Ryan Wesley Routh, the man federal investigators believe tried to assassinate Donald Trump on Sunday, self-published a book where he wrote about the war in Ukraine and at one point called on Iran to assassinate the former president.
Routh, 58, was charged by federal prosecutors with multiple firearm violations on Monday for the incident outside Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Investigators have not revealed a motive for what they are calling an attempted assassination of the former president. However, his vocal presence on social media and his self-published book provide some insight into the topics he was seemingly fixated on—most of them international conflicts.
In February 2023, Routh self-published Ukraine’s Unwinnable War on Amazon. The book comes with a hefty, pessimistic subtitle: “The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the end of Humanity.”
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Ryan Routh at a protest in central Kyiv in May, 2022.
Gleb Garanich/ReutersIn long, sometimes run-on sentences, Routh narrates graphic videos of soldiers’ deaths in Ukraine and Afghanistan, which he says were sent to him by his friends in those countries.
Routh’s book, first reported on by the Associated Press, included references to the assassination of world leaders. An entire chapter is entitled: “Why has Putin not been assassinated?” In another excerpt, Routh wrote “Iran, I apologize. You are free to assassinate Trump.” He also called the former president “fool” and “buffoon.”
“You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal,” Routh wrote in another passage first spotted by the Wall Street Journal, criticizing the former president for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. “No one here in the US seems to have the balls to put natural selection to work or even unnatural selection.”
In a free sample posted online, Routh also bragged that he had “5900 Afghan soldiers ready to deploy to Ukraine”—referring to a strange scheme that put him on the radar for Ukraine war correspondents.
Ryan Routh sits at a rally at Kyiv's Independence Square.
YELYZAVETA SEVATYNSKA/SUSPILNE UKRAINE/ReutersIn 2023, he was interviewed by a New York Times reporter about his efforts to get Afghan soldiers fleeing the Taliban to the battlefield in Eastern Europe. In a reflection published on Monday, the Times reporter concluded that “it was clear he was in way over his head.”
Routh also expressed his frustration to Semafor in March of 2023.
“I have had partners meeting with [Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense] every week and still have not been able to get them to agree to issue one single visa,” he said.
Investigators searched Ryan Routh’s home in Ka’a’awa, Hawaii, outside of which was a truck featuring a “Biden-Harris” bumper sticker.
Marco Garcia/ReutersIt is unclear if Routh, who has no previous military experience, ever met with Ukrainian defense officials. Despite his vocal support for the organization, Routh “has never been part of, associated with, or linked to the International Legion in any capacity,” the volunteer unit told the Daily Beast in a statement.
A spokesperson for the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Ukrainian Ground Forces Command echoed this sentiment to the AP, noting that Routh came to them with “nonsensical ideas” that “can best be described as delusional.”
