CNN
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Ryan Wesley Routh placed his hostility toward Donald Trump—the man he once supported but then dismissed as an “idiot,” a “buffoon,” and a “fool”—at the center of a confused and imaginative worldview that also centered on Ukraine, Taiwan, North Korea, and what he called “the end of humanity.”
The 58-year-old, who was arrested on Sunday in connection with an alleged assassination attempt on the former president, protested in Kyiv following Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and put his ideas on paper in a self-published 291-page book.
Authorities suspect Routh, who owns a small construction company in Hawaii, was planning an attack on the former president on Sunday as he played a round of golf. U.S. Secret Service agents shot a man with a rifle in the bushes near the golf club. He was later arrested after being stopped on a nearby highway.
For years, he criticized not only Trump but also himself. Trump was “my choice” in the 2016 presidential election, but he later wrote that he was “man enough to admit that I misjudged the situation and made a terrible mistake.”
Here’s what we know about Routh so far.
To some who came into contact with Routh, his ideas and fixations on world politics seemed idealistic, but his writings reveal that he became increasingly militant toward the geopolitical forces he denounced.
His business activities, on the other hand, seem relatively unspectacular. On Routh’s LinkedIn page, he wrote that in 2018 he founded a company called Camp Box Honolulu in Hawaii that builds storage units and tiny homes. An article in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser said he donated a building to the homeless.
Routh also has ties to North Carolina, where he registered as an “independent” voter with no party affiliation in 2012, according to public records. Public records show he participated in the Democratic primary in that state in March of that year.
Decades-old state records also show that Routh has had previous run-ins with the law. For example, he was arrested in 2002 after being stopped by police and allegedly putting his hand on a firearm, then driving away and barricading himself on the premises of a business.
He has also been involved in several lawsuits since the 1990s, with authorities repeatedly accusing him of failing to pay his taxes on time. Separately, judges have ordered him to pay tens of thousands of dollars to plaintiffs in several civil cases.
Routh became animated when writing about Trump, and he frequently commented on current events in the United States and around the world on social media.
In June 2020, Routh apparently said he voted for Trump in 2016 but has since withdrawn his support for the former president.
“I and the world hoped President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we were all very disappointed and it seems you are getting worse and regressing,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “I’ll be glad when you’re gone.”
Routh also mentions Trump in his book, which is available on Amazon without a publisher and is titled “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Error of Democracy, the Abandonment of the World and Global Citizens – Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea, and the End of Humanity.”
In that publication, he described the former US president’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 as a “huge mistake” that brought Tehran closer to Moscow, which was then supplied with drones that have wreaked havoc in Ukraine.
He even commented on the first assassination attempt on Trump, when the former president was wounded by a gunshot at a rally in Pennsylvania in July. Routh called on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to visit those injured in the incident, saying, “Trump will never do anything.”
Defending Ukraine against a Russian invasion in 2022 also became a central point in Routh’s philosophy. In dozens of X-posts this year, he expressed support for Ukraine, saying he was willing to die in battle and that “we need to burn the Kremlin down.”
He also visited Ukraine in 2022, according to videos and photos geolocated by CNN, as well as interviews he gave to international media during his stay. In a flurry of Facebook posts last year, he tried to recruit Afghan conscripts for the war, presenting himself as an unofficial liaison for the Ukrainian government.
A representative of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion confirmed to CNN that Routh had contacted them several times, but said he had never been part of the military unit in which foreign volunteers fight.
Oleksandr Shaguri, an officer in the Land Forces Command’s foreigners coordination department, told CNN by phone that “his messages are best described as delusions.”
“He offered us a large number of recruits from different countries, but it was obvious to us that his offers were not realistic. We did not even respond, there was nothing to respond to. He was never part of the Legion and did not cooperate with us in any way.”
Newsweek Romania journalist Remus Cernea first met Routh in June 2022 at Independence Square in Kyiv, where the American called on people to join the Foreign Legion or help Ukraine through various humanitarian aid organizations.
“It’s a surprise to me because I saw him as an idealistic, innocent, sincere person with no murderous instinct,” Cernea told CNN after news of Routh’s detention in the United States broke.
According to Cernea, Routh described Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a “black-and-white … good versus evil” conflict.
In an interview with AFP news agency from Kyiv in April 2022, Routh said: “Putin is a terrorist and he must be eliminated. That is why all people around the world must stop what they are doing and come here now and support the Ukrainians in ending this war.”
In his book, he also addressed the political situation in Afghanistan, Taiwan and North Korea. Routh has repeatedly expressed his support for Taiwan and has previously called for international intervention to protect the island from possible Chinese aggression.
Routh’s eldest son Oran told CNN via text message that Routh was “a loving and caring father and an honest, hard-working man.”
“I don’t know what happened in Florida and I hope things were just blown out of proportion because from what little I’ve heard, it doesn’t sound like the man I know would do anything crazy, let alone violent,” Oran wrote.
But other people also reported tense interactions with Routh.
Hawaiian business owner Saili Levi told CNN he paid Routh $3,800 up front to build a trailer for his business. But when Levi came to Routh’s workshop to inspect his work, it was sloppy, he said.
Levi said that when he emailed Routh asking him to improve his work, he was reprimanded.
“He just started ranting, you know, ‘You think you’re better than me just because you have money?'” Levi said, adding that Routh also mentioned going to Ukraine to fight against Russia.
“I kind of decided that maybe I should just give it up for the sake of my family,” Levi recalls.
