After Donald Trump shot at rally, Russia, China and other foreign powers weigh in on assassination attempt
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be calling former President Donald Trump after he was shot at at a campaign rally over the weekend, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, as the Russian government accused the Biden administration of creating an atmosphere that led to the attack.
"We do not at all think or believe that the attempt to eliminate presidential candidate Trump was organized by the current government, but the atmosphere that this administration created during the political struggle, the atmosphere around candidate Trump provoked what America is faced with today," Peskov said on Sunday.
On Sunday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a social media post that U.S. lawmakers should use the money being spent to supply Ukraine with weapons "to finance the American police and other services which should ensure law and order within the United States."
Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed his sympathies to Trump, according to a statement from China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while The Global Times, a newspaper owned by the country's ruling Communist Party, published several editorial articles quoting Chinese academics who said the U.S. was becoming increasingly polarized and at risk of a potential civil war.
Many international leaders were quick to reach out to the former president in the wake of the shooting, either publicly or privately, including some U.S. adversaries.
Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro said he and Trump, "have been adversaries, but I wish President Trump a healthy and long life."
Leaders of close U.S. allies also contacted Trump, including new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who spoke with Trump on the phone to express his condolences for those who were killed and to condemn the violence, his office said.
Buckingham Palace said Monday that King Charles III had sent a private letter to Trump via the U.K. Embassy in Washington on Sunday, but it did not give any information on the contents of the private correspondence.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was "relieved to learn that Donald Trump is now safe," and that "such violence has no justification and no place anywhere in the world."
Argentina's President Javier Milei, a political outsider who was compared to Trump during his own election campaign, called the assassination attempt "cowardly" and said without any further explanation that it highlighted the "desperation of the international left," and its "willingness to destabilize democracies and promote violence to screw itself into power."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the shooting "wasn't just an attack on Donald Trump. This was an attack on a candidate for the presidency of the United States. This was an attack on America. It was an attack on democracy, it was an attack on all the democracies."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the PA "condemn this terrorist act" and "rejects violence, terrorism and extremism, whatever its source."
A senior leader of Hamas, which ran the Gaza Strip for almost two decades and has been at war with Israeli forces since it launched its Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, told CBS News on Monday that the group condemns "any violence."
The Hamas official said the group considers the upcoming U.S. election "an American internal issue, and if there is a difference between the two candidates, it is not essential or crucial, because Israel is part of American strategic interests in the region and is a non-partisan issue."
U.S. officials told CBS News on July 16 that an Iranian plot against Trump had been detected in recent weeks, though no ties between the shooter who targeted the former president on Saturday and any accomplices, foreign or domestic, had been found. The Secret Service had increased resources and assets for Trump's protection in June in response to the Iranian threat, adding Counter Assault Team personnel, counter sniper team personnel, drones and robotic dogs, the officials said.
Iran's foreign ministry said Wednesday that it "strongly rejects any involvement in the recent armed attack against Trump," and the country's mission to the United Nations dismissed the allegations of previous plotting as "malicious."