Ryan Routh, reported suspect in Trump assassination attempt, backed Ukraine

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00:00We can go across to our correspondent, Fraser Jackson, standing by in Washington.

00:03Fraser, what's the latest on Trump's assassination attempt?

00:10Well, the details of some of that, which is still being worked out by the police,

00:14are still slowly coming out. The man is still in custody and a motive for it still being

00:20worked out. But what we do know now, according to U.S. media reports, is that the man who would be,

00:25is the would-be a gunman, is 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Ruth, who is an affordable housing builder

00:32in Hawaii. He moved there in 2018 after spending much of his life in North Carolina, where he has

00:38a series of criminal arrests, the most egregious of which arguably was in 2002, when he fled from

00:46police and barricaded himself inside a house, inside a building for three hours, and eventually

00:52was charged with possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon of mass destruction.

00:58That weapon of mass destruction is a machine gun, so he has obviously some past here with

01:06high-powered rifles. He also, politically speaking, was registered as unaffiliated in 2012.

01:15We are learning from some of his social media posts that he voted for Donald Trump in 2016

01:22and then changed his allegiance after he was seemingly unhappy with the way Donald Trump had

01:27acted during his time in office. I'll read you one of his tweets that has since been

01:33closed on his profile. He said, while you were my choice in 2016, I and the world hoped that

01:38President Trump would be different and better than the candidates. But we are all greatly

01:44disappointed, and it seems you are getting worse and devolving. I will be glad when you are gone.

01:49That last sentence now then taking on an awful new meaning in the wake of this assassination

01:55attempt. Since then, it appears he's somewhat switched political allegiances. He provided

02:00some donations to some long-shot Democratic candidates in 2020, including Andrew Yang,

02:06Tom Steyer, and Tulsi Gabbard, who now was helping Donald Trump with the debate prep over the last

02:12couple of weeks. His son spoke to CNN late on Sunday evening and said that the man he knew was

02:21a very different character to the person being painted in the news. He said that he was a loving

02:26and caring father, an honest, hardworking man. He said, I don't know what's happened in Florida,

02:32and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion because from the little I've heard,

02:35it doesn't sound like the man I know to do anything crazy, much less violence. It must

02:40be said that I'm standing somewhat at odds with some of the reports that we're hearing

02:44from people who used to work for him back in North Carolina. So at the moment, a bit of a

02:49somewhat hazy picture. Most things coming from social media, and we'll learn more from

02:52authorities as they continue to question him.

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