By Gram Slattery and David Ljungren
(Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump survived an apparent assassination attempt on Sunday after the FBI foiled an apparent assassination attempt while he was playing golf at his course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Secret Service agents spotted a gunman in the bushes near the golf course’s property line, a few hundred yards from where Trump was playing, and shot him, law enforcement officials said.
The suspect left an AK-47 assault rifle and other items at the scene and fled in a vehicle but was later arrested.
The apparent assassination attempt on Trump came just two months after he was shot during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, suffering a minor wound to his right ear.
The two incidents highlight the challenges of keeping presidential candidates safe in a highly competitive and polarized campaign just seven weeks before the Nov. 5 election.
It is not clear whether or how the suspect knew Trump was playing golf at the time, but the attempted attack is certain to raise new questions about the level of protection he received.
CNN, Fox News and The New York Times identified the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii, citing unidentified law enforcement officials. The FBI declined to comment.
Reuters found profiles on X, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) and LinkedIn for a person named Ryan Roth, who appears to be the man identified as a suspect by those news organizations.
Reuters was unable to confirm that these were the suspect’s accounts, and law enforcement agencies declined to comment, but public access to the Facebook and X accounts was removed hours after the shooting.
The three accounts under Roth’s name suggest he was an ardent supporter of Ukraine in its war against Russia, and in several posts he appeared to be trying to help recruit soldiers for the Ukrainian war effort.
gun barrel in the bushes
Palm Beach County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw said Secret Service agents saw the barrel of a gun sticking out of bushes 400 to 500 yards (365 to 460 meters) from Trump as they cleared out potential threats ahead of his performance.
Agents engaged the gunman and fired at least four rounds of ammunition at him around 1:30 p.m. (1730 GMT).
The gunman then dropped his rifle, left behind two backpacks and other items, and fled in a black Nissan. The police chief said a witness saw the gunman and was able to take photos of his car and license plate before he fled.
“The Secret Service did exactly what they were supposed to do,” Bradshaw said, declining to identify the suspect or offer a possible motive for his actions.
After the suspect fled the scene, police sent an alert to statewide agencies with information about his vehicle, leading sheriff’s deputies in neighboring Martin County to arrest the suspect on Interstate 95 about 40 miles (65 kilometers) from the golf course.
Fox News host Sean Hannity said he spoke to Trump and Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate investor and longtime friend of Trump’s who was on the golf course with him on Sunday.
“They were in the fifth hole,” Hannity said. “The way Steve described it, and the way the president described it, they had exactly the same story, which was they heard pop, pop, pop,” he said. “The Secret Service swooped in and covered the president.”
In response to a reporter’s question, officials acknowledged that because Donald Trump was not in office, the entire golf course was not closed.
“If he was there, we would have surrounded the entire golf course,” Bradshaw said during a briefing on Sunday. “Because he’s not there, security is limited to areas that the Secret Service deems possible.”
“I heard shots fired in my area, but before the rumors start getting out of hand, I wanted you to hear this first: I am safe and healthy!” Trump emailed supporters, according to an email seen by Reuters.
The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were briefed on the incident and were relieved to know he was safe.
Biden later said he had directed his team to ensure the Secret Service had the resources it needed to ensure Trump’s safety, according to a statement from the White House.
Trump is locked in a tight race for the presidency with Harris, who has seen her poll numbers rise since she replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee in July.
“Violence has no place in America,” Harris said in a post on the social media site X.
In 2020, Roth expressed support for Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and mocked Biden as “Sleepy Joe”.
Earlier this year, Roth referred to Biden in a post on X: “@POTUS your campaign should be called something like KADAF. Keep America democratic and free. Trump should be MASA… make Americans slaves again. Democracy is on the ballot and we can’t lose.”
Trump’s running mate, U.S. Senator J.D. Vance, said he spoke to Trump after the shooting and that the former president was in good spirits.
Trump suffered a wound to his right ear, and a rally attendee was killed in the shooting at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13. The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Crooks, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.
It was the first shooting of a U.S. president or major party presidential candidate in more than four decades, and the glaring security lapse forced Kimberly Shettle to resign as Secret Service director under bipartisan pressure from Congress.
The acting director of the Secret Service said in August that he was “ashamed” of the security lapse that led to the assassination attempt.
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