On Sept. 15, 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump was playing a round of golf at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida, when a Secret Service agent patrolling the course ahead of him noticed the barrel of a rifle sticking through a fence. The agent opened fire and a man fled.
A suspect, Ryan Routh, was arrested later that day and charged with two federal firearm counts, according to The New York Times . News of the incident, which law enforcement officials said was possibly a foiled attempt to assassinate Trump, spread like wildfire online.
As with the attempted assassination of Trump two months earlier in Butler, Pennsylvania, pundits from both sides of the political spectrum posted claims that Routh's politics were opposite their own: Democrats called him a Republican, while Republicans called him a Democrat.
As an example, Laura Loomer , a prominent figure from the far right, suggested on X that Routh was " AN AVID BIDEN-HARRIS SUPPORTER WHO CALLED DONALD TRUMP A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY ." Other conservative accounts making similar statements, including the tabloid the New York Post , claimed Routh had donated exclusively to Democrats in recent years.
Meanwhile, Ed Krassenstein , a left-leaning social media pundit, wrote on X that Routh was a Republican. Other posts from left-leaning users alleged that Routh had voted for Trump in 2016.
However, evidence from social media, public records and a self-published book suggest that Routh's politics did not neatly align with the labels that pundits applied to him.
According to the Federal Elections Commission campaign finance database, Routh made political contributions 19 times between Sept. 15, 2019, and March 16, 2020, totaling $140.40. That time period corresponded to the 2020 presidential primary, and all of those donations were made to ActBlue, the most prominent PAC that gives money to Democratic candidates.
However, memos on many of the donations revealed that the funds were earmarked for certain candidates. None of them were for Joe Biden or then-Sen. Kamala Harris, contrary to Loomer's claim. Instead, there were donations to businessman Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, businessman Andrew Yang and then-Democrat Tulsi Gabbard.
Meanwhile, it would be impossible to prove how Routh voted in the 2016 and 2020 elections because that information is not publicly available. Instead, we can look at Routh's now-deleted social media feeds and his voter registration.
According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser , Routh has connections to North Carolina and Hawaii. Accessing Hawaii's voter registration database requires a Hawaii state ID, meaning that we could not check whether Routh ever voted there. However, North Carolina's voter registration database is publicly available.
Routh's voting registration in North Carolina did not list him as a Democrat or a Republican, but unaffiliated with either party. According to the voting history section, Routh voted in the 2024 Democratic primary in-person, but had not voted since 2012 prior to that date.
It is worth noting that this contradicts other evidence. The Associated Press uncovered a 2023 book written by Routh called "Ukraine's Unwinnable War" that was self-published on Amazon . According to the article, Routh wrote in the book that Iran was "free to assassinate Trump," and called the former president a "fool" and "buffoon." He described himself as someone who once voted for Trump but whose optimism had since soured. Voting with Trump (presumably in 2016 and/or 2020) does not align with the North Carolina records.
Although Routh's various social media accounts have since been deleted, reputable news outlets who looked into them reported that Routh had posts both supporting and opposing Trump (again, whether he voted for Trump is unconfirmed) and that he had turned strongly against the former president in recent years.
Many of his posts focused around the ongoing war in Ukraine. In the weeks after Russian troops invaded, Routh posted on X that he was willing to "volunteer and fight and die" in the fight against Russia, according to NPR . Although Routh did spend time in Ukraine, where he was documented participating in several anti-Russian protests, he was turned down from volunteering in the Ukrainian military.
He began attempting recruit foreign volunteers from Afghanistan to fight on the front lines through social media, without any success. According to NPR , the Ukrainian military said his attempts were "delusional ideas," and his offers of large numbers of manpower were "not realistic."
In his book, Routh wrote that he did not want to be thought of as affiliated with either party.
"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 wrote, according to the AP .
Sources:
Allen, Jonathan, et al. "Ryan Routh: What We Know about Suspect in Trump Assassination Attempt." Reuters, 16 Sept. 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/what-we-know-about-reported-suspect-behind-apparent-trump-assassination-attempt-2024-09-16/ .
Amazon.Com. https://www.amazon.com/Ukraines-Unwinnable-War-Abandonment-Citizen-Taiwan-ebook/dp/B0BX4W9XKT . Accessed 18 Sept. 2024.
"Browse Individual Contributions." FEC.Gov, https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/ . Accessed 18 Sept. 2024.
Harvey, Michelle Shen, Paul LeBlanc, Isabelle D'Antonio, Jack Forrest, Maureen Chowdhury, Kathleen Magramo, Lex. "Live Updates: FBI Investigating Apparent Assassination Attempt of Trump in Florida | CNN Politics." CNN, 15 Sept. 2024, https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-harris-election-09-15-24/index.html .
"Man Who Appeared Intent on Killing Trump Wrote a Book Urging Iran to Assassinate the Ex-President." AP News, 16 Sept. 2024, https://apnews.com/article/trump-assassination-attempt-suspect-ukraine-f76ed09f256f6bd21727a10901d92af7 .
Reporter, Hugh Cameron Live News. "Ryan Routh Encouraged Assassination of Trump In Book on Ukraine." Newsweek, 16 Sept. 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/ryan-routh-donald-trump-encouraged-assassination-book-1954433 .
Ryan Routh: What We Know about Trump Assassination Attempt Suspect. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3611zjjnd2o . Accessed 18 Sept. 2024.
Schaefers, Allison. "Man Arrested in Suspected Trump Assassination Attempt Lived in Hawaii, North Carolina." Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 16 Sept. 2024, https://www.staradvertiser.com/2024/09/15/breaking-news/man-arrested-in-suspected-assassination-attempt-lived-in-hawaii-north-carolina/ .
Shuster, Simon. "Private Messages About Ukraine From the Alleged Trump Gunman." TIME, 17 Sept. 2024, https://time.com/7021979/trump-shooting-suspect-routh-messages-ukraine/ .
Taft, Isabelle. "What We Know About the Apparent Assassination Attempt Against Trump." The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2024. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/us/trump-assassination-attempt-suspect.html .
Thrush, Glenn. "Suspect's Self-Published Book Assails Trump, Hinting at Approval of His Killing." The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2024. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/us/politics/trump-assassination-suspect-book.html .
Treisman, Rachel. "Who Is Ryan Routh? What to Know about the Suspect in the Trump Golf Course Incident." NPR, 17 Sept. 2024. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2024/09/16/nx-s1-5113801/trump-shooting-assassination-attempt-suspect-ryan-wesley-routh .
https://vt.ncsbe.gov/RegLkup/VoterInfo/ . Accessed 18 Sept. 2024.
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