WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Social Mediators: Donald Trump Assassination Attempts

Episode Date: September 21, 2024

This week we discuss both of the assassination attempts on Donald Trump. Tune in to hear some good ol' conspiracy theories, the little tiny good that comes out of this big terrible bad, and some generally scuzzy social media engagement with a genuinely scary thing! 

This is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM, where we examine the truth disparity between what's on social media and what's actually true. I'm Julian Parks. And I'm Garrett Gulesby. And today we're talking about Trump hunting. Uh-oh. Those are the words of Gereit Gouldsby. Actually, I can't take credit for that. But he has two different people have attempted to assassinate the former president of the United States.

And the first attempt, this is so bad. But when it first happened, I was like, oh, no, the social mediators isn't going on. We can't talk about it. Like it was my first, my first thought was like, oh, no, it's the summer and I'll never be able to tell people about the social mediators. No? Tell people via the social mediators what's going on. But now we can. But there's been a second one.

So while this is sad, we are sad about it. People shouldn't kill other people. But it means we get to talk about it. It does. It's one of those things that's like the good thing coming out of a bad thing. Kind of a very small good thing out of a pretty big, bad thing. That's a good thing. we should probably talk about the degree a little bit.

Like that should be taken into consideration maybe. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, I'm going to start with social media musings. First one I want to talk about is this Twitter account called Alt Navigation. And it's this account that gives basically just Trump updates. And they change their like big, not username, but like the name that appears when you search them up every time something big happens. So the next one, the most recent one they have is Donald Trump's second assassination attempt to 2024.

But they change it depending on what happened. So when the first assassination attempt happened, it was something, I saw it. And it was something like Trump, somebody tried to shoot Trump gets shot or something like that. It was something like really uncreative. But their bio right now is Thomas Matthew Crooks and now Ryan Wesley Ralph's Ruth. Ruth. Ruth. It's just Ruth.

I know it very strange. Thank you. I've only ever read it, never heard it. Ruth has tried to assassinate have well it should be have but it says has oh terrific have tried to assassinate Donald Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election within two months so that's a pretty good recap thank you alt navigation for that um but then the rest of the account is like really so scary in there you would don't want to go there oh okay it's just a lot of like it's just kind of what you would think from like really right wing media and like the way that that would look

if you were to like close your eyes and imagine it that's what they look like to me I'm doing it right now Awesome. So here's what I know about them from the social media. There's a lot of things that people talk about. A lot of conspiracy theories. One conspiracy theory just remind me of if I don't say it. Okay. What I know happened is there was our friend, he's like 20 years old, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Thomas, I'll call him. He crawled on top of a roof building, a building that there were maybe police officers in or CIA agents. We'll talk about where the people that were supposed to be protecting the president were at that time. Because it's kind of. kind of confusing and doesn't still doesn't make a ton of logical sense why it happened the way it happened but anyway which is why i think there's a there's like you said conspiracy theories abounding but um there were people in the building below him that probably should have stopped him and there's actually quite a few videos on social media they're all kind of from the same angle so i think it's like the same group that maybe posted them of people like zooming in on thomas like laying down on

the roof with a gun and everybody yelling like he has a gun like somebody do something so people knew that he was up there. There's just not a ton being done about it. And then he shooted Trump. He sure did. He shooted him. And then it hit his ear. I know that because I saw that awesome photo on Instagram that I think a Wall Street Journal reporter maybe took. Oh no, I think it's AP News took it. Some really good photographer took that awesome photo. Awesome in the sense that it's objectively awesome. Photographically good. Not that he got shot that's bad. Thank you. Yeah, exactly. bad to get shot. And yeah, I know there's a ton of conspiracies about like, why didn't anyone do anything

and why was there not more repercussions? I don't know. But Thomas also then got shot. I don't know who shot him. A secret service agent, I assume. Yes. And he died. But social media has made it very clear via conspiracy theory, Twitter,

that his body was very quickly cremated and that there was no toxology, toxicology report. And so we can't know what kind of. substances were in his body at that point. And a lot of people think that they did that because the Secret Service hired him to shoot Trump and then pumped him full of drugs so that he would be brave enough to do it. So take that as you will. It is an interesting theory. It is not particularly compelling to me.

The second assassination attempt is a little bit more foggy to me because some tweets said that there were shots fired and some tweets said that there were no shots fired and that the Secret Service got him before. So I know that his name, like I said, was Ryan. and he was on a golf course when Trump was golfing, although people also think it's strange that Trump's golfing schedule was not published. So how did he know that he was going to be golfing that day? I don't know.

But he was there for like something about three hours sitting there with what said like a, well, I read one tweet that said AK-47. So I've decided to go with that, that he had an AK-47, which is actually now that I'm saying out loud sounds crazy. Don't listen to me anymore. Twitter's the worst place in the world So there's somebody with a gun and Apparently there were shots fired

But there also are lots of tweets that said there were no shots fired And he was gotten before So I'd like you to tell me which one of those is true I don't know which one is true I didn't put too much work into it There's so much awesome conspiracy out there That just makes me laugh Oh 12 hours not three

Here's two different tweets But this one says 12 and that makes more That's even crazier but for some reason I find it more believable that he was there for 12 hours I don't know. So one conspiracy theory that makes me laugh really hard is that they found these, what started as saying both people who attempted to assassinate Trump were in Black Rock commercials. This is, I've heard this one. Which is untrue because only one of them was a Black Rock commercial.

BlackRock is like a, I guess maybe like a consulting firm or something for teachers who want to like plan out their retirement assets or whatever. So there's one, but both commercials are. so funny to me because one is just a commercial highlighting this one specific economics teacher and like Ryan happens to be a student that was in like the background of that filming and then the black rock's commercial no that was the black rock commercial and then Ryan Ruth was in a pro-Ukrainian propaganda video I probably shouldn't say propaganda I'm just reading the tweet verbatim but there was a video that was like pro-Ukraine and he was like one of the still like B-roll people wearing an American flag Another thing that Twitter really likes to take and run with is the fact that they were apparently both registered Republicans.

Although that makes me laugh because I don't know if that's fully true because Thomas was a registered Republican. There's a lot of evidence on that. But the other guy, the evidence that they presented for him being a registered Republican was literally two photos of him wearing an American flag. And the caption was like, the internet doesn't want you to see these. And I was like, really? Are you a Republican if you wear an American flag? Apparently? I mean, maybe?

I mean, I don't think so, though. So I don't know if he's a Republican. Maybe you know. maybe you don't. I think that is all of the like information. Yeah, AK-47. It really is what that's the tweet says. I'm reading it again.

And it says the Secret Service engaged in gunfire afterward. Ooh. Oh, yeah. There's three tweets to say AK-47. So maybe that's true, but that's crazy if true. Yeah, that's all I have for social media's world. It was kind of one of those things that you're scrolling through and you're like, I really hate social media.

This is making me sick in my stomach. There are counter. Oh, I should probably mention there are counter conspiracy theories as well of the other side being like, just other side stuff. But the ones that are really compelling are funny to me were the ones from Republicans. I'm sure people on the left also had conspiracy theories. For those of you who are just tuning in, this is the social mediators on Radio Free Hillsdale, 1 in 1.1.7 FM.

I'm Julian Parks. And I'm Garrett Goulsby. And we're talking about Trump getting almost assassinated two times. Yeah. So I'm going to talk about the most recent one first because there's kind of more to say. I don't know. The one that happened a while ago is curiously stalled in terms of what we know about it. Like our amount of information hasn't really continuously increased.

Oh, everybody thinks there's two shooters. I never said that. Everybody on Twitter thinks there were two shooters in the first one. Oh, I haven't heard that. Because you can apparently hear people yelling about another shooter in the back of that video. There was never any confirmation that there was any shooter other than just the one. Bummer, everyone says there's two. Well, let's talk about Ryan Wesley Ruth because he is an interesting fella.

He's our more timely one, right? Yeah, so this happened September 16th, which was just a few days ago. What day is it? It's the 20th today. So it was four days ago. And yeah, he was hiding in the bushes at Donald Trump's golf course at the club where Donald Trump golfs and had been there, according to satellite records of his phone location for over 12 hours. Wow.

And hiding in the bushes is kind of ambiguous. You know, you think to yourself, oh, he's just like right off the golf course hiding in bushes. He's actually behind a fence that goes around the golf course. But he had stuck his rifle through the fence. Was it an AK-47? It was not an AK-47. It was a high-powered rifle. I'm not exactly sure where people are getting that from other than that if there is a picture now that has come out of kind of his little hiding spot because he left his gun there.

when he ran. And the gun is AK-47 shaped. Okay. It sort of resembles it. It's a very grainy, awful picture. But it is not upon further analysis in AK-47. Excellent. Anyway, high-powered semi-automatic rifle.

But yeah, there's a lot of kind of weird things about this case. At least I think, let me just kind of walk through the details. First of all, shots were fired, not by him. So the way that. the security service detail works when a president is in a place like a golf course and they're moving, they use what's called a rolling bubble, which basically means that there are people detailing security several holes behind him on the golf course and several holes in front of him. And it kind of moves with him, right? The detail that was several holes in front of him, they saw when a security secret service

agents saw the rifle poking out of the fence and shot right away. Oh. And what this caused, of course, as any sane person would do, Ruth left. He got shot at so he ran away got in his car and started driving and of course

a chase ensued state police and the Secret Service they're chasing him and he actually manages to get what I thought was relatively far away

he got about 50 miles away That's a really long way I know here's a weird thing he didn't he didn't realize that he was being chased

he thought that he had escaped that they hadn't realized it was him because he was just driving with the flow of traffic. Like he wasn't racing away. He was being chased by all these police officers. He wasn't, you know, speeding away as fast as he could.

Because you have to remember, when he gets in his car and drives away, it's not like the Secret Service can see his vehicle. They can go, oh, it's that car. We need to follow that one. And they get in their cars and they pull right away. It's not so simple, right? So they had some tracking to do. But eventually they find him. And there's body cam footage now of his arrest.

And he seems like kind of a quirky, funny guy to me because he, When he's getting arrested, he pulls his own shirt like up over onto his head. So he's like, you can see his back and there's kind of a blur for his little butt crack that is kind of exposed there, which I just think is amusing. Why did he pull his shirt up? I don't know. I think he's being a goober. I'm not really sure. Is he like sad, like trying to cover his face?

Not clear. So also he's like 58 years old. He's not a young guy. Wait, I kind of thought he was a young in. No, he's in his late 50s. Gosh. Every photo I saw of him was from that like Ukraine video and he looked young to me. No, he's in his 50s.

So he gets arrested and immediately is like, I'm not talking. Give me my lawyer. So essentially, no new news on him as far as that goes. He's awaiting representation. So that part of the case is kind of stalled. Meanwhile, the FBI being really good at their jobs has found out all kinds of other stuff about him. So here's what we know about him. He has two places of residence.

He's from North Carolina, but he also has a home in Hawaii. Now, he's not wealthy. Okay. He owns like a small business in Hawaii. They make sheds, something like that. But he's not a wealthy guy. And his political ideologies are really, really tough to track in some ways. He said that Trump was his political choice in 2016, but he feels that Trump has let America down.

And also. So he tried to kill him? So he tried to kill him. Well, the motive for why he tried to kill him is actually still unclear. We still don't know if that is what exactly the reason was. Oh, okay. And there's even some, this is, I thought was a little bit amusing. It appears that.

He tried to self-publish a book. The contents of this book, I couldn't actually find good details about it. But one thing was clear is that he invited Iranian terrorists to, like, take shots at Trump, to, like, try to kill him in the book. In the book? Yeah. So some interesting anti-Trump leanings there. That being said, there is still this kind of track record of maybe he was Republican for a time, but kind of has gone over to the other side of the aisle.

And the big thing that is unambiguous about his political beliefs is that he is super pro-Ukraine. Yeah, true. A huge fan of Ukraine. And you mentioned the ad with him in it about the Ukraine war. That's totally legit. He's been like a super noisy. voice over as an American in Ukraine for quite some time. All right.

And so he originally, when the Ukraine war broke out, he went to Kiev and wanted to fight. He goes and he offers himself up for military service. And the military brass take one look at him and say, you're 57 years old. We're not putting you out in combat. Perfect. And so he was super bummed about that. Stayed in Kiev and started trying to basically drum up support for people. people joining the fight. And he did this in a variety of ways. And I think it seems to me that his

schemes for promoting fighting in Ukraine have gotten progressively more elaborate. It started out with just like trying to convince people that were there, like, hey, you need to join the fight, and progress to trying to get people from other countries, like get people in America, convince them to come over and fight as soldiers in Ukraine. And his most recent, and I think wild scheme, is to try to get Afghan soldiers that are fleeing from the Taliban to fight for Ukraine, which is kind of a circuitous way to bolster your army. But anyway, so he's just kind of a – he's an interesting guy. He doesn't sound very stable to me.

No, he doesn't sound very stable. But what's interesting is I found some interview quotes from talks with his son. He has a son. And his son said that all of this was very kind of out of blue, out of character. He was not a violent, you know, not a violent man. It seemed to be a loving father. But he has a criminal rap sheet longer than my arm. All right. So he has been convicted of a felony, which was, I believe, owning a weapon of mass destruction, which is he owned a fully automatic machine gun, which is considered a weapon of mass destruction. So that was a felony. He has numerous

misdemeanors evading arrest. At one point actually had like a gun standoff with police officers in North Carolina where he barricaded himself inside a local business. So he's had all kinds of run-ins with the law. He was convicted of a hit and run. And gosh, what else? Concealed arms violations. Possession of a lot of stolen property. Okay.

They interviewed his neighbor and his neighbor was like, yeah, he was a really sweet man. He did have a lot of stolen things in his house, but he was just a sweetheart. Stolen things is funny. That interview clip was hilarious, I thought, because she was. He's just like, yeah, he wouldn't hurt a fly, but also he stole a lot of things. A lot of stuff. So, yeah, information about this guy is still coming out. We don't know why he did what he did exactly.

But essentially the news is he was unsuccessful. He never actually even had line of sight on President Trump. But it is really curious, like, why was he, how did he know? We still don't know how he knew that President Trump was going to be golfing that day. I don't know either. And at what time? did wait for a long time. So there is potentially an argument to be made that he just knew that

Trump would eventually be there and parked himself there and got lucky. That would also be an insane thing to do. Kind of a weak argument. But, you know, maybe not the most stable person. So who knows what kind of decisions he's going to make. What a guy. Yeah. But we don't know much about him right now. He's just like waiting representation.

He is adamant that he will say nothing until he gets legal representation. Which is right as an American. True. So let's talk about Thomas Crookes, real quick. This is the first guy, right? Yeah, first guy.

Not a ton to say. He's 20 years old. Not anymore. Yeah. He's dead now. Bullied in high school a lot. This always happens. There's now a couple of clips that have come out of him being bullied, which is really, really tragic.

Why are there clips of this? There's just people that knew him have, you know, kind of come out and said like, oh, you know, I saw this happen. Which is terrible. Wait, that's so sad. Yeah. He actually. He tried out for his high school's rifle team and failed because he was a comically bad shot, which is sort of ironic now in light of recent events. And he did appear in a Black Rock commercial.

He does not work for Black Rock. This is totally a coincidence. I know. I feel like it just happened. There's been so many conspiracies about this. Black Rock is an asset manager that manages over like trillions of dollars worth of assets. Okay. They have no affiliation with Thomas Crookes whatsoever.

It just happened to be at it. I'm confused about why that would be a conspiracy, though. Like, the word that they used on Twitter was globalist. It's like BlackRock and these pro-Ukrainian propaganda. Like, it's all globalists. And I'm a little bit confused about what Black Rock has to do with that at all. Well, you know, you try to, let me, again, this is a conspiracy theory. So I'm trying to put words in the mouth of people that are already putting words in the mouth of other people.

But my guess would be that they look at Black Rock as the deep pockets to finance whatever. kind of undercover deep state weird stuff is going on with trying to move the world around. Okay. They probably do believe that. Yeah. Yeah. Thomas Crooks took a shot at Trump, hit him in the ear. Also killed one man in the process.

Several were hurt. There was an audience member that was killed in the rally. Yes. It was just as he was shooting at Trump, he, you know, some of the bullets missed and a man did die. That's terrible. I did not know about this at all. He was a, I believe, a firefighter and a father of several children. and by all, you know, superficial observation, like a really upstanding wonderful citizen.

Wow, that's so... Wow. Yeah, Thomas Crookes' motive is still unknown. He was a registered Republican. Then again, he was only 20, so you all know how firmly entrenched your political ideologies are at such a young age. Right. Who knows what he actually believed were still... So they were both registered Republicans?

It actually didn't find information. about whether Ruth was a registered Republican. There is evidence that he voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election, but in terms of what his political affiliations right now are, hard to say. Okay. Man, I wish that wasn't hard. I wish that people wouldn't shoot people, and then it would be like, it's hard to see what his political affiliation would be.

I feel like you could see that. I mean, like, I pretty much know. Yeah. But he might be so insane that you can't. I don't know. Hard to say. Okay, well, that's a real bummer. Do we want to give social media a quick grade on this?

Yeah, I didn't know that somebody actually died. I'm very sorry to be the one to tell you. That's a real bummer that social media doesn't even talk about that at all. Social media barely talks about the assassination attempt at all. Okay. I think I'm ready to give social media a grade. Okay. Ready?

Three, two, one. D. Yeah, I just think I'm nicer than you. Yeah, big time. But it's still not good. Social media has bad info on it for this, I think. I mean, there is info. I mean, obviously I had some.

Surprise they didn't include that one guy died. I know. That didn't come up. That seems big. There was also just like that conspiracy theory was only recently fact checked anyway. So it was a big deal like everybody's been in a black rock commercial. Like that kind of is cringe to me that you're going to lie about that. There's a lot of like poor information out there on this, which is a real shame because I think it would be taken more seriously if conspiracy theories weren't what was paramount in the conversation.

Like I think if we could talk about this in a real way without having to be like, and probably the CIA plan. I think we would do a better service to the rest of society, honestly, if we could just talk about things a little bit more normally and then let conspiracies be a fringe thing, but it seems like the forefront, at least with social media, as like a million different conspiracy theories. Not saying they're not right. I'm not saying they're incorrect or there's no truth to them. I'm just saying that makes it seem all kind of silly in fantasy when it's like actually a very real weird thing that's happening in our democracy.

Do you agree? I think I do agree. It is said that conspiracy theories have become the center of the forefinding. focus when for a long time they were just fun you know right weird and we could be like ha ha interesting that people think that yeah exactly but now we're focusing on them kind of a bummer but this is kind of a bummer episode because shooting is kind of bummer while shooting people to kill them as well anyway um thanks so much for tuning in to the social mediators this week i'm jeline parks and i'm gary ghoulos and we'll talk to you next week