The Florida golf course hole where Donald Trump was targeted in an assassination attempt over the weekend was the “soft underbelly” of the former president’s club, Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday.
DeSantis announced that Florida authorities were also launching an investigation into the gunman and how he got with in 300 to 500 yards of Trump with an SKS assault rifle.
The Florida governor, who said he has previously golfed with Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, said the Sunshine state probe will run parallel to the federal investigation into would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh.
“When I played with him there, there was a lot of security,” DeSantis said, adding that he had previously noticed the course’s sixth hole was “basically all on that fence line.”
“Just me as a playing partner, and as governor, just thinking about it — I was like, that is the soft underbelly from a security perspective,” DeSantis said of the sixth hole, where the gunman was spotted by a Secret Service agent. “You can’t not notice that when you’re on that golf course.”
DeSantis also told reporters that the state has “a very strong interest in holding this suspect accountable.”
Additional and more serious federal charges are possible as the investigation continues and federal prosecutors seek an indictment from a grand jury.
The would-be assassin set up a sniper’s nest near the former president’s golf course and hid there for nearly 12 hours before the apparent ambush attempt, federal proseuctors said on Monday.
Secret Service agents spotted his rifle poking out of shrubbery on the golf course as Trump played and shot at him.
Here’s what we know about the assassination attempt on Trump in Florida:
- Former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Sept. 15, 2024.
- Trump sent out a statement to supporters soon after to report that he was “SAFE AND WELL.”
- The suspect — identified as Ryan Routh, 58, of Hawaii — was able to get within 300 to 500 yards of Trump at a chain link fence on the edge of the course, where he had an AK-47 and a GoPro camera set up, apparently to record the planned shooting.
- Routh has a history of supporting progressive causes online and has made 19 donations to Democratic candidates since 2019.
- A Secret Service agent spotted and opened fire on Routh as he put his gun through the fence. The suspect fled and was arrested on I-95 a short time later.
- According to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, Trump’s security detail was lighter because he isn’t a sitting president — despite the previous attempt on his life in July.
The 58-year-old did not shoot at Trump but fled immediately after agents fired in his direction. He was caught soon after on I-95 and arrested.
Routh, a Hawaii resident, has a history of supporting progressive causes online and has made 19 donations to Democratic candidates since 2019, however, authorities have not shared a motive in the shooting.
He also has a lengthy criminal history including a 2002 conviction in Greensboro, North Carolina, after he was found with a weapon of mass death and destruction, according to a criminal complaint.
He was later convicted in 2010 of multiple counts of possession of stolen goods, per the complaint.
With Post wires.
