The man who allegedly stalked Donald Trump with a gun at his Florida golf course was reportedly angry with the former president for pushing for a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.
No motive for the apparent attempted assassination was given when Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arraigned at the Paul G. Rogers Federal Court House in West Palm Beach on Monday on gun possession charges.
But a Frenchman whom Routh reportedly helped to join a Ukrainian army unit offered a possible clue, telling The Wall Street Journal that the American was unhappy with Trump’s position on the conflict.
ADVERTISEMENT
“Ryan was very upset about the fact that Trump was trying to negotiate a deal with Putin instead of trying to really have Ukraine’s back,” said the unidentified man, referencing the bitterness Routh felt toward Trump when they met for a drink in Kyiv in 2022.
During last week’s presidential debate, Trump said he would seek to negotiate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine if he returned to the White House and would act even before he moves into the West Wing. “I want the war to stop,” he said, adding that the U.S. was “playing with World War III.”
Routh reportedly supported Trump in 2016 but became disillusioned with his foreign policy, writing in a self-published book that Trump made a “tremendous blunder” in withdrawing the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
In the book, Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen-Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the End of Humanity, self-published last year, Routh claimed that Trump “ended up being brainless, but I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran I apologize.
“You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal, “he added.
The Wall Street Journal also reported that Routh had been flagged to the U.S. authorities because of his erratic behavior as a pro-Ukraine activist who sought to recruit foreigners to fight with domestic Ukrainian troops.
One nurse who had several encounters with Routh said she reported him to agents at Washington’s Dulles Airport in June 2022.
At Monday’s arraignment, it was also revealed that Routh hid in undergrowth by the perimeter of the fifth hole of Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach for 12 hours before being spotted by a Secret Service agent as he aimed at Trump with an illegally owned SKS-style rifle.
Routh fled but was caught driving away in his Nissan truck.
The alleged gunman’s cell phone records showed how long he lay in wait for the former president to arrive. Trump did not have the golf game scheduled but often plays on a Sunday.
According to The New York Times, Secret Service agents did not search the course’s perimeter before Trump started his golf round.
The report has raised further questions about the efficiency of the agency protecting the nation’s leaders following the first attempt on Trump’s life on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The two alleged Trump assassination attempts are now subject to internal Secret Service reviews.
Routh, wearing a pink t-shirt and sunglasses, was arrested without incident on Sunday, and he remains in custody.
Although the Hawaii-based suspect has not been charged with trying to kill Trump, the FBI investigation is ongoing.
