Ryan Routh, the second person to attempt to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump, sent Politico a letter from jail that echoes Democratic rhetoric and calls Trump a "dictator."
In the four-page letter, written before the presidential election, Routh warned that if Trump were to win, the United States needed to "remove the power of our military by the President and place it with Congress before January."
"We must limit all Presidential power before Trump seizes our country," Routh wrote.
Routh attempted to assassinate Trump at the then-candidate's West Palm Beach, Fla., golf course in September but fled the scene without firing his weapon after the Secret Service spotted him. The 58-year-old has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial at a federal detention center in Miami.
Trump blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for inspiring Routh's attempt, citing Biden's and Harris's campaign-trail claims that he is a "threat to democracy."
"[Routh] believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it," Trump said. "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."
Routh praised himself and previous would-be assassin Thomas Crooks as "ready to die for freedom and democracy."
Crooks tried to assassinate Trump during a July rally in Butler, Pa., striking Trump in the left ear, killing one attendee, and injuring two others before being fatally shot by the Secret Service.
Routh sent a similar letter to the Palm Beach Post before the election that also referred to Trump as a "dictator."
"Palm Beach should be leading the way and guiding our country hopefully to choose democracy over a dictator," that letter reads.
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