The New York Times penned another glowing profile of Trump would-be assassin Ryan Routh, portraying him as a “crusader for causes large and small.”
Just two days after Routh was arrested on two gun charges after he had been waiting in the bushes of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course with a scope-mounted rifle and GoPro camera, the New York Times published a flattering editorial of the 58-year-old mercenary.
From The Times:
How Mr. Routh, a peripatetic activist and building contractor with an extensive criminal record, came to possess a semiautomatic rifle, learn of Mr. Trump’s weekend whereabouts and wait for him on the edge of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., remains unknown.
But a review of public records and Mr. Routh’s writings, as well as interviews with people who knew him, suggest that he saw himself as an active and influential participant in momentous world events, while becoming estranged from at least some of his family and nearly destitute in the process.
Mr. Routh has been a serial crusader for causes large and small dating back to at least 1996, when he campaigned against graffiti in Greensboro, N.C., where he lived for decades. In July, he urged President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the social media platform X to visit the victims of the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump in Butler, Pa., writing that “Trump will never do anything for them.”
“Show the world what compassion and humanity is all about,” Mr. Routh wrote on July 16.
In other social media posts, he tagged world leaders and celebrities like Elton John and Elon Musk, often providing his phone number and email as if expecting a response.
The paper described how Routh began recruiting for Ukraine after he was denied a place on the frontline due to his age and lack of experience.
“Mr. Routh had set up a website called ‘Fight for Ukraine,’ in which he explained how to travel there and join the Ukrainian army as a foreign fighter. For the better part of a year, his main focus was getting hundreds of Afghan soldiers, who had fled after their country’s government collapsed, to fight for Ukraine,” the Times wrote.
While The Times noted that some of his recruiting methods were illegal, the paper commended his tenacity.
Hellbound and Down 