Trump is the reason so many are questioning the truth of this alleged assassination attempt

We need far more answers!

UPDATE as of Tuesday AM: My new article on the facts we learned Monday that has raised even more questions.

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No, you are not a “conspiracy nut” to question the claims surrounding what the media is calling an attempted assassination attempt on Donald Trump that took place Sunday at his golf course. In fact, if you don’t question what you are hearing, you would be suspending your critical thinking skills given how this story broke and the fact that Trump is desperate to save his flailing campaign. No one is saying this was not a serious incident but at this point we need far more answers to come to any conclusions.

For starters, the early reporting of the alleged attempt on Trump’s life relied on a statement from Trump’s campaign released to the media that read in part, Trump “is safe following gunshots in his vicinity.” Fox News even attributed the entire story at the time to the campaign when it broke, as noted in their headline, “Trump safe after 'gunshots in his vicinity,' campaign says.” (See below)

I recall reading the statement from Trump’s campaign when the story first broke on various media outlets but there were no further details available. None of the media outlets had their own reporting yet or a defintion of what within the “vicinity” of Trump meant. It appears it was the Trump campaign that broke the story itself that then lead to further reporting.

That instantly made many question if this story was credible given the campaign “broke” this story at a time when Trump was spinning out of control over his horrific debate performance with VP Kamala Harris and his slide in the polls taken since.  Convicted felon Trump was also the midst of a firestorm in connection with his lies that Black immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were stealing and eating pets. Trump’s despicable words had prompted bomb threats against the city and a spike in hate against that immigrant community.

Indeed, Trump was so desperate Sunday to change the topic that he had posted on his social media platform--just a few hours before the news of the alleged plot-- in all caps, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.”   Trump knew that post would cause corporate media to cover his comment since it was directed at arguably the most famous performer of the time.

There was also something else that fueled speculation that this story needed to be vigilantly questioned.  A few hours before the incident, Trump’s running mate JD Vance was on CNN where he made his own headlines by admitting that he and Trump will literally fabricate stories to help themselves politically. We knew that of course--but to hear Vance say that on camera was jaw dropping.

That exchange came when CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Vance on the lie that he and Trump kept peddling about Black immigrants in Ohio. In response, Vance defended the lies by saying, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention…then that’s what I’m going to do.”  Vance added that they need to lie because the media “are completely letting Kamala Harris coast.”

There is Vance saying just a few hours before the news of the so-called assassination plot, that if they need “to create stories” to help them win, they will.

Adding to the questions about the veracity of this story is that Trump was politicizing it for his own political gain just over an hour after the story broke. That is when the Trump campaign sent out a fundraising email citing the event that read in part, “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!”  Trump added, “Nothing will slow me down. I will NEVER SURRENDER! I will always love you for supporting me.” (The article in The Hill about this fundraising email was published at 5:19PMET Sunday as we were still learning the first facts about the incident.) This email message linked to a Trump fundraising page that added: “There are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us. I will not stop fighting for you.”

It was in that backdrop that we learned the early details of alleged plot on Trump.  Per the Associated Press, the gunman was discovered when Secret Service “noticed the muzzle of an AK-style rifle sticking through the shrubbery that lines” the golf course. From there a Secret Service agent fired shots but didn’t hit the gunman. The man then “dropped the rifle and fled in an SUV, leaving the firearm behind along with two backpacks, a scope used for aiming and a GoPro camera.” (So a man who travelled from Hawaii plotting to kill a former president fled leaving all the incriminating evidence behind when a shot was fired in his direction?!)

Later the police would locate the gunman in a neighboring county driving his vehicle. When arrested—as the police noted--he had a “flat demeanor and showed little emotion.”  Martin County Sheriff William Snyder, explained to the press, “He never asked, ‘What is this about?’ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it.”

The history of the man arrested, Ryan Wesley Routh, also raises many questions. He had publicly admitted to voting for Trump in 2016 but then later became disenchanted with him. A tweet on Jan. 8, 2024, shows Routh calling on then GOP primary candidate Nikki Haley to team up with other Republican primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to “create a winning ticket now that we all can get behind.” Other posts showed support for former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat turned Trump supporter. Routh also donated slightly more than $140 to Democratic candidates in 2019 and 2020 via an online platform.

Routh was a devout supporter of Ukraine in the war with Russia, even attempting to convince people to fight on behalf of Ukraine. But he also had a criminal history dating back to 2003 when he lived in North Carolina for various charges from resisting arrest to possession of a “weapon of mass destruction,” namely a fully automatic machine gun.

After he moved to Hawaii, Routh—who per CNN was a “self-employed affordable housing builder”—had more runs in with the law including being removed from a property in 2019 for alleged squatting, but he was not arrested.

On Sunday, family and friends interviewed say he was not violent and was actually a caring person. His son, Oran told CNN, “I don’t know what’s happened in Florida, and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion, because from the little I’ve heard it doesn’t sound like the man I know to do anything crazy, much less violent.”

At this point it’s objectively impossible to make conclusions about this incident. But given Trump is a serial liar who attempted a coup and was convicted of 34 felonies for falsifying business records to illegally influence the 2016 election, we can never simply accept anything involving him without drilling down.  This is a man who will literally do anything to win—and I mean anything.

And given the incident occurred just 50 days before the election at a time when Trump is struggling, common sense says we must demand far more facts before we can accept the conclusions Trump or the media are peddling.  

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