Trump, Harris to return to the campaign trail following assassination attempt at Florida golf course

Rep. Mark Alford, R-MO., says he is opposed to giving the Secret Service more resources, arguing the problems at the agency are more fundamental.

Alford made the comments during a Tuesday morning appearance on "Fox & Friends." The lawmaker blamed Democrats in Congress for stalling reforms to the Department of Homeland Security.

"I firmly believe we don't need to throw more money at the Secret Service. We need new leadership. I do believe that the Secret Service needs to be moved from Homeland Security, which has become really a political tool, I think, of this administration when you consider the biggest liar since Pinocchio is running homeland Security, Mayorkas right now. It needs to go back to Treasury," he said.

"The problem is Schumer and his Senate shenanigans. No one over there wants to do anything. They don't they don't want to rein in Homeland Security. He comes to Congress in his really arrogant tone and denies the truth and outright lies. It's time for him to go. Schumer won't do anything about it, but he won't do anything," he added.

Ryan Wesley Routh, the alleged would-be assassin of former President Trump, had tried to enlist a force of foreign fighters to help Ukraine beat back Russia, but was rejected by the volunteer force on the ground, with those involved in

Routh, 58, traveled to Ukraine in March 2023 to help the Ukrainian war effort but was quickly dismissed as a "wack job" and "off" by other foreign fighters serving Ukraine, sources within the volunteer effort told the New York Post. the effort describing Routh as having "delusions of grandeur" and a "messiah complex," according to reports.

"A crazy idiot, but no one’s really surprised," said one American who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity for fear of Russian doxxing. "There are people like that that show up and are desperate to help and be important. And he was just one of those – just on the crazier end of things."

Evelyn Aschenbrenner, an American who served in Ukraine's international legion, told USA Today in an interview that she also felt something was off about Routh.

"The vibe I got was a delusions of grandeur thing, like a religious zealot," Aschenbrenner said.

When Aschenbrenner learned that Routh had been arrested Sunday after allegedly lying in wait for Trump in the brush at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., with an SKS-style rifle, she told the outlet in simple terms: "That tracks."

Fox News contributor Joe Concha joined 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss the potential impact of Hillary Clinton's rhetoric and Vice President Harris' refusal to answer questions on economic policy on Tuesday.

Concha blasted Clinton for her comments on former President Trump, saying she has been in denial of her election loss to Trump since 2016.

"It's just so sad, so pathetic to see Hillary Clinton continue her very public psychiatric therapy tour nearly, what are we at now, 8 years after she was defeated in an election that basically every pundit says was impossible to lose. She's still not over it," Concha said.

Concha went on to highlight instances where Clinton declared Trump a "danger" to democracy. Trump has said that extreme rhetoric from top Democrats caused the assassination attempts against him.

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., said on "Jesse Watters Primetime" that “there is arguably no one more threatened than President Trump who has now had two assassination attempts against him.” 

“We should have had a bigger bubble and bigger perimeter by the Secret Service. This is two failures where the perimeter and the bubble was too small and too reduced,” Mills said about the incident Sunday at the Trump National Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. 

“You got a rifle which can shoot out well beyond 500 yards and the president was within that 500-yard barrier. You have 150 yards from Thomas Crooks on July 13 at Butler, Pennsylvania,” Mills said. “While I applaud the Secret Service for getting involved and trying to mitigate this threat... there is arguably no one more threatened than President Trump who has now had two assassination attempts against him. 

“I encourage the president to get private security... to be able to do this on the internal ring until the Secret Service can actually get answers and do the job,” Mills also said. 

The man accused of the second alleged assassination attempt on former President Trump was "poised" and composed when law enforcement officers closed in on him, signaling that he knew "the gig was up," the Florida sheriff who arrested him revealed.

In an interview on "America Reports" Monday, Martin County Sheriff William Snyder praised law enforcement and credited a civilian bystander for turning over a photograph of the Black Nissan that 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh used to flee.

Minutes earlier, Secret Service agents had fired shots in Routh's direction when they spotted him poking a rifle through the fence around Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., where the former president was playing a round of golf.

"The coordination between the Palm Beach County's sheriff's office which gave us the information and my road patrol deputies was flawless," Snyder said. "Had it not been for a civilian witness who did the right thing, gave us a description and a picture of it, actually, and had the Palm Beach sheriff’s office not been so good about getting that information out, that guy would’ve gotten past us and who knows what would’ve happened next."

Snyder described a "very tense" few minutes before authorities were able to track down the purported would-be assassin. Despite the 30 rifles drawn at him and helicopters overhead, Routh appeared oddly unbothered when law enforcement closed in, Snyder recalled.

"Right after the stop, what I saw was someone who was very poised, very in control of himself. Even though we had armed deputies all over the place, probably 30 deputies out there, rifles, a helicopter overhead, both north and southbound on I-95 shut down. He’s in the middle of it all, he never asked 'Hey, what’s this about? When I saw that, I realized he knew what time it was," Snyder said. 

"He knew that the gig was up, and he was caught."

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Yael Halon

Trump has placed blame on Democrat "rhetoric" for the attacks on his life (Getty Images)

Several Democrat politicians have faced scrutiny for their anti-Trump rhetoric, which has intensified after the former president was the target of a second assassination attempt on Sunday amid claims from the media that his rhetoric is the reason for increased division in the United States. 

Earlier this year, President Biden told donors in a private call that the media isn’t doing enough to scrutinize Trump and that it was "time to put Trump in the bullseye." Biden, after the first assassination attempt against Trump, acknowledged it was a "mistake" to use that term.

Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, have accused Trump of being a "threat to Democracy" on several occasions. 

Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman, who quickly apologized for the comment, said last year that Trump is so "dangerous" to Democracy that he "has to be eliminated."

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Failed Trump assassination attempt suspect Ryan Wesley Routh has a lengthy arrest record in Guilford County, North Carolina, where he was once a resident of Greensboro.

Routh's arrest record in Guilford County spans between the 1980s and 2010, and his charges range from writing multiple bad checks to felony firearm possession, possession of a stolen vehicle and multiple counts of possession of a weapon of mass destruction in 2002, specifically, a "binary explosive with a 10-in[ch] detonation cord and a blasting cap." 

Fox News graphic.

A neighbor who said she had known Routh for about 18 years, before he moved to Hawaii and left his Greensboro home empty at least a year ago, described his family as "weird" to reporters outside her home next to Routh's former North Carolina residence.

"He had a horse in the house. I mean, a whole live horse in the house. But I could see the guns and stuff and all. They were … oh, I mean, kind of weird. But they didn't bother me. I didn't bother them," Kim Mungo said.

"I told all my friends because they didn't believe me," Mungo added.

She told reporters that she confirmed a photo of Routh, who owned a business called United Roofing in Greensboro, to law enforcement on Sunday.

"It's just crazy to me. He was a good guy. He was sweet," Mungo said, adding that "his daughter was like" her daughter, and she would drive Routh's daughter to school "sometimes," though the two no longer talk. 

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Audrey Conklin

Former FBI Special Agent Maureen O’Connell told “Fox News @ Night” that “we can’t rely on luck anymore” following the second Trump assassination attempt. 

“You can’t just have that interior bubble. Really good security happens in concentric circles. They should also have roaming surveillance outside, maybe some police cars, some marked units on the roads that abut the golf course or wherever the president happens to be at that time,” O’Connell said. 

“We just cannot rely on luck anymore, because this type of luck never lasts,” she added. 

Phone records reveal that suspect Ryan Routh may have lurked for nearly 12 hours outside the Trump National Golf Club in West Palm Beach before his arrest on Sunday. 

In July, Trump was fired at while holding a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

Ryan Routh, suspected of attempting to assassinate former President Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course, stands handcuffed after his arrest during a traffic stop near Palm City, Florida, on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS)

Now that alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Routh is in custody, the FBI and Florida police will have their hands full unraveling his planning process and what may have motivated him. 

Former NYPD investigator and security expert Patrick Brosnan told Fox News Digital that investigators will need to trawl through a litany of information in the coming weeks, including "all things cellular, online shopping; phone camera images, bank records, email correspondence, recent search engine inquiries, dating app activity, identification of any possible burner phones, footage from … city streets, UPS trucks, Amazon trucks or backup cameras, and all cell tower pings within a fixed distance."

Using this information, investigators will build Routh's profile to answer questions, according to Gene Petrino, a SWAT commander with nearly three decades in law enforcement and a master's degree in security management.

The questions are did Ryan Wesley Routh act alone, what was his motive, how did he come into possession of a firearm and how did he know where to lie in wait?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will hold a press conference later Tuesday detailing the investigation Florida authorities are launching into the second assassination attempt against former President Trump.

DeSantis confirmed on Sunday that he was directing an investigation into how a gunman, allegedly Ryan Wesley Routh, was able to come within 500 yards of Trump with a firearm.

The former president was playing a round at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, when the U.S. Secret Service opened fire on Routh, who was allegedly armed with an SKS-style rifle.

Speaking with Fox News’ Jesse Watters on Monday, the Republican governor said the people of Florida deserve to know the truth about where the suspect came from and what his motivations were.

“I don’t think it’s in the best interests of this country to say that agencies like the FBI and the DOJ – which are trying to prosecute Trump in South Florida; they’re on appeal at the 11th Circuit to reinstate an indictment that had been dismissed – that they’re the best people to … give us the truth about this, this defendant, but also prosecute the case where they don’t have as strong of jurisdictional claims.”

DeSantis said fence line of the golf course where authorities said a suspect pointed an SKS-style rifle at the Republican presidential candidate “is clearly the biggest point of vulnerability on that course.”

“If you’re burrowed into … shrubs, you have a pretty clear line of sigh on a number of golf holes,” DeSantis said.

The tree line at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, has been known for years to be a vantage point for photographers looking to catch a candid glimpse of the former president and other VIPs.

Still, suspected failed assassin Ryan Wesley Routh was able to camp out there for nearly 12 hours Sunday with a rifle aimed at the course, according to a federal affidavit. He even brought snacks.

A Secret Service agent patrolling the perimeter eventually spotted the gunman and opened fire, chasing him off before anyone was hurt. But local authorities say additional perimeter patrols would be an obvious safety upgrade when Donald Trump comes to town.

Trump is known to frequent the course when staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort about 15 minutes away. And even though the visit wasn't on the president's schedule, anyone staking out the area could have been tipped off to his arrival by his motorcade.

"There have been previous individuals who have taken pictures of the former president while he's golfing," said Dave Aronberg, the state attorney for the 15th Judicial Circuit, which covers Palm Beach County. "They've gone through the shrubs and been able to poke a camera through the fencing. You would think that perhaps maybe they would consider someone scoping the perimeter."

Photographers routinely announce their presence to the Secret Service and are well versed in where they can get a good line of sight, the New York Post reported. They are rarely asked to leave, an unnamed photo agency source told the paper.