In the aftermath of the reported assassination attempt on United States’ Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, a man who once wrote a book urging Iran to kill the former president has been identified as the perpetrator of the act.
Ryan Routh portrayed himself online as a man who built housing for homeless people in Hawaii.
He also tried to recruit fighters for Ukraine to defend itself against Russia, and described his support and then disdain for Donald Trump — even urging Iran to kill the former president.
“You are free to assassinate Trump,” Routh wrote of Iran in an apparently self-published book in 2023, “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” which described the former president as a “fool” and “buffoon” for both the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots and the “tremendous blunder” of leaving the Iran nuclear deal.
Routh also wrote that he once voted for Trump, apportioning a part of the blame to himself.
In a tweet in June 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd, Routh said then-President Trump could win reelection by issuing an executive order to prosecute police misconduct. However, in recent years, his posts appear to have soured on Trump, and he expressed support for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the current Democratic presidential nominee.
“DEMOCRACY is on the ballot and we cannot lose,” he wrote on X in April in support of Biden.
Following the assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania in July, a post on Routh’s account urged Biden and Harris to visit those wounded in the shooting and attend the funeral of the firefighter who was killed.
“Trump will never do anything for them,” Routh wrote. “Show the world what compassion and humanity is all about.”
He described Trump as a “child that we elected for our next president that ended up being brainless.”
Routh, 58, who was arrested Sunday was accused of stalking the GOP presidential nominee as he golfed in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a AK-47-style rifle in what has now been found as an assassination attempt thwarted by the Secret Service.
Through his voluminous online footprint, public records, news interviews and videos, a picture emerged of Routh as a man with a criminal past, plenty of outrage and shifting politics.
His over 500 posts on X showed his views ranging from the left to the right, including support for politicians such as Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard and Nicki Haley, as well as Trump.
Voter records show he registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic primary in March.
Further revelations show that Routh also made 19 small donations totaling $140 since 2019 to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates, according to federal campaign finance records.
The attack has been condemned by Joe Biden, Harris Kamala among many other persons. This development has added to the already existing tension towards the US Presidential election.