A police vehicle is parked outside of Trump International Golf Club Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.Lynne Sladky/The Associated Press
Donald Trump was the target of a suspected assassination attempt when a man with an assault-style rifle was able to get to within 500 metres of him by hiding in the shrubbery of one of the former president’s Florida golf courses as he played a round on Sunday afternoon.
If confirmed, it would be the second attempt on Mr. Trump’s life in as many months, after he was shot in the ear at a July rally in Pennsylvania, raising tough questions about how a gunman was yet again able to get within such close range of a heavily protected politician.
And it would mark another twist in an already chaotic election year as the Republican nominee aims to reclaim the White House.
Mr. Trump was playing the fifth hole at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach around 1:30 p.m. with developer Steve Witkoff. A Secret Service agent walking one hole ahead of him on the course spotted a rifle barrel sticking out of shrubs by a chain-link fence along the perimeter of the course, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said in a media briefing.
Secret Service agents opened fire after spotting the gun, and Mr. Trump was rushed to safety. The gunman fled, Sheriff Bradshaw said, leaving behind a high-powered rifle with a scope, two backpacks containing ceramic tile hanging from the fence and a GoPro video camera. “He was intent on filming what was going on,” the sheriff said. “With a rifle and a scope like that, that’s not a long distance.”
A witness told police that the gunman had fled in a black Nissan and provided them with a photograph of the licence plate. Using licence-plate readers along highway I-95, police located the vehicle one county over, had it pulled over and flew the witness there to identify the driver as the gunman, the sheriff said.
No one was injured and it was not immediately clear whether the suspected shooter had fired any shots, the Secret Service said. The FBI is investigating. The golf course is about seven kilometres from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach estate and primary residence.
“There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!” Mr. Trump wrote in an e-mail to supporters, over a link to donate to his campaign. “Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER!”
The U.S. is in a period of unusual turmoil
U.S. media, citing law-enforcement sources, identified the suspected would-be assassin as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh. He is connected to both North Carolina and Hawaii, where he owns a business building shelters, according to public records and social-media accounts under that name.
A man by that name has a criminal history, including an incident 22 years ago in which he barricaded himself inside a business in Greensboro, N.C., with a fully automatic machine gun, according to a newspaper report at the time.
Photos that show an AK-47 rifle, a backpack and a Go-Pro camera on a fence outside Trump International Golf Club taken after an apparent assassination attempt of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, are displayed during a news conference at the Palm Beach County Main Library, Sunday. Sept. 15, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Fla.Stephany Matat/The Associated Press
Mr. Routh is also listed as the contact on a website recruiting international volunteers to fight for the Ukrainian army against Russia’s invasion.
“I am ready to go to Ukraine and fight and die for the kids and families of Ukraine,” an account under Mr. Routh’s name wrote on X, then Twitter, on Feb. 22, 2022, as the Russian invasion began.
In a video posted to YouTube by Newsweek Romania in June of that year, a man identified as Mr. Routh says he came to Ukraine to enlist but the Ukrainian military told him “you’re not an ideal candidate” because of his age and lack of military experience. At that moment, he said, he was in Kyiv working to recruit other people to fight. “This conflict is definitely black and white. This is about good versus evil,” he said.
In an interview with the New York Times last year, Mr. Routh said he was trying to recruit Afghan soldiers to help Ukraine.
Mr. Trump has criticized the U.S. sending tens of billions of dollars’ worth of military aid to Ukraine, praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and earlier this year suggested that he would encourage Russia to invade NATO members that do not spend enough on defence.
He has promised to swiftly halt the fighting if he is re-elected, a pledge that could entail putting pressure on Kyiv to cede large swathes of territory to Russia.
A LinkedIn profile said that, since 2018, a man with the name of Mr. Routh has owned a Honolulu company called Camp Box that builds shelters to help solve the U.S.’s homelessness problem.
The X account, meanwhile, most recently posted on July 17, four days after the previous attempt on Mr. Trump’s life, to call on President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris to pay their respects to the Trump supporter killed and those injured in the shooting.
“You and Biden should visit the injured people in the hospital from the Trump rally and attend the funeral of the murdered fireman,” the post, addressed to Ms. Harris, read. “Trump will never do anything for them.”
Law enforcement officers work after reports of shots fired outside Trump International Golf Course on Sept. 15.Marco Bello/Reuters
In an April post directed to Mr. Biden, Mr. Routh wrote that Mr. Trump’s campaign should be called MASA, for “make Americans slaves again master.”
Court documents in North Carolina show a raft of criminal charges for a person with that name over the years, including writing bad cheques, fraud, larceny, possession of stolen property and vehicles.
The man was convicted for carrying a concealed gun, possession of a weapon of mass destruction and resisting a public officer. On at least one occasion, he was sentenced to 15 to 19 months in prison and ordered to undergo substance-abuse treatment.
In a December, 2002, incident, after police pulled him during a traffic stop, he put his hand on a gun, fled and barricaded himself inside United Roofing company for three hours, according to a report from the time in the Greensboro News and Record. He was arrested without incident.
Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris, Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponent in the Nov. 5 election, said they had both been briefed on the situation.
“I am relieved that the former President is unharmed,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “As I have said many times, there is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country.”
Ms. Harris wrote on X: “I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.”
The Sunday gunfire is certain to revive questions about presidential security. After the July assassination attempt, the head of the Secret Service resigned. Mr. Trump’s security was increased to include a screen of bullet-proof glass in front of him at his rallies.
Unclear is why the heightened measures did not include giving Mr. Trump the same level of security as a sitting president. Sheriff Bradshaw said Mr. Trump has a lower level of security, which is why people were not kept back from the perimeter of the course while he was on it. As with the shooting in July, the security perimeter around Mr. Trump appears not to have extended to the location where the gunman was.
“At this level that” Mr. Trump “is at right now, he’s not the sitting president. If he was, we would have had the entire golf course surrounded. But because he’s not, the security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible,” the sheriff said.
Police officers direct traffic near Trump International Golf Club.Terry Renna/The Associated Press
The former president frequently golfs, and did so throughout his presidency, often making use of one of his own courses.
Mr. Trump also did not have a pool of reporters with him on Sunday. Counter to presidential campaign tradition, he does not have a group of journalists following him everywhere. Ms. Harris also does not have a continuous pool but does have reporters travelling with her for specific events.
The presidential campaign has already been one of the most unusual in U.S. history. In addition to the previous shooting of Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden was forced out of the race by a poor debate performance, earning Ms. Harris an 11th-hour promotion to the top of the Democratic ticket. She has erased Mr. Trump’s previous polling lead.
Over the past week, the former president has pushed a baseless story that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are eating pet cats and dogs, refused to disavow a white-nationalist conspiracy theorist and declared “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” on social media after the singer, one of the country’s most popular musicians, endorsed Ms. Harris.
The July 13 shooting made Mr. Trump the third current or former U.S. president in history to be injured during an assassination attempt and survive, and the first since Ronald Reagan in 1981. In addition, four previous presidents have been killed by assassins’ bullets.
Mr. Trump was near the start of a rally in Butler, Penn., when 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire from the roof of a warehouse with an assault-style rifle. A bullet grazed the top of Mr. Trump’s ear before a Secret Service sniper killed Mr. Crooks. A bleeding Mr. Trump pumped his fist in the air and mouthed “fight!” as he was hustled off the stage. One rallygoer was killed and two others injured.
In the wake of the shooting, Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned after acknowledging there were serious security lapses. The building from which Mr. Crooks fired was outside the security perimeter despite being close to Mr. Trump with a direct sightline. Several officers also saw Mr. Crooks before he opened fire. The Secret Service in previous years had turned down requests from Mr. Trump for added security.
As both a former president and current candidate, he has Secret Service protection and anyone getting close to him is supposed to go through a metal detector.
With a report from James Keller in Toronto