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Former President Donald Trump’s visit to his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday was an “off-the-record” plan, according to U.S. Secret Service (USSS) Acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr.
A suspect, 58-year-old Ryan Routh, has been taken into custody in connection to the apparent assassination attempt against Trump while the former president was playing golf at the Trump International Golf Club in southern Florida over the weekend. It is the second assassination attempt on the former president amid this year’s election, following a shooting at his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, that left Trump with an injury to the tip of his right ear.
No injuries were reported after the incident over the weekend and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is leading the investigation.
Law enforcement said that a Secret Service agent spotted the suspect poking the barrel of a rile out of a bush-lined fence within 500 yards of the former president on Sunday. That agent opened fire at Routh who fled the scene by vehicle and was later taken into custody in a nearby county.
As Rowe Jr. explained to reporters during a press briefing Monday afternoon, Trump was not originally scheduled to be at the golf course Sunday and described the trip as an “off-the-record movement.”
“The protective methodologies of the Secret Service were effective yesterday,” Rowe Jr. said who assumed the position after the former USSS director Kimberly Cheatle resigned amid increased scrutiny for how the service handled security at Trump’s Butler rally.
Rowe Jr. told reporters that there was “no posting up of” the location because the former president “wasn’t supposed to have gone there in the first place.” He emphasized, however, that the Secret Service takes a “layered approach” to securing the former president, including agents “sweeping” the area ahead of Trump as he was playing golf.
“That’s what identified this individual who was in that woodline,” Rowe Jr. said Monday. “And the swift action of that agent doing his job, pushing out ahead, sweeping while the president was behind him, several hundred yards and several holes away, out of sight from the gunman.”
Rowe Jr. added that at this point in the investigation, there is no information on if or how Routh knew Trump was going to be at the golf course. Rowe also told reporters that he has spoken with the former president since Sunday’s incident.
Trump returned to Florida over the weekend after several campaign stops along the West Coast late last week. The Associated Press reported that the Florida golf course was partially shut down for Trump as he played Sunday but that there are “several areas around the perimeter of the property” where golfers can be seen from the club’s fence line.
The AP added that Secret Service agents and other law enforcement are often in golf carts and ATVs securing the area several holes ahead and behind Trump as he plays golf, which is a frequent pastime of the former president’s. The agents often also bring an armored vehicle onto the course in the case that Trump needs to take shelter quickly.
Rowe Jr. told reporters Monday that the current security presence at and around the former president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach County is “not much” different from when Trump was in office between 2017 and 2021.
“There is heavy uniform presence out there,” he added.
The acting USSS director repeatedly praised his agents for “rising to meet an unprecedented and hyper-dynamic threat environment” in light of Trump’s assassination attempt earlier this summer. Rowe Jr. also highlighted President Joe Biden’s efforts to increase assets for the Secret Service following the rally in Butler. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump this November, have denounced political violence following Sunday’s incident.
“We have great support, not only from President Biden,” Rowe Jr. said, but from members of Congress as well.
“I’ve been up to the Hill last week,” he added. “We are continuing to have those conversations. But the long and short of it is this, coming out of Butler, [Pennsylvania], I have ordered a paradigm shift.”
Update 09/16/24, 7:09 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information and background.