Ryan Routh jailed for life for trying to assassinate Donald Trump on golf course

A man has been jailed for life without parole for trying to assassinate Donald Trump as he played golf in 2024.

Secret Service agents spotted Ryan Routh in bushes a few hundred metres from Mr Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, on 15 September.

Routh, 59, fled and left behind an assault-style rifle but was arrested the same day.

The incident came two months after Mr Trump survived another assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in which the gunman was shot dead.

Routh was convicted in September of five charges, included attempted assassination, after declining a lawyer and mounting his own defence.

Routh tried to stab himself in the neck with a pen after the verdict was announced but was quickly surrounded and did not hurt himself.

A Secret Service agent told the jury he had spotted Routh in the bushes before Mr Trump was in sight. The gunman aimed at the agent but they opened fire and Routh dropped his weapon and ran.

The trial heard Routh had waited in thick bushes for nearly 10 hours and also left behind body armour-like metal plates and a video camera pointed at the course.

Prosecutors said he spent weeks plotting how to kill Mr Trump and arrived in Florida about a month before as he tracked Trump's movements and schedule.

They said the president would have been killed were it not for the Secret Service agent's intervention.

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Judge Aileen Cannon rejected a plea for a 27-year sentence and said a rambling statement by Routh, in which he spoke about foreign wars and said he wanted to be swapped with prisoners abroad, was irrelevant.

"I have given every drop of who I am every day ‌for the betterment of my community and this nation," Routh said in his comments.

The judge ultimately handed down a life sentence without parole at the Fort Pierce courtroom, telling him: "It's clear to me that you engaged in a premeditated, calculated plot to take a human life."

Routh's lawyer, Martin Roth, said his client cared deeply about others and had a "very good core" and told reporters he would appeal.