Son of the alleged gunman who targeted former President Trump According to a report, he told a reporter on his Florida golf course on Sunday that his father hates Trump the way “every sane person does” – but claimed he is not a violent person.
Oran Routh told the Daily Mail His father, Ryan Routh, was arrested for alleged attempted murder. Not a fan of the Republican candidate.
“I don’t like Trump either,” he said.
But the younger Routh, 35, insisted his father was not violent and was shocked to hear about the allegations.
“He's my dad and as far as I know, he only has a couple of traffic tickets,” the son told the Daily Mail. “It's crazy. I know my dad and I love him, but that's not like him.”
“He's not a violent person,” Oran Routh also said. “He's a hard worker and a great father. He's a great person, a good person and he's spent his whole life working.”
Ryan Routh, 58, was reportedly with a sniper a few hundred yards from Trump while he was playing golf at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, authorities said.
A Secret Service agent surveying the area a little ahead of Trump spotted the suspect as he stuck the barrel of his rifle into a chain-link fence surrounding the golf club's outdoor arena.
After the agents opened fire, Routh fled, and was captured a short time later.
Oran Routh said he didn't even know his father was in Florida, and when the two spoke recently he assumed he was in Hawaii.
“He said he was at the beach, but I thought that meant the outer coast of Hawaii,” she reportedly said. “I didn't ask him for more details because we had a falling out. We've grown apart.”
Oran did not elaborate on what he meant by differences between the two.
But he claimed he doesn’t believe his father had a gun “or saw him do anything like that,” he told the outlet.
After abruptly hanging up the phone, Oran Routh sent a lengthy message to the Daily Mail, in which he said that if his father wanted to be a “martyr,” that was “his choice” and complained that voters were “tired and embarrassed” by the candidates running for the White House.
“I hate this game that happens every four years, and think we all do, and if my father wants to be a martyr for how broken and disconnected this process has become from real problems and practical solutions, that's his choice,” he reportedly wrote in the message.
“I am not saying he did this or he is like that, it is just my own complaint because I am fed up with all this stuff my whole adult life.
“South Park said it best, every 4 years we're forced to choose between a turd sandwich and a giant douche, and it all stays bad in the same ways to varying degrees, and we're tired and embarrassed by it all.”
Ryan Routh has a criminal history dating back to his time in North Carolina, and in recent years he has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
This is the second time in nearly two months that Trump has been targeted by potential assassins as he runs against Vice President Kamala Harris in a bid to return to the White House.
