What we know about Ryan Wesley Routh, suspect in Trump assassination attempt

The incident at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, didn’t hurt Trump, as law enforcement caught the suspected shooter taking aim in the bushes near the golf course. Authorities announced Sunday that the suspect was Ryan Wesley Routh.

Routh will make his first appearance in federal court on Monday, according to CNN. Federal prosecutors have not yet announced the charges against him.

Here’s what we know about the suspect in this apparent assassination attempt.

Electoral and criminal history

Routh has been a registered voter in North Carolina since 2012, according to state records, and he voted in the Democratic primary earlier this year. Federal Election Commission records show he made multiple donations in 2019 and 2020 to various Democratic presidential candidates through ActBlue, the Democrats’ fundraising platform.

Routh appears to have been a former Trump supporter, writing on X that “I and the world hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we have all been very disappointed and it seems that you are going from bad to worse and regressing,” according to CNN. “I will be happy when you are gone.”

His X account has since been suspended.

His North Carolina criminal record includes several counts, including one in 2002 for possession of a weapon of mass destruction after he barricaded himself in a business during a three-hour standoff with police. Officers arrested Routh in December 2002 after the standoff and found him with a fully automatic submachine gun, according to a report by the News and records at the time.

Tracy Fulk, the officer who filed the complaint in the 2002 incident, said Cable On Sunday, he said he believed Routh was either dead or in prison now.

“I had no idea he had moved on and was continuing his escapades,” Fulk told the outlet.

Comments on Trump

Routh suggested in a June 2020 post on X that he voted for Trump in 2016 but said he would be “happy to see you go,” according to CBS News.

North Carolina State Board of Elections records show that the last general election Routh voted in was in 2012, with no record of him voting in 2016 or 2020 in the Tar Heel State. He voted in the Democratic primary earlier this year in the state.

The alleged assassin posted on X after the first assassination attempt on Trump in July that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris should “visit the injured in the hospital at Trump’s rally and attend the funeral of the slain firefighter,” arguing that “Trump will never do anything for them,” according to CNN.

Biden’s campaign should be called “something like KADAF,” Routh wrote on the platform in April, according to CNN. “Keep America democratic and free. Trump should be MASA… making Americans slaves masters again. DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we can’t lose.” Biden and Harris have often argued that “democracy is on the ballot” in November.

In an apparently self-published book he wrote in 2023, titled The Unwinnable War in UkraineRouth urged Iran to assassinate Trump, report says Associated Press.

“You are free to assassinate Trump,” Routh writes in the book while criticizing Trump’s decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal, among other issues he had with the former president.

Firm position on the war in Ukraine

Routh’s most vocal effort has been his support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, which began after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

He lobbied for Afghan soldiers, who fled after the Taliban took over the country in 2021, to fight in Ukraine, even though the Ukrainian government rejected fighters from Middle Eastern countries. Routh was interviewed and included in articles in The New York Times And Semaphore in 2023.

Semaphore described Routh’s support for Ukraine as “a bit over the top” in a Sunday article recalling the 2023 report, and in a 2022 article on X he said “we need to burn the Kremlin to the ground.”

“I AM READY TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER, FIGHT AND DIE… May I be the example that we must win,” Routh said in a message posted on X, according to CNN.

Routh visited Ukraine in 2022 after the war began.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the assassination attempt on Trump and said that “political violence has no place anywhere in the world.”

“I am glad to hear that @realDonaldTrump is safe and sound,” Zelensky said in a message on X on Monday. “My best wishes to him and his family. It is good that the assassination attempt suspect was apprehended quickly. This is our principle: the rule of law is paramount and political violence has no place anywhere in the world. We sincerely hope that everyone remains safe.”

How he was caught

Routh was hiding in the bushes along the golf course Sunday with an “AK-47-style rifle with a scope,” a GoPro camera and two backpacks containing ceramic tiles, according to law enforcement officials.

He was about 400 to 500 yards from Trump when a Secret Service agent stationed at a hole in front of the former president on the course noticed a rifle barrel sticking out of the bushes. The agent tackled Routh, prompting the suspect to flee, authorities said.

Routh fled the scene by car but was spotted by a witness and authorities arrested him on I-95 in Martin County.

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On Monday morning, Routh made his first appearance in federal court after being charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. No charges were filed against Routh as of Monday morning, but the Palm Beach County State’s Attorney said Sunday that the suspect would be charged in state court.

The assassination attempt on Trump is the second of the year. The former president was shot in the ear at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The assassination attempt on Trump two months ago left him injured and the gunfire killed a rallygoer. Bulter’s assassin was shot and killed by law enforcement shortly after opening fire.