Exclusive | Alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Wesley Routh may have targeted Trump over Putin, former co-worker says
HONOLULU — Alleged would-be Trump assassin Ryan Wesley Routh may have targeted the former president over his admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former coworker told The Post.Routh, 58, was arrested Sunday hours after he aimed an AK-style rifle at Trump from a makeshift sniper’s nest in the shrubbery that lines the real estate mogul’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Fla.“He was against the war in Ukraine … but that’s what I put together, that he never liked him because he was with [Russian President Vladimir Putin],” Routh’s former coworker, John Tamura, told The Post Thursday of the assassination attempt, the second move on Trump’s life in just under three months.“I figured that’s probably why he disliked him.”Tamura, 59, worked with Routh building houses in Hawaii up until about four months ago, he explained.“He mentioned about politics, but I’m not into that so I wouldn’t get into it,” he said.“He just said he never liked [Trump] because he was with the Russian president…He never said nothing about killing anyone or anything like that.”Trump’s supposed relationship with Putin has been a source of speculation and criticism for years.In a radio interview in 2022, Trump boasted that he knew the Russian autocrat “very, very well” and called him “a very savvy” guy.Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Trump claimed that the war never would have started if he had been re-elected president in 2020.“Under our administration, Russia respected America, just like every other country respected America, but now Joe Biden is seen as weak,” Trump said at the time. “As everyone understands, this horrific disaster would never have happened if our election was not rigged and if I was the president.”Democrats have frequently accused Trump of relying on Russian help to win the presidency in 2016, despite the fact that an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller turned up no evidence of u...