Man suspected of attempting assassination of Trump ordered to remain in jail without bond – report
On Monday, Ryan Routh, 58 – who was arrested in Florida this month and accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf course – was ordered to remain in jail without bond to await trial on two gun-related charges, according to a new report from Reuters.
This comes as US prosecutors are seeking to charge Routh with attempting to assassinate a major political candidate, Reuters added.
Earlier today, it was revealed in a court filing that Routh left behind a note where he acknowledged that he intended to kill the former president.
Key events
Trump accuses justice department of ‘mishandling and downplaying’ second assassination attempt
Donald Trump launched a partisan attack on the justice department and FBI in a just-released statement, accusing the agencies of showing leniency towards the suspect arrested last week for apparently attempting to assassinate him.
“The Kamala Harris/Joe Biden Department of Justice and FBI are mishandling and downplaying the second assassination attempt on my life since July. The charges brought against the maniac assassin are a slap on the wrist,” the former president wrote.
He went on to accuse the agencies of conspiring against him, mentioning his two impeachments as well as his involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, among other scandals that occurred during his presidency, and after. “The DOJ and FBI have a Conflict of Interest since they have been obsessed with ‘Getting Trump’ for so long”,” he wrote.
Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who was Trump’s one-time rival but has since endorsed him, has announced that the state will open its own investigation of the incident, which occured at Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach.
Trump said that investigation should be taken precedent:
If the DOJ and FBI cannot do their job honestly and without bias, and hold the aspiring assassin responsible to the full extent of the Law, Governor Ron DeSantis and the State of Florida have already agreed to take the lead on the investigation and prosecution. Florida charges would be much more serious than the ones the FBI has announced. The TRUTH would be followed, wherever it leads. OUR JUSTICE SYSTEM IS CORRUPT AND DISCREDITED, especially as it pertains to the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. LET FLORIDA HANDLE THE CASE!
Police Leaders for Community Safety, a nonpartisan advocacy organization made up of law enforcement leaders from across the US, has endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for president.
In a statement posted on Monday, Sue Riseling the chair of the organization, said that the endorsement of Harris “reflects Vice President Harris’ track record and unwavering commitment to public safety and the rule of law”.
Riseling added that as law enforcement leaders, they “know first-hand what it will take to make our communities safer – and that includes having Kamala Harris as our next President.”
Man suspected of attempting assassination of Trump ordered to remain in jail without bond – report
On Monday, Ryan Routh, 58 – who was arrested in Florida this month and accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf course – was ordered to remain in jail without bond to await trial on two gun-related charges, according to a new report from Reuters.
This comes as US prosecutors are seeking to charge Routh with attempting to assassinate a major political candidate, Reuters added.
Earlier today, it was revealed in a court filing that Routh left behind a note where he acknowledged that he intended to kill the former president.
The Republican Governors Association reportedly said in a statement that its pro-Mark Robinson advertisements are set to expire on Tuesday, and that no further placements have been made, according to the New York Times.
This comes just days after CNN reported that Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor of North Carolina, had made disturbing comments on a porn message forum, including describing himself as a black Nazi.
Earlier today, it was also reported that several of Robinson’s top staffers on his campaign have quit in the days following the media report.
Joe Biden is scheduled to appear on ABC’s The View talk show on Wednesday, the network announced, adding that it will be Biden’s first interview since the Democratic National Convention and the July presidential debate.
The network added:
The exclusive appearance marks the first live appearance by a sitting president on the show and the second time a sitting president has visited, following former Barack Obama’s history-making visit which aired July 29, 2010.
Joanna Walters
The United States is sending additional troops to the Middle East during the sharp surge in violence between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon that has raised the risk of a greater regional war, the Pentagon said moments ago.
Pentagon press secretary Maj Gen Pat Ryder would provide no details on how many additional forces or what they would be tasked to do. The US currently has about 40,000 troops in the region, the Associated Press writes.
The new deployments come after significant strikes by Israeli forces against targets inside Lebanon that have killed hundreds and as Israel is preparing to conduct further operations and the state department is warning Americans to leave Lebanon as the risk of a regional war increases.
Due to the unpredictable nature of ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel and recent explosions throughout Lebanon, including Beirut, the US embassy urges US citizens to depart Lebanon while commercial options still remain available,” the state department had cautioned on Saturday.
You can follow the latest updates on the Middle East in our dedicated live blog:
The day so far
The man suspected of attempting an assassination of Donald Trump wrote a note where he acknowledged that he indeed intended to kill the former president, federal prosecutors revealed in a court filing. The document included several new details of the incident at a Florida golf course where Trump was playing last week, including that the FBI geolocated two cellphones belonging to Ryan Wesley Routh to the area around the former president’s properties in the weeks leading to his arrest. Meanwhile, a new poll shows Kamala Harris trailing the former president in three of the four Sun Belt swing states, while another survey has her seeing a historic spike in her favorability ratings.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
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A government shutdown seems to have been averted, with Republican speaker Mike Johnson heading off the politically damaging disruption by agreeing to a spending deal that does not include measures against non-citizen voting, which Trump had demanded.
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Harris won the endorsements of hundreds of former national security and military officials, who said Trump “has proven he is not up to the job”.
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The White House laid out how Joe Biden will spend his final months in office, dubbing it the “sprint to the finish”.
White House announces Biden’s ‘sprint to the finish’ in final months of presidency
Joe Biden is set to depart the White House next January, after he ended his bid for a second term and endorsed Kamala Harris. This morning, his administration’s communications director Ben LaBolt announced Biden’s “sprint to the finish”, a plan to spend his final months in office doing what he can to achieve his administration’s priorities.
“When the president decided to step back from the campaign and endorse the vice-president, he called his senior team together that day and said we need a plan for the next 180 days to finish as strong as we started,” LaBolt wrote, continuing:
Every day the president meets with his team, he is pushing to lay it all out on the field for the remainder of the term. His directives are:
Aggressively execute on the rest of his agenda
Look for new opportunities to put a stake in the ground for the future
Hit the road to highlight the Biden-Harris record
Show up as a president for all Americans and communicate directly with them on how the Biden-Harris Agenda will pay dividends now and 10, 20, 30 years into the future
LaBolt offered a preview of what Biden would be doing in the days and weeks to come:
The week of 9/23, the president will roll out new policy to combat gun violence. This is a president who has taken dozens of executive actions to counter the scourge of gun violence, established the first ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention – overseen by the vice-president, and signed the most significant gun violence prevention legislation in nearly 30 years.
The week of 9/23, the president will give a speech on the historic work he has done to tackle the climate crisis and the Biden-Harris administration will make new policy announcements to keep building on this progress
The president will keep traveling the country – highlighting the Biden-Harris record
The president will travel internationally as he continues to strengthen our alliances and partnerships on the world stage, which has been a top priority for him as president having restored American leadership on the world stage
North Carolina has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 2008, but recent polls have shown Kamala Harris within striking distance of taking its 16 electoral votes. The Guardian’s George Chidi has a look at why:
Landon Simonini found himself standing in the middle of a Charlotte highway lane at 2.30 in the afternoon, stuck in an artificial traffic jam while drivers waited for Kamala Harris’s plane to land and the motorcade to clear for the rally later that day.
He was out of his car, because why not? He wasn’t going anywhere soon. His red Make America great again cap stood out among others cursing the traffic gods.
Simonini, born and bred in Charlotte, builds houses. His livelihood depends to some degree on Charlotte’s tremendous growth. But not all growth is great, he said.
“This is a traditionally southern state,” Simonini said. “Over 100 people move to Charlotte a day. That is changing the election map. I am born and raised in Charlotte, for 33 years. I have lived here my entire life. I went to school at UNC Charlotte. This is my city. It is a conservative city and I want to keep it that way.”
But in America’s nail-biting 2024 presidential election, North Carolina is now in play. It rejoins a select list of crucial swing states whose voters will decide if Harris becomes America’s first woman of color to win the White House or if Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office from which he wreaked political chaos for four years.
Hundreds of former national security officials endorse Harris
A group of more than 700 former military and national security officials have released an open letter endorsing Kamala Harris over Donald Trump, who they write “has proven he is not up to the job”.
“Harris has proven she is an effective leader able to advance American national security interests. Her relentless diplomacy with allies around the globe preserved a united front in support of Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. She grasps the reality of American military deterrence, promising to preserve the American military’s status as the most ‘lethal’ force in the world,” reads the letter released by National Security Leaders for America.
As for Trump, the group writes:
Mr Trump threatens our democratic system; he has said so himself. He has called for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution. He said he wants to be a “dictator,” and his clarification that he would only be a dictator for a day is not reassuring. He has undermined faith in our elections by repeating lies, without evidence, of “millions” of fraudulent votes.
He has shown no remorse for trying to overturn the 2020 election on January 6th, promises to pardon the convicted perpetrators, and has made clear he will not respect the results of the 2024 election should he lose again.
That alone proves Mr Trump is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.
Here’s more:
Days after the House of Representatives failed to pass a government spending bill coupled with legislation against non-citizen voting demanded by Donald Trump, the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, is making a new attempt to head off a government shutdown without bowing to the former president’s demands. Here’s more on the legislative maneuvering, from the Guardian’s Robert Tait:
US congressional leaders have agreed to a short-term funding deal in a move that averts a damaging pre-election government shutdown and also amounts to a snub for Donald Trump.
The prospect of a shutdown at the expiration of the current government funding on 30 September had been looming after Republicans insisted on tying future funding to legislation that would require voters to show proof of US citizenship – known as the Save Act and backed by Trump but opposed by Democrats.
After weeks of backroom maneuvering, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, announced a compromise that provides funding for another three months while decoupling it from the Save Act. Any other path would have been “political malpractice”, he added.
The new package continues present spending levels while also giving $231m in emergency funds to the beleaguered Secret Service to enable it to provide added protection for Trump – the Republican presidential nominee, who has been the subject of two failed apparent assassination attempts – as well as his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, before the presidential election on 5 November.
It represents a climbdown for Johnson, who had previously adhered to Trump’s demand that government funding be conditioned on passing the Save Act. The bill – has become an article of faith for the former president and his supporters due to their belief, unsupported by evidence, that electoral fraud is rife.
