Trump assassination attempt latest: Suspect accused of aiming AK-47 at Florida golf course named as Ryan Routh

The 58-year-old suspect alleged to have fired an assault rifle in the vicinity of former US president Donald Trump voted for him in 2016.

Ryan Wesley Routh, from Hawaii, wrote on X that Mr Trump was his choice of candidate eight years ago but he was “greatly disappointed” by his term.

“While you were my choice in 2016, I and the world hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointed and it seems you are getting worse and devolving,” Routh wrote on X in July.

A suspect is in custody following what the FBI says was a disrupted assassination attempt on Donald Trump at one of the former president’s Florida golf resorts on Sunday.

A Secret Service agent opened fire on the suspect after spotting a rifle barrel through the perimeter fence of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. The suspect fled but is now in custody and has been identified as Ryan Wesley Routh.

Trump immediately began fundraising off the latest alleged assassination attempt with an email to supporters, reading, “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL! Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER! I will always love you for supporting me.”

Trump is at risk from further “copycat” attacks after a second apparent assassination attempt, Robert McDonald, a former Secret Service agent, said.

Mr McDonald, who supervised security for Joe Biden when he was vice-president, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Copycat people are exactly who we are worried about.

They see now that over the last eight weeks that two people have got relatively close to the former president with high powered rifles and were able to potentially cause damage.

“The bigger concern now is, is somebody going to get a bit closer and do serious damage.”

The alleged gunman who fired an AK-47 assault rifle at former US president Donald Trump’s golf course has been named.

The suspect was identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, a pro-Ukrainian activist from Oahu, a small town in Hawaii.

Routh who had expressed on social media his willingness to “fight and die” for Kyiv, according to the New York Times.

“I am willing to fly to Krakow and go to the border of Ukraine to volunteer and fight and die,” Routh wrote on X following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“Each one of us must do our part daily in the smallest steps help support human rights, freedom and democracy,” he continued in a separate message on the WhatsApp messaging app.

A man with an AK-47-style weapon pushed the muzzle through the trees at the perimeter at Trump National Golf Club in West Palm Beach while the former president was playing a round of golf on Sunday (15 September), prompting the Secret Service to open fire.

The former president is safe and unharmed, and the FBI says it is investigating “what appears to be an attempted assassination” of the Republican presidential candidate.

When quizzed on how close Trump was to the suspected shooter, a FBI spokesman replied: “300 to 500 yards.”

Suspect Ryan Routh spoke to Semafor on March 7 last year, complaining that the Ukrainian government, which he had traveled around the world to find backing for, was restricting the access of some foreign soldiers without the proper credentials.

“Ukraine is very often hard to work with. Many foreign soldiers leave after a week in Ukraine or must move from unit to unit to find a place they are respected and appreciated,” he told the outlet at the time.

“They’re afraid that anybody and everybody is a Russian spy,” he added.

“I am in Washington DC now to try and get some leadership here to help push the Ukrainians to take these soldiers,” he told Semafor. “It all hinges on the US partners here encouraging Ukraine to use these men or us merely convincing them to use them.”

The suspect in Sunday’s shooting, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, spoke to The New York Times last year for an article chronicling Americans volunteering to help Ukraine win its war against Russia.

Routh, who was detained on Sunday, said he went to Ukraine after the Russian invasion and that he aimed to get Afghan soldiers to fight in the war.

When Routh was in Washington last year, he told The Times over the phone about a diplomat who thought his efforts to help Ukraine would be successful. But when a US fighter appeared to talk down to him in a message shared with the paper, Routh said the fighter “needs to be shot.”

Routh told The Times that he was in Washington to meet with the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe to argue for more backing for Ukraine.

The suspect added at the time that he was looking for recruits for Ukraine among Afghan soldiers who had fled from the Taliban. He added that he was planning on moving some of them from Pakistan and Iran to Ukraine. He claimed that dozens had said that they were interested.

“We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan since it’s such a corrupt country,” he told the paper.

Ryan Wesley Routh, the detained suspect in Sunday’s shooting, has said that he would be willing to fight and die in the war in Ukraine.

“I AM WILLING TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER AND FIGHT AND DIE,” he wrote on X following the Russian invasion in early 2022, according to The New York Times.

On Signal, Routh wrote in his bio that “Civilians must change this war and prevent future wars.”

“Each one of us must do our part daily in the smallest steps help support human rights, freedom and democracy; we each must help the chinese,” his WhatsApp profile stated.

In a statement on Sunday night, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said: “I commend the Secret Service for its quick action to preempt this apparent assassination attempt and protect the former President. We condemn violence against public officials and candidates.”

“DHS and the Secret Service are closely working with federal, state and local law enforcement partners to learn all of the facts surrounding this incident,” he added. “The safety and security of Presidential candidates and other protectees is the highest priority for the Secret Service.”