Assassinations and Attempted Assassinations

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      Secret Service Did Not Search Trump Golf Course Perimeter Before Gunman’s Arrest

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      The Secret Service did not search the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday before former President Donald J. Trump began his round, an acknowledgment that has put the besieged agency under renewed scrutiny two months after a similar episode in Pennsylvania.The decision raises further questions about whether the Secret Service has the resources and ability to adequately perform its duties during a time of increasing violence and a unique campaign between a sitting vice president and a former president.While the agency’s acting director hailed a Secret Service agent for acting swiftly and preventing any harm to Mr. Trump on Sunday, the F.B.I. said that data from a gunman’s cellphone indicated he spent almost 12 hours near the course before he aimed a rifle in the direction of Mr. Trump while he was golfing.In remarks to reporters at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office on Monday afternoon, Ronald L. Rowe Jr., the Secret Service’s acting director, said, “The president wasn’t even really supposed to go there.”Mr. Rowe said Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, did not have an outing on the course on his official schedule. Mr. Rowe did not clarify in his statements whether this meant that agents did not have time to sweep the golf course. Yet it is public knowledge that Mr. Trump frequently plays golf at one of his Florida courses on Sundays, raising the risk level for the former president.Mr. Rowe praised his agents for spotting the barrel of a gun poking through the bushes of the golf club and firing at the suspect, Ryan W. Routh, 58, before he could get off a shot. A manhunt commenced, leading to Mr. Routh being detained soon after. He was charged in federal court on Monday with possession of a firearm as a felon.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Suspect in Apparent Trump Assassination Plot Crusaded for Many Causes

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      The man arrested after apparently plotting to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump at one of his Florida golf courses on Sunday appeared to tell Iran in a rambling self-published book last year that it was “free to assassinate Trump.”The self-aggrandizing book, titled “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” along with social media posts and other public statements from the suspect, Ryan W. Routh, reflected his intense desire to fight for Ukraine. He also took a dim view of Mr. Trump, referring to him as a “fool,” “idiot” and “buffoon.”“Democracy has dissolved quickly under our watch,” Mr. Routh wrote, describing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as a catastrophe “perpetrated by Donald Trump and his undemocratic posse.”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.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Suspect Never Took a Shot at Trump but Hid Undetected for 12 Hours

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      Ryan W. Routh was charged with two federal gun crimes a day after Secret Service agents fired on him as he pointed a rifle toward the golf course where former President Donald Trump was playing.The man arrested after pointing a rifle through a fence ringing former President Donald J. Trump’s golf course in Florida on Sunday never got off a shot, but appears to have remained undetected for nearly 12 hours before being spotted by a Secret Service agent who drove him off with a volley of gunfire, officials said on Monday.The man, Ryan W. Routh, 58, a building contractor with an extensive criminal history, never had the former president in his line of sight but was able to hide in the bushes just outside the fence on the edge of the course until Mr. Trump was only hundreds of yards away.Mr. Routh did not fire at “our agents” before they fired at him, Ronald Rowe Jr., the acting Secret Service director, said at a news conference in West Palm Beach, Fla.Mr. Routh wore a blue inmate jumpsuit at his initial appearance in a federal courtroom in Florida on Monday. He faces two felony gun charges that allow the authorities to keep him in custody while they continue their investigation into what the F.B.I. has called an assassination attempt.The F.B.I.’s top agent in Miami, Jeffrey B. Veltri, speaking to reporters, said the bureau had no information that the suspect was working with anybody else. Agents in Hawaii and North Carolina — two states where the suspect lived — had fanned out to conduct interviews as part of a broad investigation into his travels, how he had acquired the rifle and what his motivations had been.Among the unanswered questions is how Mr. Routh knew Mr. Trump would be on the course. While Mr. Trump frequently plays golf at his properties, his Sunday outing was not a publicly announced appearance, unlike the rally in July in Butler, Pa., where a gunman got off multiple shots, leaving Mr. Trump slightly wounded, one rally attendee dead and two others wounded.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elon Musk Deletes His Post Asking Why No One Has Tried to Assassinate Biden or Harris

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      Hours after what the F.B.I. called a second attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump, Elon Musk wrote on his social media site — and then deleted — a post suggesting it was odd that nobody had tried to kill President Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris.Mr. Musk said the post on X had been intended as a joke.In response to a user who asked, “Why they want to kill Donald Trump?” Mr. Musk, who has endorsed the former president and comments frequently on the U.S. presidential campaign, wrote: “And no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala.” His post, which was captured by X users, included a thinking-face emoji.Mr. Musk took down the post after it immediately drew outrage. X says he has more than 197 million followers on the platform, which he bought in 2022.“Well, one lesson I’ve learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn’t mean it’s going to be all that hilarious as a post on X,” he said in a follow-up post early Monday. “Turns out that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text,” he wrote in another.The Secret Service said on Sunday that it had fired on an armed man at Mr. Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla., while the former president was playing. A suspect was later arrested. The incident followed one in July in which Mr. Trump was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin while he was holding a rally in Pennsylvania. The shooter was killed by law enforcement officers.Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man, has established a reputation as an edgy plutocrat not bound by social conventions when it comes to expressing his opinions and broadcasting what is on his mind to his followers. His power and wealth have made him relatively impervious to criticism, and his bluntness has made him a hero to many on the right who oppose what they call political correctness.Several of his recent posts about the election have drawn criticism. Last week, he amplified the bogus right-wing claims that immigrants were eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. And after the music superstar Taylor Swift said last week that she would vote for Ms. Harris, signing her endorsement “Childless Cat Lady” in a reference to comments by Mr. Trump’s running mate, Mr. Musk appeared to offer jokingly to impregnate Ms. Swift, writing: “Fine Taylor … you win … I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life.” More

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      Suspected Gunman at Trump Golf Course Said He Was Willing to Fight and Die in Ukraine

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      Ryan Wesley Routh, the 58-year-old man who was arrested on Sunday in connection with what the F.B.I. described as an attempted assassination on former President Donald J. Trump, had expressed the desire to fight and die in Ukraine.Mr. Routh’s posts on the social media site X revealed a penchant for violent rhetoric in the weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “I AM WILLING TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER AND FIGHT AND DIE,” he wrote.On the messaging application Signal, Mr. Routh wrote that “Civilians must change this war and prevent future wars” as part of his profile bio. On WhatsApp, his bio read, “Each one of us must do our part daily in the smallest steps help support human rights, freedom and democracy; we each must help the chinese.”Mr. Routh, a former roofing contractor from Greensboro, N.C., was interviewed by The New York Times in 2023 for an article about Americans volunteering to aid the war effort in Ukraine. Mr. Routh, who had no military experience, said he had traveled to the country after Russia’s invasion and wanted to recruit Afghan soldiers to fight there.In a telephone interview with The New York Times in 2023, when Mr. Routh was in Washington, he spoke with a self-assuredness of a seasoned diplomat who thought his plans to support Ukraine’s war effort were sure to succeed. But he appeared to have little patience for anyone who got in his way. When an American foreign fighter seemed to talk down to him in a Facebook message he shared with The New York Times, Mr. Routh said, “he needs to be shot.”In the interview, Mr. Routh said he was in Washington to meet with the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Helsinki Commission “for two hours” to help push for more support for Ukraine. The commission is led by members of Congress and staffed by congressional aides. It is influential on matters of democracy and security and has been vocal in supporting Ukraine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Melania Trump reaparece en una serie de videos enigmáticos

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      En uno de ellos, publicado en línea el martes, la ex primera dama reflexiona con tono conspiranoico sobre el atentado contra la vida de su marido. Los videos pretenden promocionar unas nuevas memorias.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]¿Qué está pasando con Melania?Esta pregunta constante se plantea ahora que la ex primera dama, quien ha permanecido casi totalmente oculta mientras su marido hacía campaña para la Casa Blanca, ha empezado a resurgir.Melania Trump publicará sus memorias el 8 de octubre. Llevan por título Melania. Ha estado publicando breves videos de sí misma hablando a la cámara, que su marido, el expresidente Donald Trump, ha estado publicando en sus propias redes sociales.Fiel al estilo de esfinge de Melania Trump, sus videos son algo enigmáticos.En uno de ellos, publicado el martes, aparece ante un sombrío telón de fondo, vestida de negro, para reflexionar sobre el atentado contra su marido. “El silencio que rodea el hecho se siente pesado”, dice mientras suena de fondo una melodía angustiosa que parece sacada de una película de Alan Pakula. “No puedo evitar preguntarme por qué las fuerzas del orden no detuvieron al tirador antes del discurso. Definitivamente hay algo más en esta historia, y tenemos que descubrir la verdad”.¿Se descubrirá la “verdad” en melaniatrump.com, el sitio al que ella enlaza? Hay que hacer un pedido anticipado para averiguarlo (250 dólares por la edición de coleccionista, que incluye un “coleccionable digital”).En otro video, publicado el domingo, Melania Trump narra mientras un texto blanco se arrastra sobre un fondo negro: “Cada vez es más evidente que existen importantes desafíos a la libertad de expresión, como demuestran los esfuerzos por silenciar a mi marido”.Los misteriosos videos sobre fuerzas misteriosas son lo más que el público ha oído de la misteriosa ex primera dama en mucho tiempo. No estuvo al lado de Trump en su reciente juicio en Manhattan (tal vez porque giraba en torno al dinero pagado a una estrella del porno). Apareció en dos actos de recaudación de fondos este año, en Mar-a-Lago y en la Torre Trump, ambos con republicanos homosexuales —hubo algunas fotos en The Daily Mail—, pero ha habido poco más allá de eso.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Attempt on Trump’s Life and the Violence of American Politics

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      On the convention stage, Donald Trump said he would talk about the assassination attempt only once. Understandably, he has continued to talk about it, as many people do when shocking things happen to them.“I’m not nicer,” he told donors on Aug. 2, rebutting the idea that he’d mellowed in the aftermath. At rallies outdoors, he now stands behind bulletproof glass onstage. At a rally in Michigan recently, he said he’s been treated worse than various presidents, adding, “I even got shot! And who the hell knows where that came from, right?”Mr. Trump told The Daily Mail that he’s had no flashbacks or nightmares. Asked by the interviewer whether he thought he might have post-traumatic stress disorder or consider counseling, Mr. Trump said: “A couple of people have asked me that, and I have had no impact. It’s just amazing.” He went on to say that he didn’t think about the shooting much and did not want to.In a livestream on X, Elon Musk opened with the assassination attempt, asking, “What was it like for you?”“Not pleasant,” Mr. Trump replied and Mr. Musk laughed. Then Mr. Trump talked in much detail about the things that did happen and could have happened. Across more than 10 minutes, it seemed like Mr. Trump had consumed a lot of information about that day in Butler, Pa. He described different perspectives and footage: video of a woman who saw the shooter, the view of the crowd control experts, the local police officer who’d climbed up to the roof, his Secret Service detail who piled on top of him, and the sniper who killed the shooter. “He’s been with them for 23 years, and he’s never had anything like this, and all of the sudden he has to act,” Mr. Trump said. “It’s a very tough thing to act and to be shooting somebody.”“The bigger miracle is that I was looking in the exact direction of the shooter,” Mr. Trump said, “so it hit me at an angle that was far less destructive, so that was the miracle.” It’s actually a striking description of what happened: to be looking at and unable to see a source of imminent danger.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Footage of J.F.K. Shooting’s Aftermath Goes to Auction

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      The footage from 1963, taken by a Texas businessman and seen only by a few, shows the president’s limousine speeding to a Dallas hospital. It is being auctioned this month.Nearly 61 years ago, Dale Carpenter Sr. showed up on Lemmon Avenue in Dallas, hoping to film John F. Kennedy as his motorcade passed. But the president’s car had already gone by, and he recorded only some of the procession, including the back of a car carrying Lyndon Johnson and the side of the White House press bus.So Mr. Carpenter, a businessman from Texas, rushed to Stemmons Freeway, several miles farther along the motorcade route, to try again.There, just moments after Kennedy had been shot, he captured an urgent and chaotic scene. The president’s speeding convertible. A Secret Service agent in a dark suit sprawled on the back. Jacqueline Kennedy, in her pink Chanel outfit, little more than a blur.Kennedy himself could not be glimpsed. He had collapsed and was close to death.A film Dale Carpenter Sr. took of the Kennedy motorcade on Lemmon Avenue in Dallas before the president was shot. Because Mr. Carpenter did not get footage of the president there, he traveled to another part of the route, where he filmed the speeding car bringing the mortally wounded Kennedy to Parkland Memorial Hospital. Footage via RR AuctionFor decades Mr. Carpenter’s 8-millimeter snippets of what transpired in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, have been a family heirloom. When he died in 1991 at 77, the reel, which included footage of his twin boys’ birthday party, passed to his wife, Mabel, then to a daughter, Diana, and finally to a grandson, James Gates.Later this month, the Kennedy footage is to be put up for sale in Boston by RR Auction, the latest in a line of assassination-related images to surface publicly after decades in comparative obscurity. The auction house says it is the only known film of the president’s car on the freeway as it sped from Dealey Plaza, the site of the shooting, to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1 p.m. More