Man with assault rifle was waiting to ambush Trump at his Florida golf course, FBI says

Donald Trump escaped a second attempt on his life in little more than two months on Sunday as he played a round of golf at his West Palm Beach course, according to local and federal law enforcement officials, who said Secret Service agents thwarted an ambush when they fired shots at a man believed to have been waiting for the former president in the bushes with an assault rifle and scope.

Trump, who was several hundred yards away when the shooting began around 1:30 p.m., was unharmed. Law enforcement quickly apprehended a suspect one county over after they say he ran from the golf course, hopped into a black Nissan and headed north on I-95.

An AK-47-style rifle, two backpacks and a GoPro camera were recovered in the bushes near where the Secret Service spotted the suspect after noticing the barrel of his gun protruding from a fence, according to authorities.

Trump was described by his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, as being in “good spirits” after the confrontation. But the incident — described by the FBI as an “apparent assassination attempt” — was an explosive development in a volatile presidential race increasingly defined by outbursts of violence.

It was just over two months ago that Trump survived an assassination attempt during a rally in Pennsylvania, where a gunman killed one spectator, wounded two others and came so close to shooting Trump in the face that the former president was bleeding from his ear. The Pennsylvania gunman, perched on a roof outside the rally perimeter long enough for attendees to spot him and try to flag down police to intercede, was killed by law enforcement officials shortly after the shooting.

On Sunday, Secret Service agents weren’t sure if the golf course gunman was able to fire off any rounds. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw estimated that the would-be assailant got within a few hundred yards of the former president, who was still on the front-9 of Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach.

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The Secret Service did exactly what they should have done,” Bradshaw said at a press conference. “They provided exactly what the protection should have been.”

Bradshaw said a witness who spotted the suspect “coming out of the bushes” snapped photos of his license plate and car before he drove off. Officers stopped the car on I-95 as he entered Martin County, just north of Palm Beach County, and shut down the highway. Bradshaw said the witness who took photos of the suspect’s car was flown to the site of the traffic stop and identified the driver as the man he’d seen fleeing the golf course.

Martin County Sheriff William D. Snyder told reporters that the suspect — identified by law enforcement sources as 58-year-old Ryan W. Routh, of Hawaii — wasn’t armed when he was taken into custody. Snyder said the man was “relatively calm” while dealing with sheriff’s deputies, and displayed little emotion.

“He never asked, ‘What is this about?’” Snyder told reporters. “Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it.”

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Trump was held temporarily at his golf club before he was transported to his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, according to a person familiar with the former president’s movements. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s opponent in November, said in statements that they had been briefed on the apparent assassination attempt.

“I am glad he is safe,” Harris wrote on X. “Violence has no place in America.”

‘This is getting out of hand’

Still, the incident has already fueled outrage among some of Trump’s allies, who were disturbed that a gunman could once again come within a few hundred yards of the former president. Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Bradshaw acknowledged that because Trump is not currently the president, the full golf course wasn’t entirely secured.

U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Miami Republican who in July visited the site of the Pennsylvania assassination attempt, said that incident was “inexcusable” given that Trump has already been the victim of a previous assassination attempt.

“At this point, the man’s already been shot. He barely escaped with his life,” Gimenez told the Miami Herald. “He is a candidate for president of the United States, he is a former president and that’s the excuse you give? If he were president you’d protect him better?”

Gimenez said that it is up to the Secret Service to ensure that Trump is safe wherever he goes. He said he plans to talk to House Speaker Mike Johnson about Sunday’s incident, as part of the ongoing congressional investigation into the previous attempt on his life during his rally in Butler, Pa.

“This is getting out of hand,” Gimenez said. “It’s happening again.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, who is leading a congressional investigation into the Butler, Pa. shooting, said Sunday that he had requested a briefing from Secret Service about the West Palm Beach incident and the agency’s response.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, said that the state “will be conducting its own investigation regarding the attempted assassination at Trump International Golf Club.”

“The people deserve the truth about the would be assassin and how he was able to get within 500 yards of the former president and current GOP nominee,” DeSantis wrote in a post on X.

Suspect facing federal charges

Law enforcement sources told the Herald Sunday evening that the case is being handled by the National Security Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The suspect in custody will have his first appearance in West Palm Beach federal court at 10 a.m. on Monday.

State prosecutors are filing their own charges and working on search warrants, according to Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronberg, and intend to keep the suspect behind bars pending trial.

What charges the suspect faces remained unclear Sunday evening, though current and former law enforcement authorities told the Herald the suspect would likely be charged federally with making “threats against former Presidents and certain other persons protected by the Secret Service,” including “a major candidate for the office of President or Vice President.”

Other charges might include using a firearm to carry out a crime of violence.

“Based on the description of the federal statute and the evidence gathered so far, he would be subject to prosecution and face a maximum sentence of five years if convicted of that offense,” said Miami defense lawyer David Weinstein, who was chief of the National Security Section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Florida from 2007 to 2009.

Weinstein said the suspect’s potential punishment could be higher based on his use of a firearm in the alleged attempted assassination and on whether he has a criminal history.

Routh has several prior run-ins with police, including a 2002 arrest in which the News & Record in Greensboro, North Carolina reported that he was arrested after he drove from a traffic stop and barricaded himself with a fully automatic machine gun inside a roofing business where he worked.