Ryan Routh: Tulsi Gabbard fan who wanted to negotiate with Kim Jong-un

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested on Sunday in connection with what the F.B.I. described as an attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump. Routh had previously expressed a desire to fight and die in Ukraine.
Routh’s social media posts on the platform X (formerly Twitter) revealed a pattern of violent rhetoric in the weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.He shared his willingness to travel to Ukraine and volunteer to fight. His profile on the messaging app Signal highlighted his belief that civilians should intervene in war to prevent future conflicts, while his WhatsApp bio called for individual efforts to support human rights, freedom, and democracy, with a specific mention of helping the Chinese.
Routh, a former roofing contractor from Greensboro, North Carolina, was interviewed by The New York Times in 2023 for an article about Americans volunteering to support Ukraine during the war. Despite lacking military experience, he travelled to Ukraine after Russia’s invasion and expressed interest in recruiting Afghan soldiers to fight there.
In a phone interview with The New York Times in 2023, Routh, then in Washington, spoke with the confidence of a diplomat, convinced that his plans to support Ukraine’s war effort would be successful. However, he showed little tolerance for those who disagreed with him. In a Facebook message shared with The New York Times, Routh expressed anger toward an American foreign fighter, remarking that the individual "needed to be shot."
During the same interview, Routh mentioned his visit to Washington to meet with the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (the Helsinki Commission) to push for increased support for Ukraine. He claimed the meeting lasted two hours. Routh also detailed his efforts to recruit Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban, some of whom were living illegally in Pakistan and Iran, with the intention of moving them to Ukraine. He believed that it would be possible to obtain forged passports from Pakistan, referring to the country as corrupt.
Though it remains unclear whether Routh carried out these plans, one former Afghan soldier reported that Routh had contacted him and expressed interest in fighting if it meant leaving Iran.
A man of the same name and similar age as Routh was arrested in 2002 in Greensboro, North Carolina, after barricading himself inside a building with a fully automatic weapon, according to local news reports. He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and possessing a fully automatic machine gun, though the outcome of these charges is unknown.
Routh, described as a lean man with reddish-brown hair and known for wearing American flag-themed clothing in his profile pictures, allegedly left the scene of Sunday’s incident without firing any shots, according to the Secret Service.
In a series of posts on X in 2020, Routh expressed admiration for Tulsi Gabbard, then a Democratic presidential candidate. He praised her commitment to negotiating peace deals in conflict zones like Syria and Afghanistan.

In the past few years, Routh relocated to Hawaii, where a man with his name operated a small business. In a 2020 post, he even invited North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to Hawaii for a holiday, offering to act as an "ambassador and liaison" to help resolve tensions between the two nations.
After the incident on Sunday, deputies stopped Routh on Interstate 95. He remained calm, did not question his detention, and was unarmed at the time of his arrest, according to Sheriff William D. Snyder of Martin County.