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What We Learned From Suspected Trump Golf Course Gunman’s Posts on Social Media

Over the years, Ryan Wesley Routh’s online posts reveal the would-be Florida shooter to be something of a political chameleon.

Online posts reveal the bizarre and winding political evolution of the man suspected of orchestrating the second attempt on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s life.

As of Sunday night, 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh remains in custody after allegedly setting up a sniper’s nest overlooking the grounds near the Trump International Golf Club in Florida’s West Palm Beach.

Beyond his pro-Ukraine activism and a neighbor’s testimony the would-be shooter as “a little cuckoo,” the why behind his apparent plot remains for now something of an unknown—a mystery compounded by politically chameleonic and often unhinged statements the gunman has made on social media over the years.

Some of the first posts Routh put out after setting up his Twitter account in 2020 show him backing Tulsi Gabbard’s bid for president. He described the then-Democratic Congresswoman as someone who “understands the horrors of war” and “will fight for World Peace,” adding he had personally “emailed several speeches” to her team.

In May of that year he expressed apparent support for the George Floyd protests in Minnesota, accompanied by other posts in which he seemingly attempted to reach out to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, whom he described as “very smart and educated” and whose country he wanted to “prosper and succeed,” as well as offering a free accommodation in Hawaii to beleaguered pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong later that August.

Though Routh’s tweets from February 2022 onward further reveal his passionate backing for the Ukrainian war effort, actively calling for Biden and other world leaders to “stay in Kyiv and not leave until the Putin backs off,” by January 2024 he was calling on Republicans Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy to team up against Trump, creating a “winning ticket now that we can all get behind.”

His political flip-flopping over the years also appears to be substantiated by extracts from an e-book, self-published in 2023, in which TIME Magazine reports that Routh confessed to have voted for Trump in 2016 before later coming to view it as “a terrible mistake”—one for which Iran should feel “free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment.”

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Trump is reported to be safe and well following Routh’s arrest on Sunday afternoon, later complaining about his spoiled time on the course and using the recent threat in a renewed funding drive for his campaign.

The incident has nevertheless prompted renewed furore over the level of protection afforded to the Republican nominee, with Elon Musk posting a typically controversial take on the fact “no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.”

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Sources with knowledge of the ongoing investigation into the gunman’s presence at the West Palm Beach Golf Course have told CNN that he will undergo “a mental health assessment” before any criminal proceedings are launched.

His son, Oren Routh, has meanwhile described him as “a loving and caring father,” adding that the allegations sounded “nothing like him.”

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