Who is Ryan Wesley Routh? The suspect in the Trump Florida assassination attempt, explained.

Just two months after a man tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump, the Secret Service says it stopped what appeared to be a second assassination attempt against the former president. Unlike the July 13 shooting at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, in which a member of the crowd was killed and Trump was injured, no one was harmed this time. But the incident has raised questions about the ability of the Secret Service to protect the former president and sparked new concerns about the risk of ongoing political violence this election cycle. 

On Sunday, law enforcement officials say, the former president was playing golf on his course in West Palm Beach, Florida, when Secret Service agents spotted a gun barrel in the bushes on the perimeter of the course. Agents surrounded the former president and opened fire, prompting a man to flee the scene. 

The suspected gunman was 300–500 yards from the former president, according to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw in a press conference. (While close, the suspect was not as close as Trump’s July shooter, who was within roughly 150 yards of the former president when he opened fire.) Police said they found an AK-47 style rifle with a scope, along with two backpacks and a camera, in the bushes. 

The gunman did not fire any shots before the Secret Service reacted. The former president — according to Fox News anchor Sean Hannity, who spoke to him on Sunday after the attempted attack — was safe and in good spirits. It is unclear to law enforcement how the would-be gunman knew Trump would be at the course, though he frequently golfs there on the weekends.

A witness saw someone fleeing the vicinity in a black Nissan immediately after the incident, according to Bradshaw, and law enforcement officials announced that they apprehended a suspect, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, on Interstate 95 shortly after. Officials said that Routh was unarmed and appeared calm as he was arrested. He currently faces two felony charges in a federal court for possession of a weapon as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, though the investigation is ongoing. Law enforcement say they do not have any evidence he was working with anyone else.

Who is Ryan Wesley Routh?

Unlike the man who attempted to assassinate Trump in July, Routh has a colorful public history. Routh previously lived in North Carolina, but had moved to Hawaii in recent years and said he was building affordable housing there. He was interviewed by the New York Times in 2023 for an article about Americans acting as freelance fighters for the war in Ukraine, despite little or no qualifications to do so. Routh, who had no prior military experience, spoke with a Times reporter about his plans to recruit soldiers who had fled the Taliban in Afghanistan and transport them to Ukraine to join the war efforts.

“By the time I got off the phone with Mr. Routh some minutes later it was clear he was in way over his head,” the reporter, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, wrote. “He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it takes to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals.” In 2023, Routh also spoke to Semafor about his efforts.

Routh also appears to have a criminal history. In 2002, he was arrested in Greensboro, North Carolina, following a three-hour standoff with police in which he barricaded himself inside a roofing business. He was charged with possessing an illegal, fully-automatic machine gun. According to the News & Observer, a newspaper based in Raleigh, North Carolina, Routh also had other convictions, including a hit and run and possession of stolen goods.

Routh’s son spoke positively of his father in an interview with the Guardian this weekend and expressed surprise at the idea he had resorted to violence. Little else is known at this time about his other potential familial relationships. 

What are Routh’s political leanings?

Like Trump’s other would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Routh’s political stances appear not to fit neatly into a single political ideology — though it does seem he views Trump as a threat to American democracy. Routh was registered in North Carolina as an “unaffiliated” voter and participated in this year’s Democratic primary. He had given money to Democratic causes. 

But on an X account that has since been deactivated, a user with Routh’s name said that he had supported Donald Trump in 2016 but had been disappointed by his presidency. In another post from the same account, the author tried to encourage Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, both Republicans, to run for president and vice president together. 

The same account posted that “democracy is on the ballot” in this election, along with other, sometimes incoherent posts about various subjects, including Ukraine and China, suggesting that the author’s politics are not easily characterized by a single worldview.

Routh also self-published a book last year, according to the Associated Press, called “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War.” In it, Routh writes, “I get so tired of people asking me if I am a Democrat or Republican as I refuse to be put in a category.” He expresses regret for having formerly voted for Trump and, in a passage directed toward Iranian leaders, writes: “You are free to assassinate Trump.”

As with July’s assassination attempt, online partisans on both sides are already drawing conclusions about Routh’s political leanings and its implications, with some Democrats downplaying Routh’s support for liberal causes and Republicans connecting Routh’s comment about democracy being on the ballot to what Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats have said about the stakes for this election. 

What about the gun?

The AK-47 Routh had on him, like the AR-15 used by Crooks, is one of the preferred weapons of mass shooters in recent years. Both are assault-style weapons — a phrase that has many possible meanings but generally refers to guns that are meant for rapid-fire use with large magazines of ammunition. An AK-47 style weapon was used at a 2019 shooting in El Paso, Texas, where 23 people were killed and 22 were injured. Routh’s weapon had the serial number scratched off, which is illegal. According to the FBI, they received a tip in 2019 that Routh had a weapon, which is illegal for someone who has a felony conviction; Routh has multiple felony convictions. The agency says it interviewed the person making the claim but did not receive more information, according to the New York Times, and the case was subsequently closed. It is not clear why they did not investigate further.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who said in a statement that she was “deeply disturbed” by the reports of a second attempted attack on Trump, has called for banning assault weapons. The United States had a federal assault weapons ban in place from 1994 to 2004, and research suggests that assault weapons bans meaningfully reduce mass shooting deaths. 

The public is divided over the question of whether to ban assault weapons, though, and Republicans in Congress blocked a bill to do so when it came up for a vote in 2023. Even after being targeted by a similar weapon in July, former President Trump did not call for an assault weapons ban.

How did another assassination attempt happen so quickly?

Lawmakers are demanding to know more about how another would-be assassin was able to get so close to the former president for a second time in a few months. At the press conference, law enforcement explained that Trump’s Secret Service detail did not have the resources to cover the entire perimeter of the golf course, but lawmakers are sure to ask for more details in the coming days. 

On Monday, a representative for the Secret Service told reporters that the former president’s trip to the golf course was unplanned and agents had not secured the perimeter of the course before the former president began his round.

The suspect was able to spend nearly 12 hours hiding in the bushes before an agent spotted him.

“The facts about a second incident certainly warrant very close attention and scrutiny,” Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut told the New York Times. 

Though a second assassination attempt in such a short period of time seems shocking, it is in some ways not surprising. Current and former law enforcement officials I’ve spoken to in recent weeks have emphasized just how difficult the task of protecting elected officials in public has become. Following the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban, and after more than a decade of marketing of assault-style rifles, more of these weapons are circulating in the US than ever before. The number of deadly long-range guns held by the public makes it considerably more difficult to maintain a zone of safety around politicians.

The Secret Service also noted Sunday that as a former president, Trump doesn’t have access to the same level of security that the current president does, and some former officials are now suggesting that may need to change. 

Guns aren’t the only problem, though. As Garen Wintemute, an expert in political violence and gun violence told me this summer, his research has revealed a small but worrying segment of the American population is open to the idea that violence committed for political reasons is justifiable. 

At the time, Wintemute said, the conditions that made more violence likely were a closely contested race, with momentum swinging toward Democrats, and a race where political violence had already recently occurred.

“I think it will happen again. Whether it will involve an elected official as a target, I can’t say,” Wintemute told Vox in July. “But we’ve opened the door to political violence this election season, and there are still some leaders using rhetoric that enables violence. And we will all pay a price for that, I suspect.”

Update, September 17, 9:30 am: This story, originally published September 16, has been updated with new details including charges against Routh and FBI statements.