Ryan Wesley Routh, the Suspect in Trump's Second Assassination Attempt, Built Sheds

The 2024 presidential campaign has been marred by political violence, and that violence came to a crescendo when there was an assassination attempt at Donald Trump's rally in July. Now, the FBI are investigating what could be another attempted assassination of Trump in Florida, where a man pointed a high-powered rifle through a fence toward a golf course where Trump was playing on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 15.

Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in the shooting, fled the scene after being shot at but was detained in a black SUV 50 miles north of the golf course. Following the news of another attempted assassination, many wanted to learn more about the man who may have had designs on the former president's life.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Routh owned Camp Box Honolulu, a shed-building company, and lived in Hawaii after spending most of his life in North Carolina. He apparently studied at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and graduated in 1998. Reporting on Routh also suggests that he has a checkered legal and political past.

He was charged with writing bad checks in the 1990s, and in 2002, he was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction, which is a felony in North Carolina. He's also been charged with resisting arrest, a concealed weapons violation, and a hit-and-run offense.

Even as many wanted to know what he did for work and whether he had a criminal history, though, some also wanted to know what his political affiliations were.

Routh's political beliefs appeared to shift throughout the years. He voted in the North Carolina Democratic primary in 2024 and was an unaffiliated voter, but his account on Twitter suggested that he had supported Trump in the past.

"@realDonaldTrump While you were my choice in 2106, I and the world hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving," he wrote in 2020 (his account has been taken down).

Routh was also an outspoken and passionate defender of Ukraine and even took the extraordinary step of traveling there himself in order to participate in the fighting. His belief that Americans should volunteer to fight with Ukraine garnered him some mainstream press attention from outlets like The New York Times and CBS News, among others.

In an interview with Newsweek Romania, Routh said that his plan to fight alongside Ukrainians had not worked out exactly the way he expected.

"My initial goal was to come fight … but I'm 56, so initially they were like, I have no military experience, so they were like, you're not an ideal candidate," he said. "So they said, not right this minute. So plan B was to come here to Kyiv and promote getting more people here."

In more recent years, it seems Routh's politics had moved to the left. He has not offered any statement about the the apparent attempted assassination, so his motives remain unclear.