Would-be Trump assassin said Iran was free to kill former president

An American man arrested for a suspected assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Sunday wrote in a self-published book last year that Iran had a right to kill the former US president after he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal.

“I must take part of the blame for the retarded child that we elected for our next president that ended up being brain-less,” wrote Ryan Wesley Routh, a Hawaii resident who said he had voted for Trump in 2016.

“But I am man enough to say that I misjudged and made a terrible mistake and Iran I apologize. You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal”, he added, according to screenshots carried by media outlets.

No copies of the book were readily accessible or available for purchase as of Monday.

The nuclear deal or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was an agreement among Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany spearheaded by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama in 2015.

The Trump administration’s unilaterally withdrawal effectively scuppered the deal.

“I would like to celebrate the amazing work of John Kerry that very humbly and humanly handled the Iran deal which elated me and the whole of the world,” Routh wrote in his book, referring to the U.S. Secretary of State at the time.

U.S. authorities are scrutinizing Routh’s digital footprint in the wake of his arrest, including his book “Ukraine's Unwinnable War: The Fatal Flaw of Democracy, World Abandonment and the Global Citizen—Taiwan, Afghanistan, North Korea and the End of Humanity.”

Praise for Iranians

In his book which rambles and abounds in grammatical errors, Routh praises Iranians for protesting against their rulers’ “brutality”, in an apparent reference to a popular uprising following the death of a young woman in the custody of Iranian morality police in 2022.

“As I look at them they are exactly the same as citizens of the US and other civilians around the globe that protest injustice and it is a wonderful and honorable thing to see those standing up for their fellowman and unjust abuse,” Routh wrote. “I want to be there in the streets with the Iranians with banners and posters and screaming for justice. I would also like to be protesting in those streets against US sanctions.”

Routh was quoted in a New York Times article in 2023 saying he wanted to recruit ex-Afghan soldiers from Iran and Pakistan and move them to Ukraine.