CNN
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Ryan Wesley Routh placed his hostility to Donald Trump — the man he once supported but later dismissed as an “idiot,” a “joker” and a “fool” — at the center of a muddled and fanciful worldview that also fixated 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 a suspected assassination attempt on the former president, protested in Kiev after Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and recorded his ideas in a self-published 291-page book.

Authorities suspect Routh, who owns a small construction company in Hawaii, planned to attack the former president as he played a round of golf on Sunday, while U.S. Secret Service agents fired at a man with a rifle in the bushes near the golf club. He was later arrested after being pulled over on a nearby highway.

For years, he criticized not only Trump but himself as well, describing Trump as “my choice” in the 2016 presidential election. Later, however, he wrote that he “is man enough to say I misjudged and made a terrible mistake.”

Here’s what we know about Routh so far.

Routh’s thoughts and fixations on world politics seemed idealistic to some who knew him, but his writings reveal that he became increasingly militant against the geopolitical forces he opposed.

His business dealings, on the other hand, seem relatively low-profile. On Routh’s LinkedIn page, he said he started a company in 2018 called Camp Box Honolulu in Hawaii, which builds storage units and tiny homes. A story in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser said he donated a structure for the homeless.

Routh also has ties to North Carolina, where public records show he registered as an “independent” voter with no party affiliation in 2012. According to public records, he voted in that state’s Democratic primary in March of this year.

State documents dating back decades also show Routh has had previous run-ins with the law. In 2002, he was arrested after being pulled over by police and allegedly putting his hand on a gun, driving away and barricading himself in a business building.

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 various civil lawsuits.

Routh became enthusiastic about writing about Trump and regularly responded to current events in the US and around the world on social media.

In June 2020, Routh appeared to say that he had voted for Trump in 2016 but had since withdrawn his support for the former president.

“I and the world hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we were all very disappointed and it seems that you are getting worse and going backwards,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “I will be glad when you are gone.”

Routh also mentioned Trump in his book, which appears on Amazon without a publisher listed and is titled “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen—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 blunder” that brought Tehran closer to Moscow, which then supplied it with drones that have wreaked havoc across Ukraine.

He even commented on the first assassination attempt on Trump, when the former president was wounded by a gunshot at a Pennsylvania rally in July. Routh encouraged President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to visit those injured in the incident, saying, “Trump will never do anything.”

Defending Ukraine against Russia’s 2022 invasion also became central to Routh’s philosophy; he voiced his support for Ukraine in dozens of X-messages that year, saying he was prepared to die in battle and that “we must level the Kremlin.”

He also visited Ukraine in 2022, according to videos and photos geolocated by CNN and interviews he gave to international media during his time there. In a flurry of Facebook posts last year, he attempted to recruit Afghan conscripts to fight in the war, presenting himself as an off-the-books liaison to the Ukrainian government.

A representative of the Ukrainian Foreign Legion confirmed to CNN that Routh had contacted them several times, but that he had never been part of the military unit in which the foreign volunteers fight.

Oleksandr Shaguri, an officer with the Foreigners Coordination Department of the Land Forces Command, told CNN by phone that “the best way to describe his messages is — delusional.”

“He offered us large numbers of recruits from different countries, but it was clear to us that his offers were unrealistic. We didn’t even answer, there was nothing to answer. He was never part of the Legion and did not cooperate with us in any way.”

Journalist Remus Cernea of ​​Newsweek Romania first met Routh at Independence Square in Kiev in June 2022, where the American called on people to join the Foreign Legion or help Ukraine through various humanitarian aid organizations.

“To me it’s a surprise because I saw him as an idealistic, innocent, sincere person, without any murderous instinct,” Cernea told CNN following news of Routh’s arrest in the United States.

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 Kiev in April 2022, Routh said: “Putin is a terrorist and he must be ended, so we need everyone from all over the world to stop what they are doing and come here now and support the Ukrainians to end this war.”

He also weighed in on the political situations in Afghanistan, Taiwan and North Korea in his book. Routh has repeatedly voiced support for Taiwan and previously called for international intervention to protect the island from potential Chinese meddling.

Routh’s eldest son, Oran, told CNN via text message that Routh was “a loving and caring father, and an honest, hardworking man.”

“I don’t know what happened in Florida and I hope things are just being taken out of context because from what I’ve heard it doesn’t seem like the man I know would do anything crazy, let alone violent,” Oran wrote.

But other people have also shared testimonies about tense interactions with Routh.

Hawaiian entrepreneur 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 shop to assess his work, it was shoddy, he said.

Levi said that when he asked Routh via email to improve the work, Routh yelled at him.

“He just started ranting about, you know, ‘You think you’re better than me because you have money?’” Levi said, adding that Routh had also mentioned going to Ukraine to fight Russia.

“I decided that maybe I should just let it go, for the sake of my family,” Levi recalls.