Monday, September 16, 2024

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1/ A man waited with a rifle for 12 hours at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida before a Secret Service agent spotted him and opened fire. Trump, who was golfing at the club at the time, was unharmed. The FBI said it “appear[ed] to be an attempted assassination.” Ryan Wesley Routh did not have Trump in his sightline and did not fire his semiautomatic rifle. After the Secret Service spotted the muzzle of a gun protruding from the bushes several hundred yards away, Routh fled the scene and left behind his phone, a loaded rifle with a scope, some food, and a digital camera. Routh was pulled over and arrested around 2:14 p.m. after a license-plate reader system reported his vehicle on I-95 – about 45 miles north of Trump International Golf Club. Routh’s cellphone records also show he was near the perimeter of the golf course from about 2 a.m. until 1:31 p.m. He was charged with two gun-related offenses: possession of a firearm as a convicted felon, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Routh’s past history of criminal convictions – including possession of a weapon “of mass death and destruction” – barred him from owning a gun. Routh was not accused of trying to kill Trump, but he did self-publish a 2023 book in which he appears to tell readers that they were “free to assassinate Trump.” (Associated Press / New York Times / Washington Post / NPR / Politico / Axios / ABC News / CNN / NBC News / Wall Street Journal / CNBC)

2/ Elon Musk deleted his post wondering why “no one is even trying to assassinate” Biden and Kamala Harris. Following intense backlash, Musk eventually deleted the post and tried to claim it was a “joke” that was “WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text.” The White House condemned Musk’s post, saying “violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about. This rhetoric is irresponsible.” Meanwhile, Trump blamed the polarized political environment he helped create on Biden and Harris, citing their “rhetoric.” (New York Times / CNN / Bloomberg / ABC News /

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