by Oliver Wells
Secret Services shot at a man with a gun near Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida where Former President Donald Trump was playing golf on Sunday. According to the sheriff, 58-year-old Ryan Routh was hiding in the shrubbery at the perimeter of the golf course with a semi-automatic rifle 400 yards away from where Trump was golfing. Secret Service agents noticed the barrel of the gun poking out of the bushes and fired but missed, causing Routh to flee. He was later stopped on the interstate 37 miles away from the golf course 45 minutes later and arrested. Investigators claim Routh was attempting to assassinate Trump, the second attempt within two months after Trump was shot at during a Butler, PA rally in early July.
Routh has been charged with a possession of a firearm while a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
A Trump supporter in the 2016 elections, Routh would later turn against Trump and endorse Democratic Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard—who is now a Trump adviser—for the 2020 presidential elections. He later endorsed Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for president after he alleged that Gabbard, like Trump, supported Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Routh is a strong supporter of US-backed forces in Ukraine. In a 2022 interview with monopoly media outlet Newsweek Romania, Routh stated his intention of recruiting for the International Legion Defense of Ukraine, which was established by presidential decree and attracts far-right individuals with military experience internationally to fight in Ukraine. In a post on X that same year, Routh wrote: “we need to burn the Kremlin to the ground.” In April 2022, Routh was at a Kyiv rally supporting the fascist Azov Battalion. In a 2023 interview with monopoly media outlet The New York Times, Routh claimed to have volunteered in Ukraine when the war first broke out and that he was trying to recruit Afghan soldiers to fight there.
Following Routh’s arrest, the Trump campaign immediately used the opportunity to fundraise, sending out two emails related to the incident requesting donations.
Both Biden and Harris have repeated the hypocritical claim that “there is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country”, despite their arming and funding the US-Israel genocide and violently suppressing the pro-Palestine movement in the US over the last year.
