Battleground state voters blame Dems' 'toxic' rhetoric for attempts on Trump's life

FLINT, Mich. — Voters attending a town hall for former President Donald Trump in Flint, Michigan, blamed rhetoric from Democrats for the two assassination attempts on the former president.

"I don’t think gun control is the answer, I think it’s the rhetoric… some of the things that are being said shouldn’t be said," one voter attending the Trump town hall told Fox News Digital.

The comments come as Trump held his first campaign event since an apparent attempt on his life at Trump International Golf Club in Florida on Sunday. U.S. Secret Service agents were able to spot the shooter, identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, when he was roughly 300–500 yards from Trump, engaging him and causing him to flee the scene.

Routh was captured later Sunday, while Trump was uninjured in the incident.

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The incident marked the second time Trump has survived an attempt on his life, coming just over two months after the former president was grazed in the ear by a bullet during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Trump has blamed "rhetoric" by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the violence, arguing that the two would-be assassins have "acted" on "highly inflammatory language" by Democrats.

"He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it," Trump told Fox News Digital of the latest suspected gunman. "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."

Voters in Flint largely echoed Trump’s remarks before his town hall event Tuesday, with one telling Fox News Digital that the "political