America's Talking - Routh guilty on all charges in plot to kill Trump

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

(The Center Square) – Ryan Routh was found guilty of all charges in a plot to kill Donald Trump by a federal jury that needed little time to reach a verdict Tuesday afternoon. Deciding to represent himself and getting cautions many times from Judge Aileen Cannon along the way, Routh nevertheless presented himself as incapable of the five charges prosecutors levied against him. The jury of seven women and five men in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Fort Pierce ultimately were swayed more – needing only about two hours, 20 minutes – by the United States' attorneys and their 38 witnesses over seven days of testimony.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxRead more: https://www.thecentersquare.com/florida/article_43e8980d-915a-4479-96a4-88a5abb5f69d.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America's Talking. I'm Kristen Smith. Joining me today is the Center Square's East Coast managing editor, Alan Wooten. And Alan's here to talk about not quite the trial of the century, but perhaps the most interesting one that's happened this year. And that is of Ryan Ruth, who is the man that has now been convicted for attempting to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf course in September. And tell us more about some of the highlights of this trial. Well, Kristen, it was, I guess, the nice way to say it was quite fascinating because he was able to defend himself. He's a construction worker by trade, not a lawyer. And so there were a lot of bumps in the road as he went through the process. As anybody who's watched a courtroom would know, there's a lot of things that are just subtle and that there's a reason there's professionals to do that job. But he did the best he could. He only called three witnesses in his defense that lasted less than a day. Federal prosecutors brought 38 over seven days of testimony.

And so when he is convicted of attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, which was one of the charges, the other four were possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assaulting a federal officer, a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, possession of a firearm with an obliterate, rated serial number. Those are just things that the prosecution could bring. He had very little resistance objections to those things and little in the way of cross-examination. So that all the

charges went through not so much of a big surprise. It was either they would or they probably all would not. And obviously they did. And that verdict came back pretty quickly. Do you tell us a little bit more about some of the evidence that the prosecution brought. And, you know, as you mentioned, Ryan did not have a lot of defense. So can you tell us more about what the prosecution brought that proved their case? Well, he, you know, the prosecutors had FBI forensics. They had people that would be considered experts because this is what they do for a living. the things that they found around the golf course, they were able to tie those back to

Ryan Ruth. And one of the more interesting things was early in the trial. It was because of his affinity for Vienna sausages. They showed up in some of the selfie-type pictures and pictures he had had from previous before this thing. And then they were in the crime scene. And so little quirks like that were interesting and things that probably he's not looking at. His one defense or thing that kind of was said over and over again is if he didn't pull the trigger, then how can it be a crime?

And, you know, it was an attempted assassination. So it was a plot. And the prosecutors were able to prove that without a doubt that he was intending to do that. another interesting quirk I found was that he continually wanted to present himself as a gentle person not capable of violence and that kind of thing. When the trial ended, he took a pin that is flexible so you can't hurt yourself with it. And he tried to stick himself in the neck with it. So it was just like an immediate snap to what he said he was not.

And well, the jury was already gone. the verdict was in, but it was very telling. So what's next in this, this situation? I know he's got likely sentencing. Can you tell us a little bit about when and what he might face? Sure. The next thing, though, so he's back in prison. He will be sentenced on December the 18th that morning.

And he is facing up to a, his sentencing guidelines are a maximum of life in prison. Whether he fully gets that or not is questionable. But when you are attempting to take the life of a major presidential candidate, I would say chances are that it's probably going to lean more to that than not. But in any rate, yeah, December 18, we'll find out the next step for how long he'll stay in prison. All right, Alan, well, I expect that you will be on top of this case for us to follow it more. Follow us at thecenter square.com.