by Jeff Childers
Yesterday evening, the Associated Press ran another record-shattering story, headlined “Trump was the subject of an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf club, the FBI says.” Yesterday, a goofy-looking, peace-pushing, Trump-deranged, far-left, Ukraine-loving, MSNBC-worshipping registered Democrat was arrested in Palm Beach for trying to shoot the former President on his golf course.
We remain in the “hot takes” phase. But this time, we have a much cleaner signal amidst all the noise, much more so than the last assassination attempt. This time, alert citizens immediately moved to archive the shooter’s social media, before it was all scrubbed. So there has been a lot to work with.
Assuming that you’ve already read some stuff online, I’ll give you the main facts in quick bullet points. The New York Times reported:
— The failed shooter is Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, originally from Greensboro, N.C.
— Routh is a retired construction worker and a world traveler, especially lately.
— He is a lifelong registered Democrat.
— Routh last lived in Hawaii. His son said Routh lived with a girlfriend, which seems unlikely, given his movements. There is no evidence of her anywhere.
— According to his son, Routh is a part-time general contractor who builds tiny houses in Hawaii. He used to own ‘a roofing company.’
— Routh’s son said the tiny house builder “hates Trump.”
— Inspection of his social media suggests Routh suffers from a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He repeatedly called Trump a threat to democracy.
— Routh’s social media could have been an MSNBC streaming transcript. Some commenters have suggested his social media looks botlike.
— Routh appeared in a March, 2023, New York Times article about Americans volunteering to fight for Ukraine.
— The Times’s reporter said Routh sounded extremely well-informed and spoke like a diplomat.
— Routh spent several months in Ukraine, trying to get a combat assignment, and worked for Ukraine’s International Legion and/or some pro-Ukraine volunteer groups.
— Routh repeatedly said he was trying to recruit Afghani ex-soldiers to fight in Ukraine using fake passports he planned to purchase in Pakistan and Iran. How Routh knew any Afghani soldiers, or how he knows how to buy fake passports, is anybody’s guess.
— Routh was interviewed for several corporate news pieces, and appeared in several video reports, probably because he was lucid, well-spoken, and an American who liked to vow how much he was willing to die defending Ukraine from Russian imperialism.
— Routh was either connected with, or used by, fascist groups in Ukraine. At least once, he appeared in an Azov Battalion (the Nazi hub) propaganda commercial.
If Routh was crazy, he was extremely high-functioning. Just imagine the kind of resourcefulness necessary for an American to get in and out of Ukraine, not to mention attracting all the attention he got from a wide variety of news agencies as an American-Ukraine patriot.
Somebody connected Routh with the New York Times and other corporate news agencies.
Did someone (other than me) notice that Routh seemed to have a death-by-glory wish? He actually went to Ukraine and tried to fight at almost sixty years old. He kept saying he was willing to die to save Ukraine. One imagines these days you could walk across Ukraine on all the spooks and spies. Is it possible someone perceptive in Ukrainian intelligence or American intelligence sidled up to Routh, and asked him whether he was willing to die to save America?
Just asking.
Regarding the shooting itself, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said at a news conference:
— Trump was playing the fifth hole. An vigilant Secret Service agent was ahead of Mr. Trump on the course when he alertly spotted a rifle barrel sticking out of a fence in the bushes surrounding the golf course.
— The Secret Service agent immediately fired several shots at the man holding the rifle. And missed. In fairness, Routh was largely concealed.
— It remains unclear whether Routh fired or not.
— Trump was about 400 yards away at the time. Agents tackled the President and swept him to safety.
— Routh used a scoped assault rifle, appropriate for the distance. He could easily have killed Trump from there.
— The failed shooter fled on foot and jumped into a black Nissan. But an attentive bystander photographed the Nissan’s license plate.
— Routh made it through dense South Florida traffic to the next county but was pulled over and arrested by local police.
The Daily Mail ran this very helpful picture it obtained from Palm Beach police. The photo shows Routh’s rifle, two bags holding ceramic tiles (for armor), and a GoPro camera mounted on the golf course fence:
Ryan Wesley Routh is a pathetic failure. His marriage failed. His relationship with his son failed. His roofing business and his tiny home construction company failed. He failed to recruit an army of Afghanis. He failed to get a combat assignment. He failed to save Ukraine. He failed to assassinate the President. He is a wretched loser with nothing to show for his miserable 58 years but a tiny house with a leaky roof and an asterisk on this record-breaking 2024 year.
Fortunately for President Trump, whoever recruited Routh recruited a sick loser. Sad!
Here’s a video interview with Routh, where the failed assassin speaks about how kind, generous, and caring he is, and that’s why he wants to kill as many Russians as he can:
When asked what he would say to other Americans, Routh told the Ukrainian interviewer, “come over here and see me, and I’ll put you in a unit.” Kind and generous Routh bragged about how, as a volunteer coordinator, he’d recently placed a 78-year-old Japanese man in a combat unit.
Seventy-eight. How kind.
In more encouraging news, presumably thanks to the crackerjack job the FBI did covering u… I mean investigating the previous assassination attempt, best-in-class Florida Governor DeSantis announced last night that the State of Florida will conduct its own independent investigation of the shooting:
Thank Heaven for Governor DeSantis.
We already have questions. How did pathetic failure Routh fund his world travels and his pro-Ukraine activism? That’s not all. Trump’s golf outing yesterday was unplanned, a last-minute schedule change. The most significant and troubling unanswered question thus far is: How did Routh know when and where to be? The UK Daily Mail:
The Daily Mail’s chilling theory is that someone inside the Trump security apparatus tipped Routh off. At this point, there aren’t many other theories that make sense. Granted, that could change. But if not, it would suggest a much bigger conspiracy reaching the top levels of the Biden Administration.
Routh remains alive in custody, so far. If he acted alone, he has no good reason to lie about how he knew to haul his shooting gear and his GoPro to the golf course at that particular moment. If he doesn’t talk, it will raise even more questions than if he does.
So why isn’t the Secret Service on the ball and ready for action?
He’s been a loon for quite a long time.
Tanya Lukyanova had interviewed Routh last year over video for a piece she reported for Semafor on American-trained Afghan commandos who wanted to fight for Ukraine.
Routh had started something called the International Volunteer Center, which purported to help foreigners seeking to assist Ukraine’s war effort.
He spoke to Tanya about his frustration with Kiev over how it handled foreign fighters.
“Ukraine is very often hard to work with,” he told Tanya. “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.”
“You can tell right away that he’s crazy, but I think people thought, ‘Who cares? He’s supporting the right cause,’ ” said Tanya. “Everyone knew him as a little zealous, a bit much. But nobody really cared about that ‘too much’ because he was on the side of good. He was helping Ukraine.”