PALM BEACH, FL (AP) —The FBI said former President Donald Trump was the target of “what appears to be an attempted assassination ” at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, just nine weeks after the Republican presidential nominee survived another attempt on his life.
U.S. Secret Service agents opened fire on Sunday after seeing a person with a firearm near Trump’s West Palm Beach golf club in Florida while he was golfing. No injuries were reported. Officials say the person fled in an SUV and was later apprehended by local law enforcement.
The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, was charged Monday with federal gun crimes. Additional and more serious charges are possible as the investigation continues and prosecutors seek an indictment from a grand jury.
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On Tuesday, Donald Trump met with the Martin County Sheriff’s Deputies. who activated the traffic stop on I-95 and took would-be assassin Ryan Routh into custody.
A ‘much better result’
Trump says the apparent attempt on his life was a “much better result” than when he was shot in July because no others were wounded or killed.
“That was some crazy day, and yesterday you had another one with a different result, actually much better result,” Trump said.
The host noted that some of Trump’s sons were in the room for the interview.
Trump recounts the apparent assassination attempt
He and his friends playing golf “heard shots, being fired in the air, and I guess probably four or five.”
Trump said they got into carts “and we moved along pretty good.”
“I would have loved to have sank that last putt,” Trump said, of not being able to finish the round of golf.
Trump said an agent had seen a gun barrel “and started shooting in the bushes ... and ran toward the target.”
Trump also noted that a civilian woman in the area drove her vehicle to the back of Routh’s vehicle and took pictures of the license plate, which she then gave to authorities, who were able to track the suspect down.
Trump addresses apparent assassination attempt on X
Trump on Monday night participated in his first speaking appearance since the apparent assassination attempt on Sunday.
The former president is taking part in an X Space about the launch of World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform controlled by his sons Donald Jr. and Eric.
From his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, Trump commended the Secret Service for doing an “excellent job.”
Farokh, the event’s host, began by applauding Trump for not canceling his appearance.
Trump recounts conversation with Biden
Trump also talked about his conversation with Biden, with whom he spoke earlier Monday about the apparent assassination attempt.
“He was very nice, that he called up to make sure that I was OK,” Trump said of his conversation with the president, adding that Biden also sought his input on whether “we need more people on my detail.”
Biden told reporters that the Secret Service “needs more help,” adding, “Thank God the president’s OK.”
McConnell calls for soul-searching
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said this second apparent assassination attempt on Trump ought to be “a moment of soul-searching for all Americans.”
McConnell said the country’s political process “has been infected by reprehensible violence.”
“In America, our democracy flows from the ballot box. Not from the barrel of a gun. Period,” McConnell said in a Senate speech.
He said the president should receive “every appropriate measure of security.”
JD Vance says political rhetoric too heated — but mostly blames Democrats
Vance called for a reduction in heated political rhetoric a day after the former president was apparently targeted for assassination for the second time in as many months.
Vance said he would “do my part” to tone down the rhetoric. He also said Democrats cannot call Trump a “threat to democracy” and “a fascist” and expect that violence would not follow, because “some crazy person” decides “to take matters into their own hands.”
Trump has in recent weeks regularly called Democratic nominee Kamala Harris a “communist” and a “fascist” — ideologies at the opposite ends of the left-right political spectrum. He’s also said Harris and Democrats are threats to democracy.
Vance allowed that conservatives do not “always get things exactly right” in their rhetoric. But he argued that two apparent assassination attempts against Trump prove that Democrats are worse. “No one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months,” Vance said.
JD Vance tells evangelical activists that Trump is the ‘pro-life’ president
JD Vance told evangelical activists in a presidential battleground state that the former president and GOP nominee is the clear choice for anti-abortion voters this November.
Vance’s pitch at the Faith & Freedom Coalition gala in Georgia comes after some evangelicals, including Trump’s previous vice president, Mike Pence, expressed disappointment in the GOP removing from its 2024 platform a call for a national ban on abortion.
Trump has argued that the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning a woman’s federal right to terminate a pregnancy is enough because it steered abortion regulation back to state governments.
Vance did not explicitly acknowledge the platform language but praised Trump for nominating three Supreme Court justices who helped strike down abortion rights at the federal level. Vance promised a second Trump administration would pursue policies that help would-be mothers and new mothers, such as investments in job training, education and child care.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, once a Trump critic, offers clear support
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp put his newfound detente with Donald Trump on display Monday with a clear endorsement of the former president’s comeback bid and an aggressive takedown of Vice President Harris.
Kemp told the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Georgia Victory Dinner crowd that Trump must be returned to the Oval Office to spare the nation a Harris administration.
As Trump often does, Kemp offered a sweeping, dark view of what the Democratic nominee would do in office. He said Harris is deceiving voters by taking more moderate positions on a range of issues than she did as a California senator and candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
“Kamala Harris of 2020 wouldn’t even recognize the Kamala Harris of today,” Kemp said, suggesting a President Harris would ban fracking and end private health insurance. Harris has not proposed those ideas in her current campaign.
Kemp and Trump had previously been at odds since the 2020 presidential election when the Georgia governor refused to help Trump overturn his defeat at the hands of now-President Biden.
Evangelical political leader blames ‘toxic political environment’ for violence against Trump
Ralph Reed, a longtime evangelical political powerhouse, is blaming Vice President Harris, other Democrats and the media for a “toxic political environment” that he says has paved the way for the apparent attempt on former President Trump’s life.
The co-founder of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, Reed used his group’s gala in Georgia on Monday night to say that criticism of Trump as a “would-be dictator” and threat to democracy is part of a pattern of “lies and smears and slurs” that have effectively given permission to “anyone with a screw loose” to think “they were doing a public service by trying to end his life.”
Reed said separately in an interview with The Associated Press that the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters still does not justify calling Trump a threat to democracy. Reed argued that the nation “still had a peaceful transfer of power” because Congress was able that day to certify Biden’s Electoral College victory and the now-president was inaugurated two weeks later.
Political violence has become ‘desensitized’
Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, said the evidence thus far suggests that the alleged gunman seems to have shown interest in a mix of ideologies.
That’s a common quality in many who end up committing political violence and may have spent time “cherry-picking” for a way to justify those acts, Lewis said.
Lewis said Americans on both sides of the political spectrum have become “desensitized” to political violence and need to reckon with the fact that it’s now become a mainstream issue.
“The acceptance of political violence, calling for political violence, regardless of your affiliation, has no place in this country,” he said. “Full stop.”
Hawaii nonprofit details history with Routh
HomeAid Hawai’i, a nonprofit organization that helps homeless people find housing, said Ryan Routh offered his company’s services to help with roofing and flooring for the construction of tiny homes from 2018 to 2020.
“He was not compensated, and no complaints were recorded during his time with us under HomeAid Hawai’I’s previous leadership," Kimo Carvalho, the organization’s executive director, said Monday in a press release.
The organization has not used Routh’s services since 2020, Carvalho said.
Authorities are still working to confirm whether Routh acted alone
Authorities have no information so far to suggest that the suspect in the apparent assassination attempt was acting with anyone else, an FBI official said.
Jeffrey Veltri, special agent in charge of the FBI Miami Field Office, cautioned that the investigation is still underway and that authorities are working to confirm whether Routh acted alone.
Secret Service acting director says agency’s protective measures are ‘working’
U.S. Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe said that protective measures are working after the latest apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump.
Rowe said he spoke with the former president and that Trump is “aware that he has the highest levels of protection” from the agency. He also said agents did their jobs to the letter when they noticed a man poking a rifle through the bushes at Trump’s golf course on Sunday.
Rowe said the golf trip wasn’t on Trump’s schedule, so they put together a security plan.
“And that security plan worked out," he said.
Routh ‘did not have a line of sight to the former president,’ Secret Service’s acting director says
Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. of the U.S. Secret Service says Routh “did not have a line of sight to the former president” and did not fire at Secret Service agents before he fled the scene.
Routh’s family members and former colleagues are being interviewed by FBI, agent says
Authorities are pursuing and executing search warrants for cell phones, a vehicle and electronics of the suspect in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump, an FBI official said.
Jeffrey Veltri, special agent in charge of the FBI Miami Field Office, said authorities are interviewing witnesses on the scene as well as family members and former colleagues of Ryan Routh.
Routh had numerous felony charges between 1997 and 2010, FBI agent says
Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Veltri says Routh has numerous felony charges for stolen goods between 1997 and 2010.
Routh was the subject of a closed investigation in 2019 when someone reported he was in possession of a firearm despite a prior felony conviction, but Veltri says the tipster would not confirm making the report.
FBI requested search warrants for video recording device, cell phones and more at Routh’s previous addresses
The top FBI official in the Miami field office says authorities requested search warrants seeking access to a video recording device, cell phones, a vehicle and electronics at Routh’s previous addresses.
Investigators also collected DNA that was sent to the FBI’s lab in Quantico, Virginia, said Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey Veltri. Agents in the FBI’s Charlotte and Honolulu field offices are conducting interviews.
The FBI’s analysis of cell phone data showed Routh was around the golf course in West Palm Beach for about 12 hours before the Secret Service encountered him.
‘There’s no quick fix,’ retired agent says of adding more personnel to the Secret Service
Retired supervisory Secret Service agent Bobby McDonald, now a criminal justice lecturer at the University of New Haven, said Monday that he hopes the agency will analyze the Sunday’s events and take ownership of what went right and what went wrong — and use it to improve as it moves into the home stretch of election season.
He noted that it’s a “very busy time” for the Secret Service with the election going on, more candidates now needing protection and with preparations underway for the United Nations General Assembly. The Secret Service currently has 40 people it’s responsible for protecting fulltime. In addition to Trump and Biden, that list also includes Harris, vice presidential candidates, other former presidents and their families and others.
McDonald cautioned that it can take nine to 18 months to bring on a Secret Service staffer. The service may want to transfer more personnel from the investigative work the agency does to its protective side, McDonald said.
“There is no quick fix,” he said, noting that temporarily bringing in people from outside the agency to help can come with its own challenges because they don’t regularly do protective work.
Former Secret Service agent says there’s an obvious need for more protection for Trump
Anthony Cangelosi, a former Secret Service agent, said the events Sunday show that there’s an obvious need for more personnel assigned to protect former President Trump.
“They could have been utilized to secure the perimeter,” he said.
He said it’s understandable that former presidents like Trump do not have the same level of protection as a sitting president. But, he said, Trump also isn’t like former presidents Obama or Clinton for example. He’s both a former president and a current nominee hoping to return to the White House.
“He’s not your typical former president,” he said.
Cangelosi, who’s currently a lecturer at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, questioned whether a request had been made by anyone in the Secret Service for more personnel and if so what happened to that request? And if no requests have been made for more personnel, why not?
Without the resources to secure the entire perimeter, Cangelosi said the Secret Service did the next best thing, which was to have agents going ahead of the president to scout the next locations. He commended the work they did to spot the muzzle of the gun and open fire, saying they were vigilant. But he said there’s always a chance that they could have missed the muzzle. Extra coverage could include roving uniformed personnel outside the perimeter, for example, he said. The goal is to create a presence that serves as a deterrence.
He said the Secret Service doesn’t have the extra personnel but they can be pulled from other agencies.