CNN’s Sara Sidner scoffed at former President Trump for blaming Democratic Party rhetoric for the second attempt on his life on Tuesday, saying his unsubstantiated “eating the pets” claim against illegal immigrants during the debate has caused threats in one Ohio town. 

“There’s a lot of talk about rhetoric right now, especially from Trump campaign and from Vance’s team and the Republicans. And then you hear what this rhetoric has done, their rhetoric has done to this town. It‘s rich,” Sidner said, just two days after an assassination attempt against the former president. “Unbelievable,” she added.

Schools and hospitals in Springfield have received bomb threats in recent days, which prompted closures and evacuations. The threats came after Trump and JD Vance both made unverified claims there were Haitian migrants eating dogs and cats in the town.

On Sunday, Trump said President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ “rhetoric” was what caused him to be “shot at,” following the second assassination attempt against him since July. The former president told Fox News Digital that the suspected gunman “acted” on “highly inflammatory language” of Democrats.

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CNN’s Brynn Gingras joined Sidner to discuss the threats in Springfield. 

“The amount of resources that it’s taking to deal with all of these threats, the governor is saying 33 bomb threats just within this last week based off of these claims which we know, of course, JD Vance has doubled down multiple times on and that is a serious amount of resources that are now needing to be moved to these schools like you just pointed out, to basically do sweeps of these schools before the kids can go in,” Gingras said. 

Gingras also said two colleges in the Springfield area also had to go virtual.

Trump has taken aim at Biden and Harris following a second attempt on his life on Sunday. 

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“He believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris, and he acted on it,” Trump said of the gunman in an interview with Fox News Digital. “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.” 

Trump pointed to Biden and Harris’ past comments casting him as a “threat to democracy,” while telling Americans they are “unity” leaders. 

“They are the opposite,” Trump said. “These are people that want to destroy our country.” 

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.