election, actions for which he faces federal and state criminal charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

“I think @KamalaHarris should cool the rhetoric about Donald Trump before it gets him killed,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote Sunday night in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“This rhetoric — calling him evil, calling him Hitler, how he’s an existential threat to democracy — OK, that diminished for about a week after July 13, and it came roaring back, particularly during their convention,” Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., said in an interview Monday with Fox Business.

Democrats, including Harris and President Joe Biden, have condemned Sunday’s apparent assassination attempt and political violence, as have Republicans.

Speaking in Philadelphia on Monday at an event, Biden commended the Secret Service for "their expert handling of the situation" while condemning the apparent attempt.

"Let me just say: There is no -- and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, those of you who know me, many of you do -- no place for political violence in America. None. Zero. Never."

"I've always condemned political violence and I always will," Biden added. "In America, we resolve our differences peacefully at the ballot boxes, not at the end of a gun. America has suffered too many times the tragedy of an assassin's bullet. It solves nothing and just tears the country apart.

"We must do everything we can to prevent it and never give it any oxygen," he added.

In his Fox News interview Monday, Trump made comments on par with the attacks for which he excoriated Democrats. 

“They are the ones that are destroying the country — both from the inside and out,” he said of Democrats. 

"It is called the enemy from within,” he added. “They are the real threat." 

On Sunday, Tesla, SpaceX and X owner Elon Musk — who is in line for a role in a second Trump administration — mused in an X post about why no one has attempted to kill Harris or Biden. Musk has deleted the post, saying it was a joke in which people might not have understood the context. The White House condemned Musk's remark as "irresponsible."

Note: This article was updated to include Trump's Truth Social post.