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

Trump was unharmed in the incident at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, as police caught the suspected shooter as he took aim in the bushes near the golf course. Authorities announced Sunday that the suspect was Ryan Wesley Routh.

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

Here's what we know about the suspect in the alleged assassination attempt.

Voting behavior and criminal records

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

Routh appears to have once been a Trump supporter. On X, he wrote, according to CNN: “I and the world had hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we were all very disappointed and it seems you are getting worse and more backwards.” “I will be glad when you are gone.”

His X account has now been blocked.

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

Tracy Fulk, the officer in charge of the 2002 incident, said Wired on Sunday that he “thought [Routh] is either dead or in prison by now.”

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

Comments on Trump

According to CBS News, Routh implied in a June 2020 post on X that he voted for Trump in 2016 but said he would be “glad to see you gone.”

North Carolina State Board of Elections records show Routh's last general election was in 2012. There is no record of him voting in the Tar Heel State in 2016 or 2020. However, he did participate in the state's Democratic primary earlier this year.

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

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

In a seemingly self-published book from 2023 entitled The unwinnable war in UkraineRouth called on Iran to assassinate Trump, according to the Related Press.

“You are free to assassinate Trump,” Routh wrote in the book, criticizing Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, among other problems he had with the former president.

Clear stance on the war in Ukraine

Routh's most vocal commitment was to support Ukraine in the war against Russia, which began after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

He pushed for Afghan soldiers who fled to the country in 2021 after the Taliban took power to fight in Ukraine, despite the Ukrainian government's rejection of fighters from Middle Eastern countries. Routh was interviewed and featured in stories by New York Times And Semafor in 2023.

Semafor called Routh's support for Ukraine “a bit over the top” in an article published Sunday recalling the 2023 report, and in a 2022 post on X he said that “we need to burn down the Kremlin.”

“I AM READY TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER, FIGHT AND DIE… Can I be the example? We have to win,” Routh said in an X-post, according to CNN.

Routh visited Ukraine in 2022 after the war broke out.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the assassination attempt on Trump and said that “there is no place for political violence anywhere in the world.”

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

How he was caught

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

He was 400-500 yards from Trump when a Secret Service agent stationed a hole in the plaza in front of the former president noticed a rifle barrel sticking out of the bushes. The agent charged at Routh, and the suspect fled, authorities said.

Routh fled the scene by car, but was spotted by a witness and arrested by authorities 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 had been filed against Routh as of Monday morning, but the Palm Beach County District Attorney said Sunday that the suspect would be arraigned in state court.

The assassination attempt on Trump is the second this year. The former president was shot in the ear during a rally on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania. In the attack two months ago, Trump was injured and a rally attendee was killed by the gunfire. The gunman in the Butler attack was killed by police officers shortly after he opened fire.