Ryan Wesley Routh was something else entirely a pickleball court fiend before allegedly becoming the second guy to attempt to kill Donald Trump in as many months.
He played the game fairly well. In a phone conversation with The Daily Beast, Bryant Schultz said, “He played hard.” The only person on the courts who would dive for the ball was him. To make a shot, the majority of pickleball players do not dive.
Over some years, Schultz, 62, of Kaneohe, Oahu, and Routh, 58, played pickleball frequently together as members of a loose coalition of locals who met at Swanzy Beach Park three mornings a week to play pickleball.
Routh was conversational and cordial with many of the park’s regulars, and Schultz described him as “always personable and good-natured” both on and off the court. He was harsh with himself when he erred, but he never corrected his partners. “Except for his own mistakes, he was the most courteous player around.”
Routh appeared in federal court on Monday and was accused of possessing two firearms. According to CNN, he testified before the court that he had “zero funds” in savings and that his only possessions were two vehicles in Hawaii.
His teammates weren’t entirely sure what Routh performed for a living. He “worked on building tiny houses,” according to Schultz, and would perform odd jobs and repairs all over the neighborhood, including a pier. As far as Schultz was aware, “he wasn’t paid or contracted,” he stated. “He simply went outside and created a safe walking surface for people.”
Routh promoted his work with Camp Box Honolulu, a company that he said constructs storage units and “very simple housing structures for the less fortunate,” on his LinkedIn page, which was still active on Monday. The Honolulu Star-Advertiser revealed in 2019 a year after Routh relocated to Oahu that he had promised to construct tiny homes for the homeless population of Kalaeloa.
Routh didn’t seem to be political, at least not on the pickleball court.
“I don’t remember him ever discussing politics,” Schultz remarked. He was unaware of it. In a 291-page book that he self-published last year, Routh criticized Trump for withdrawing from the Iran Nuclear Deal in 2018 and demanded the killing of the former president.
The Wall Street Journal said that Routh wrote, “You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal,” in a portion that seemed to be addressed to the Iranian authorities. “It seems like nobody in the US has the guts to use unnatural selection or even natural selection.”
From his time in his home state of North Carolina, where he registered as an “unaffiliated” voter in 2012, Routh has a fragmented political background. “I am so tired of people asking me if I am a Democrat or Republican as I refuse to be put in a category and I must always answer independent,” he said in his book.
He has publicly endorsed Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Biden, and Trump on social media, which he later withdrew.
“It appears you are getting worse and devolving. The world and I hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we were all greatly disappointed,” he tweeted in June of that year. “I’ll be happy when you’re gone.”
But Routh had flown out from Hawaii to fight for Kyiv shortly after the Russian invasion, as Schultz and his fellow picklers knew.
Routh told Newsweek Romania in an article recently uncovered by CBS News that he was turned down by the Ukrainian defense ministry despite having no military experience and a long criminal history.
“At first, I wanted to come battle… However, because I’m 56, at first they said, “You’re not a great candidate because you have no military experience,” he said to the magazine. “Therefore, they reasoned, now is not the time. Plan B was to travel to Kiev and encourage the arrival of more individuals.
In an attempt to serve as an unofficial recruiter for the International Legion of Ukraine, Routh spent some time in the city. He discussed his efforts with The New York Times and Semafor in the previous year. On Sunday night, however, some foreign soldiers connected to the legion informed Slate that Routh “was not associated with them, recruited nobody to the cause, and did little during his time in Ukraine aside from garner publicity.”
“We would like to clarify that Ryan Wesley Routh has never been part of, associated with, or linked to the International Legion in any capacity,” an International Legion official stated in a statement to NBC News. Any assertions or recommendations to the contrary are wholly false.
Following his unsuccessful recruitment attempts, Routh returned to Hawaii and resumed his pickleball game. According to Schultz, he was last seen four or five weeks before the attempted assassination. It was simply another day on the court nothing seemed out of the usual.