Republicans were quick to play the blame game on Sunday after an armed man was shot and killed for breaching the security perimeter at President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reacted to the incident in a post on X, where she accused Democrats of endangering people with their decision to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.
Crediting the Service for acting “quickly and decisively to neutralize a crazy person,” she then said, “Federal law enforcement are working 24/7 to keep our country safe and protect all Americans. It’s shameful and reckless that Democrats have chosen to shut down their Department.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller echoed Leavitt’s attitude in an X post, where he said, “Never before in history has federal law enforcement been purposefully defunded.”
Though authorities are still investigating the deceased’s potential motive, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared Democrats and their heated anti-Trump rhetoric at fault for what he described as an attempted assassination.
“Two would-be assassins dead, one in jail for life. This venom coming from the other side,” he told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on this weekend’s edition of “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“Look at this terrible, profane Senate commercial in Illinois. I would call for them to take that down,” Bessent added, referring to the “Fuck Trump” slogan Illinois’ Democratic Lieutenant Gov. Juliana Stratton is using in her Senate campaign ads.
“We don’t know whether this person was a mastermind, unhinged or what, but they are normalizing this violence,” the secretary continued. “It’s gotta stop.”
Far-right pundit and noted conspiracist Alex Jones co-signed Bessent’s message while reposting his Fox News appearance on X.
Along with the clip, he wrote, “Treasury Sec Scott Bessent rightly blames the latest failed assassination attempt on Trump inside Mar-a-Lago on the Democrats because of their increasing calls for violence against Republicans.”
According to the Secret Service, the slain gunman was “observed by the north gate of the Mar-a-Lago property carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel can” around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday. He was confronted by agents after driving through the north gate of the estate before Secret Service members and a Palm Beach County sheriff deputy fired and killed him, according to the agency.
The gunman’s name is not yet public, but the Secret Service has identified him as a man in his early 20s from North Carolina.
The president, who has been the target of multiple assassination attempts in the past years, was in Washington, D.C., at the time of the incident.