WorldNetDaily was never big on anything resembling actual journalism — now it’s just repeating unverified social media posts and calling them “news.” After a man named Ryan Routh was arrested outside one of Donald Trump’s golf courses for allegedly planning to shoot him, WND’s first “article” is just an embedded Twitter/X post stating, “The man behind the second attempt on Donald Trump’s life has been identified as Ryan Routh. A registered Democrat, Routh’s social media profiles suggest strong allegiance to Ukraine and a deep disdain for Trump.” It was illustrated with what appear to be images from what is claimed to be Routh’s Twitter/X account, though the varied formatting of them and unknown screenshot origin suggest at least some of them may not be authentic.
This was followed later on Sept. 15 by something resembling an actual article with Bob Unruh’s byline that touted another social-media claim:
A video has been exposed that reportedly is of an interview of Ryan Routh, the suspect in Sunday’s attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, promoting fighting for Ukraine.
Collin Rugg of Trending Politics posted the video, explaining it was done by Newsweek Romania:
Unruh offered no evidence that he fact-checked the veracity of the video. Then came a third article that day by Unruh, headlined “Social media start building bio of suspect in Trump assassination attempt.” Despite that, Unruh went to actual media, admitting that “a New York Times piece about Ukraine included details of his life, about how he traveled to Ukraine to fight, and then turned to recruiting other fighters to travel there.” Unruh then lazily filled out his article with more social media posts — some from WND — obsessing over Routh’s alleged links to Ukraine.
A Sept. 16 article by Unruh hammered on Routh’s alleged Democratic links:
As more and more information comes out about the apparent assassination attempt against President Donald Trump on Sunday, and the arrest of a suspect, Americans will need to watch that the reporting they read aligns with the facts.
That’s after Time magazine claimed that the suspect had an “unclear political ideology,” even as images of a Biden-Harris bumper sticker on his truck were available.
The suspect was identified as Ryan Routh, 58, with a criminal record and a history of praising Iran and lobbying for fighters for Ukraine.
After Time’s statement regarding his “unclear political ideology,” readers on social media delivered the facts: “Routh recently voted in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024. He also donated to Act Blue in 2019, and 2020 (a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates):”
But Unruh and WND don’t necessarily “align with the facts” when it comes to Routh. Actual fact-checkers at FactCheck.org point out that Routh’s political affiliations have, in fact, been all over the place; in recent years he had expressed support for Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, but also for Republican Vivek Ramaswamy. While he had once been a registered Democrat, he has had no party affiliation since 2002 — disproving WND’s original claim about Routh.
Daniel McCarthy bought into the rhetoric in his Sept. 16 column: “Routh, 58 and now in custody, “frequently posted about politics” on X and other social media, had a Biden-Harris sticker on his truck, ‘and exclusively donated to Democratic candidates and causes dating back to 2019,’ the New York Post reports.”
Josh Hammer’s Sept. 20 column parroted the same line:
This Sunday, former President Donald Trump survived an attempted assassination for the second time in a span of roughly two months. The first would-be assassin, the mysterious Thomas Crooks, donated $15 to ActBlue, the well-known Democratic fundraising platform. The second would-be assassin, the considerably less mysterious Ryan Routh, has a prolific public record. Routh, a convicted felon and supporter of Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, had an over-the-top, creepy obsession with Ukraine – one of the defining causes of the contemporary Left. Routh’s social media accounts were rife with de rigueur left-wing platitudes about the alleged unprecedented threat posed by Trump to America’s democracy and constitutional order.
No mention, of course, of Routh’s right-wing sympathies. Meanwhile, an anonymously written Sept. 17 article was another lazy reposted tweet complaining that the New York Times had called Routh a “serial crusader” without explaining exactly what the problem is.
UPDATE: Daniel McCarthy used his Sept. 23 column — also published at Newsmax — to push this narrative:
The man who intended to murder former President Donald Trump on Sept. 18 has explained in his own words why he wanted to do it.
The words aren’t only his, though – they’re also the slogans and cliches of Trump’s Democratic opponents, virtually verbatim.
[…]He took deadly seriously what people who aren’t deranged recognize as partisan hype.
Yet there are a great many disturbed persons at large in America today, and Routh is the second one to hatch plans to put a bullet in Trump.
His letter, addressed “Dear World,” calls for others to follow his example – and proffers a reward for doing so.
[…]The chilling thing about his letter is that it’s not a mindless, stream-of-consciousness rant: It’s an assassin’s manifesto written in the bland language of ordinary anti-Trump discourse.
[…]Democrats have created an extraordinary climate of fear around Trump, however, that feeds into homicidal fantasies – and if they don’t weigh their words more carefully, more violence will follow from the likes of Routh.
Democrats created a climate of fear around Democrats in general and Kamala Harris in particular, but McCarthy hasn’t criticize that or complained that someone might be inspired to violence because of it.