Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We got a pretty interesting development this afternoon. A guilty
verdict was officially delivered for Ryan Ruth. He is the
guy who was on the golf course that was trying
to aim a gun at Donald Trump. His daughter stood
(00:23):
up after the verdict was read, which was guilty all
five counts.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
All these counts were.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
All over the attended assassination of a presidential candidate. That's
the most serious criminal count. They proved that he had
the intent to carry out the crime and had taken
substantial steps to do so. They cited the fact that
he took seventeen trips to Trump's golf course and excessive
stalking of Trump before the in and of itself. If
(01:03):
he would have had a shot, he would have taken it.
That's what they believe would have happened. Also, thirty eight
different witnesses testified for the prosecution, which was simp Look, guys,
I'm not a legal expert, but the one thing that
I know is if the prosecution is thirty eight witnesses
(01:23):
that have all this information, and you are the defense
attorney representing yourself, which is what he did. He represented himself.
He questioned three witnesses, two of him were friends and colleagues.
(01:44):
They had not seen or spoken to him in years,
according to each of them as they were on the stand.
Those are the only three people he brought to the stand,
and he also did not introduce any evidence deemed to
be admissible in court. Now, again, I don't know what
this guy expected to happen when he did this to himself.
(02:05):
You would think if you were going to do something
this insane, like try to carry out this well, like
going to the golf course seventeen times to map out
the place, it's pretty clear that you're going there for
something more than golf. There have been golf courses that
I've been to that I would say I was a
frequent visitor to golf at to actually like do the
(02:29):
thing you're supposed to do with golf courses. And I
don't know if I've been there seventeen times, right, I'm
not that kind of frequent golfer. This guy had gone
that many times in a pretty short amount of time.
Not only did he do that, but based on web searches,
flight tracking activity, text about Trump rallies, plane movements, license
(02:51):
plate reader records, and other surveillance, they had plenty of
evidence that they had put into this thing.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
There was no doubt.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
That this this guy had done the job. And I
don't know, he's just kind of a he's a weirdo.
There's all sorts of different stuff that's going on in
this guy's head. And then after his verdict was read,
he grabbed a pen and was attempting to like take
(03:22):
himself out of a parent it appeared with a pin.
Four different US marshals in the courtroom jumped on and
basically and restrained him and his report. His daughter reportedly
stood up and said, don't do anything. I will get
you out with the bleep bleep. He didn't hurt anybody.
This is not fair. This is all rigged. You guys
(03:44):
are bleep holes. It's not supposed to be funny. But
it's not my fault that it is. Okay, let's just
call a spadis bait here. Five criminal counts, all guilty
attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer,
(04:04):
multiple firearms offenses, maximum sentence of life imprisonment. He is
certainly probably, I would imagine get that. The trial has
been going on for a while, it was a foregone conclusion,
especially when we found out he was going to represent himself.
I don't want to give anybody who's trying to be
a criminal any ideas, but the one thing that I
(04:28):
would tell you is probably a bad move is for
you to represent yourself in court. You have the option
to do that, but let's not kid ourselves here. You're
not gonna win. I would love to know if anyone
in the last fifty years, from a tiny civil court
(04:52):
suit that nobody pays any attention to, even in a
small town, all the way up to these giant, nationally
televised and followed, highly followed, you know, court cases, I
would love to know how many people who represented themselves
one and what that percentage is like. Is there a
(05:14):
chance that it's zero? I mean, somebody had to have
accidentally won somehow on some sort of like procedural situation.
You can't tell me that it happens that often, though,
especially in a case of this high profile. You've brought
a gun to a golf course trying to take out
Donald Trump while he was a candidate for president, a
(05:35):
former president. He's the president now, and you got found
out by doing that, and your best efforts are you're
going to straight up represent yourself in court.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
He's going to.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Not just represent himself in court, but when he represents himself,
he's not gonna put any evidence into the case that
was admissible by the court. And then he only calls
three witnesses. Two of the three friends and colleagues, and
they had acknowledged during the cross examination they hadn't seen
or talked to this guy in a long time. Guy's insane. Now,
(06:18):
obviously his daughter and probably whomever is still close to
this guy and probably like, oh, no.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
He's innocent.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
This wasn't that big of a deal, you guys, he
rigged this all, even though I don't think that there's
anything that you can say about this that is anything
close to rigged. Guy's fifty nine years old. And this
is the other thing that I just want us to
be cognizant about. And I'm very cognizant.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I just had a birthday last week. I'm thirty five now,
and I know that I'm not that old compared to
a lot of other people. But something that I've noticed
with people around my age and a little bit older,
is this the whole like midlife crisis thing kind of
(07:06):
can start for people if they're just genuinely unhappy in
some of the aspects of their life, whether it's a career,
whether it's their love life, whether it's their social life,
whether it's where they live their purpose. There are moments
in there that I'm seeing people and I kind of
went through a miniature version of that, I suppose during
the summer, just you know, trying to take a look
(07:29):
at what my life is and is this what I
want my life to be for the rest of my life.
In a variety of ways.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
It's good.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
It's good to think about that stuff. I feel like
though the later some of that stuff happens, sometimes it
can really knock some screws loose in a person's mindset.
And somebody who gets into their early mid fifties and
start to have that plus get that element of I
(07:56):
just don't care about what people think anymore, which is
a thing that I've noticed. People will get a bit
more cavalier in the things they say and do, more
cavalier in the things they wear. Their willingness to kind
of put themselves out there not really having a care
in the world about what other people think of them.
It's a freeing thing, I'm sure, but when it gets
(08:19):
a little too crazy in an already unstable person's mind
like this guy, that's when you start thinking, oh, I'm
just going to do something even more incredulous. I'm going
to try to take out a presidential candidate with a gun,
a firearm. It's crazy to me. And then after that,
(08:41):
just you can see the screws being so loose that
even in the trial, him representing himself as just it's comical.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
It really is. I just have no other way to
explain it.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It's so funny to me that somebody in this high
profile of the case thought the best plan of action
wasn't to go deeply into debt, potentially to like honestly
maybe get to like a plea agreement or a deal
or something. I don't know if that was even an
(09:13):
option that was put on the table, but instead thinking
that he can do this himself, representing himself as his
own lawyer, bringing no evidence to the table, and only
having three witnesses, two of whom are apparently people he
considered a friend or a colleague who didn't even talk
to him and hadn't talked to him in years. A
(09:38):
lot kind of like there's a lot going on wrong there.
What did you think was going to happen? And I'd
love to hear from his daughter on that. It's just like,
so you just thought he was gonna win somehow? What
are what were you talking about here? Anyway, it's two
eighteen that Ryan Routh, the guy who's the would be
(10:02):
Trump assassin on the golf course from last September, officially
found guilty of all five counts and we'll see what
he's sentenced. I would imagine it's going to be the
maximum sentence. I wouldn't want this particular individual to be
roaming the earth freely. At this point. My friend's Peyton
sitting here with me. Peyton, you had an interesting idea here.
(10:26):
You mentioned, first of all, thank you for doing some research.
You couldn't find a definitive win loss record for people
recently who have represented themselves.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, a lot of it was kind of what the
court case was for you know, a lot of pro
bono instances. That's kind of the highest success rate. And
still that is around ten percent, give or take. You know,
I don't know even though reliable that is. But yeah,
it's interesting, right because whenever you represent yourself and you're
(10:59):
not a lawyer. Even if you were a lawyer, it's
tough to really dig into like every nuance of the case,
and people may not even take a lot of your
arguments even that seriously, and especially when you don't have
evidence that you've brought to the case, which he has
brought zero evidence to the case. We're talking about Ryan Routh,
of course, the guy who's who just got found guilty
of all five counts of potentially assassinating Donald Trump at
(11:21):
his golf course back in September of last year. But
he not no evidence and only three witnesses, and two
of the three witnesses said they hadn't even talked to
this guy in a long time. And then after the
guilty verdict, he grabbed a pen off the desk and
he was trying to like stab himself in the neck
with it, which interesting strategy.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
But we were talking about just kind of like mental
mental thoughts of this guy's a whack job. I mean,
he's crazy. Only a truly deranged person would come to
the conclusion that not only should I try to take
out a presidential caseident and a former president and think
(12:03):
that that's the right thing to do, but that after
I'm caught represent myself in court and have no evidence
and no legitimate witnesses that can help my case. I mean,
truly a deranged person. Nobody thought that was close to him,
and I don't think there can't be very many people
close to him based on the information we have. Nobody
(12:23):
was just like, dude, this is a bad idea. But
if theoretically he had a good lawyer, you might have
been able to turn his derangement and the way that
he behaves, in the way that he even like his
decision making process, you potentially could have gone with like
an insanity proposal, and maybe he would have been found
(12:47):
guilty still, but you would have definitely had a better
chance that maybe a lighter sentence or some sort of
compromise to the verdict, would you not.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And I wonder how big of a difference there is
between the environment during the sentence in a insanity deal
versus you know, but I think that that's kind of
something that's been more likely recently with instances like this,
assassination attempts or mass shootings, things of that nature, and
(13:19):
the sentence you could argue there there'd be a chance
that it could be lighter or.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Maybe even in situations you could get a clear something
out of it, right. Yeah, Now, in this case it's
too high profile, and the guy had a gun on
a golf course trying to take out Donald Trump, he
certainly was still going to get a massive punishment and
he was going to be found guilty no matter what.
But you also brought to this point when we were
talking off the air, there's a chance that a lot
of courts probably are shying away from the whole insanity
(13:47):
thing because nowadays, with all the prescription medication you can take,
it's not really that hard to get diagnosed with ADHD,
or with bipolar disorder or OCD or any variety of
what would be considered mental ailments. When you are diagnosed
with those things, it can become kind of a crutch.
(14:10):
It can become an excuse of a certain type of behavior,
especially when you say I'm not on my medication. Who's
responsible at that point? Is it yourself for not taking
the medication? Is it your doctor or your pharmacist for
not getting you the right amount of medication? Have you
been misdiagnosed? And I can't rule out And this is
(14:32):
not a knock on anybody who's listening to me that
has bipolar, ADHD, OCD or any of the other mental
ailments that you can prove that can be diagnosed, But
how much of that is a placebo effect? How much
of that is Oh, I've been diagnosed with OCD by
a doctor. I either have or have not been given
(14:53):
medication for it. But they told me that's what I have.
I can just kind of say or do whatever is
on my mind, and then after the facts, they oh,
I'm sorry, I have OCD, you know what I mean. Like,
I've seen and been around people that have used those
types of diagnoses as a way to justify some level
(15:16):
of behavior. Now most of the time, it's just like, hey,
why are you touching stuff on my desk? Oh, I'm sorry,
I'm just OCD. Like I just had to fix this
thing that I'm seeing, and it's like in my head,
I'm just like, that's very strange, it's very weird. I'm
gonna move my desk back to the way that I
wanted it. But it's kind of funny to me that
(15:38):
somebody would go out of their way to say the
reason that I did this was because I have this
mental condition. So I don't know, is there a bigger
piece of this puzzle possibly, but when you decide not
(15:58):
to have a good lawyer representing you to fight that fight.
If you are a guy who is accused of something
this large, on a massive scale, a nationally televised, nationally
covered court case, and you have this, you know, situation
(16:19):
at hand where you have to make the determination of
do I get a good lawyer and maybe get deep
into debt and then they can come up with the
legitimate argument that can help me out and I don't
have to say anything that's possible. But if it's not,
then you're gonna go away for a very long time.
(16:41):
The guy obviously is not in his right mind. Real quick,
we'll hit the phones four h two, five, five, eight,
eleven ten, I have Brandon on the phone line. Brandon,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Well, how about it, Emory, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Doing good man? What do you think about this?
Speaker 4 (16:56):
Oh? I think I agree? How to first set with you?
By the way, I have to say, I actually listen
to both of your radio shows. You're more than one
in the morning here because where I'm at I get
des Moines and then I get here, so uh, basically
it's like Emory all day down here.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I appreciate it, Brandon. Hopefully you're enjoying all that me.
I don't even know if I like me that much.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Well, well, hey, you know, but we all are. And
of course the intro music he used to use. There
was a clip I used to remember hearing your your
you play at the beginning of the show, the very
back in March or something that was. It was a
different tune than what you hear now, but that was you.
(17:42):
You've got cool music on your Thanks many.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Hey, well I got I'm running a little a bit
of time here, but you got some thoughts on this
crazy guy?
Speaker 4 (17:49):
That's yes, yes, I do. That's whole insanity thing that
that you know, And I agree with you one hundred percent,
because here's the thing, right, I have adhd I have.
I have autism. All right, if I had committed a crime, Okay,
let's let's say. Let's just say I went up and
turn around and shot through somebody's window and there was
(18:11):
a guy standing there in the you know, of course
they're going to have to treat me like they would
treat any individual who was fully healthy who did what
they did, because you know what, if I willingly knew
what I was doing and I walk in there, then
you know, I can't sit there and claim insanity because
(18:32):
if I was absolutely clearly aware that I was doing wrong,
it doesn't matter. You know. Unfortunately people today, I hear
that excuse all the time. Oh well, he has autism,
he's got this and this. That's why I know he died.
If I committed a crime, I did it because I
chose to, not because I have, you know, mental health.
That's the way I have always been raised.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Hey, and Brandon, I think you're one hundred percent on
and that's why I think that it wouldn't have worked
for this guy, but at least it would have been
a better defense than whatever the heck he decided to do.
I appreciate the call, buddy that Hey, thanks for calling,
and thanks for listening to me all the time. Man,
I really do appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Man.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
There is just there's a lot going on here. The
Trump assassin who was found to be guilty of all
five charges. He was trying to stab himself in the
(19:33):
neck with a pen, I believe is what they said,
and he was restrained by Marshalls and all this crazy stuff.
The conversation in and of itself. Was I mean, I'm
just sorry. I'm a little distracted. I just got an
(19:54):
email from a friend listens to the program. Aaron sent
this to me. Buckle up for this one. I did
not see this. Maybe this was something that many people
had known. This actually sent to me, my Chris. I
had multiple friends who emailed the show. And uh, the
(20:21):
son of the guy Ryan Routh who was found guilty
for attempting to assassinate Donald Trump on his golf course
last September. You know, he had the gun. They said
he went there seventeen times. He has a son named
Oran O. R. A. N. And this past July, just
(20:47):
like a couple months ago, Oran Routh appeared in federal
court for sentencing for account of possessing child pornography of
a child under the age of twelve and pleaded guilty
to the charge in exchange for other charges, including multiple
counts of possessing and transporting child pornography. He sentenced to
(21:08):
seven years in prison in five years of supervised probation. Okay,
so his uh, yeah, there you go. Now he was
taken back into custody after the guilty plea, at least
for a while, not exactly sure what his location is.
(21:31):
I don't really care. This was in Greensboro, North Carolina.
And yeah, it's because of his father's situation. They feel
like his safety is being compromise or something. Wow, so
this is a messed up family, messed up. There's a
lot going on here.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I got an email from a friend of the program
named Craig, and Craig said this, and I just wanted
to clarify what I said. I kind of made the
we jumped from. Okay, so this guy was found guilty
and that's the news to the next step was this
guy was found guilty and felt like his daughter was
(22:13):
dealing it was rigged and he's like trying to stab
himself in the neck at this at the verdict, and
then after the verdict he's like, we can tell this
as a truly deranged individual. He tried to shoot Donald
Trump and he was sitting there kind of in broad
daylight along the golf course, was spotted and detained before
he was able to get a shot off, thankfully before
(22:35):
anything too crazy happened. But he has been I mean
this entire time. It's just like there's something wrong with
this guy. And he represented himself he didn't hire a
defense attorney, and he didn't bring any evidence of the case,
and he only called three witnesses, and two of the
three were friends, who basically said, I hadn't seen or
(22:57):
talked to this guy in years, so I couldn't imagine
that awkward situation they found themselves in. I had a friend, Carl,
by the way, Peyton, he said. According to Cornell Law Journal,
in federal cases from nineteen ninety eight to twenty seventeen,
so that's essentially a twenty year period, twelve percent of
people who represent themselves win their cases. Twelve percent. That's
(23:20):
way higher than I thought would have thought. I was
pretty close ten percent. Yeah, you did a good job,
but journalistic integrity. Thank you for the message, Thank you
for the update. Yeah, Carl percent, Yeah, twelve percent over
the twenty year period between nineteen ninety eight and twenty seventeen,
that's still not great. So if you're Ryan Routh, I
would imagine that that was a bad move.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Now.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I also made the lead from there to say the
reason you would have a defense attorney. If this guy
really has multiple screws loose, like it appears he does,
that would become the argument because we have all the
evidence stacked up against them, the seventeen times that he
went to the golf course to try to scope out
like he could be and maybe where he could get
a shot off, and all this stuff. There's a ton
(24:04):
of evidence of what he googled and purchases that he made,
flight logs, everything that he was looking at. This guy
he was guilty on arrival, but if he had a
good offense attorney, there are ways, and I don't want
to call him loopholes, but there are ways in which
you could change the defense from yes, this guy is
completely guilty and I have nothing to argue. It's like, okay, no,
(24:28):
this is a fifty nine year old guy who obviously
has some mental health conditions that we need to address,
and as part of whatever verdict we have here, maybe
there's a compromise of his sentencing and we can get
him the help or the medication that he could need,
and that could potentially rule out the harshest of the sentences,
which is life imprisonment, which is certainly what he's going
(24:49):
to face when he goes and gets his sentence hearing
coming up later this year. Now, Craig sent me this
email and I wanted to read this for full transparent,
He says, I listened to your show and enjoy it.
Making broad statements about how easy it is to be
diagnosed and medicated is a slippery slope. Please educate yourself
on mental disorders before using ADHD or OCD as an
(25:12):
example for a disorder and insane lunatic. Has being a
very productive and professional man who's both ADHD and OCD.
I took offense to some of your statements, Sincerely, Craig, Well, Craig,
I apologized that you took offense to my statements. So
let me reclarify what my stance is here and just
make sure that we're all on the same page, because
I understand that as soon as I bring up something
(25:34):
that maybe you have, you hear what I'm saying differently
than what I'm actually saying. I don't think this guy
has only ADHD or OCD. I am not suggesting that
it's as easy pasy to get diagnosed with this stuff
as possible, but there are kids that are given medication
for ADHD or bipolar or things of that nature, and
(25:56):
it doesn't appear that there is a ton that needs
to be done to acquire that level of medication in
a lot of cases. That's not every case, but that
kind of increase in how frequently people are being diagnosed
with this stuff, no matter how severe it may be,
(26:18):
that kind of thing has been used and has been
starting to be used more so as an excuse for
poor behavior in certain people, whether it's young people or
full sized adults, fully responsible adults. This isn't to say
that every person that has ADHD or OCD doesn't actually
(26:38):
have something wrong with them, And this isn't to say
that everybody with ADHD or OCD acts like a lunatic
like this guy. My point is, if we have that
many people using that as a defense for their own actions,
it makes it a lot more difficult for somebody like
this guy to use it as a defense when he
tries to commit a crime like assassinating Donald.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So my apology of it sounds like I'm insensitive to
people that have these mental disorders. That is not It's
not intended to be degrading or generalizing to the people
who actually do suffer from mental disorders. And I'm not
trying to say that people abuse that one hundred percent
of the time, but there are definitely people out there
(27:25):
that are using that kind of disorder, whether it's diagnosed
or not, as some sort of excuse to justify actions
that they make in their lives. And the very last
thing that I want anyone to think or do is
that that's somehow okay. Again, I'm suggesting merely that if
(27:48):
this guy would have hired a defense attorney, maybe that
would have been an option he could have had as
a defense saying Okay, this man truly has insanity, or
this guy definitely has something wrong with his mental makeup.
We need to help him address this. Even though he
should be punished, maybe we can make that punishment less
severe through this argument. He didn't want that advice. He
(28:08):
decided to represent himself, so it obviously doesn't matter. But yeah,
so my apologies, Craig. I am sorry that it sounded
like this. I'm sorry that this is not a maybe
not as articulate talking about this stuff is. Maybe somebody
(28:28):
who is a true mental health professional may be, but
it does make for good discussion, and I appreciate the discourse.
It looks as though the sentencing is going to be
held in December. The I think the biggest lesson that
we are going to learn from this. As a society,
(28:52):
We're not going to learn much from a guy like this,
but we're going to learn something. What we learn is
that we are living amongst people who absolutely, under no
circumstance should be wandering around to their own devices in
(29:13):
the free world. And I say this not because I
want people to have their freedom restricted, but because we
need to be on the defensive. We cannot assume that
every single person in an entire movement like this guy,
this Ryan Routh, like I think most people on the
political left would also say, he does not represent anything
(29:37):
that I believe in. Okay, this is literally just a lunatic.
But I think we go a few steps further, and
this goes to the Charlie kirkussas, and this goes to
school shooters, which, yes, you can view a bunch of
different trends, but the unfortunate reality that we live in
here in America is we see a lunatic doing something
(30:01):
absolutely horrid, and we want to come up with the
answers try to prevent the next lunatic from trying to
do the same type of thing. And when we can't
get all the lunatics to come forward to the point
where we can give red flags and make sure that
they don't have the ability to do something crazy like this,
then we are back to square one. It's a big
(30:25):
vicious cycle where we're just like, okay, so how do
we figure out who's going to do this next? And
the answer is there's no way we're gonna know. I
hate that we don't have a better way to know, but.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Is there somebody out there that can help me with this,
because if there was ever a moment where you felt
in some way like you were unsafe walking down the street.
I was walking in the Old Market district a couple
nights ago, my wife and I. We're just walking, it's
(31:01):
dark out, we're going to a restaurant. I think it
was on my birthday actually, And as we were turning
a corner to go towards the bar that we were
going to go to, there was a woman who was
there and she was alone, and I had no reason
to think that she was nothing but a normal person,
But as we got closer to her, she was just
saying stuff like she was talking on the phone to somebody,
(31:24):
but she was walking very erratically and there was no
phone in her hand, there was no earbut in her
ear she was like talking to herself very loudly. Now,
certainly you could make the argument that she was probably
on some sort of substance and that's what she was
doing on a weekday night, just wandering around the Old
Market district. But for a split second there, I like,
(31:46):
as we were passing her, we were going the opposite direction.
I was a little uncomfortable, and I was glad that
my wife wasn't walking on the streets in that area
with people that are behaving that way. Now that's not
to say that everybody who's acting that level of erraticness
is going to commit a heinous crime against others, but
(32:07):
it makes you feel unsafe. What's the answer? How do
you rid a society of people who are completely unhinged.
The answer is, I don't think you can, but you
need to live life defensively. Right when you're driving on
the roads and you're going through different areas of traffic
and you know that there are certain spots that you
(32:27):
know sometimes people run a red light here, Sometimes people
aren't looking and they're blind spot on this area of
the highway as the two lanes merge or something, you
kind of just have to assume that people aren't willing
to be trusted. And I'm not saying don't trust anybody
in your life, but I think we just have to
live life very defensively because you just never know who
(32:48):
and what might be around that corner when you're just
trying to live your life. Good luck to you out
there in the way that we were talking, not just
about Ryan Ruth, the guy who was the would be assassin.
He had a gun on a golf course. He was
attempting to end Donald Trump's life if given the opportunity.
(33:09):
Before he was spotted by a Secret Service agent and
from there they were able to get him, corral him.
They saw him fleeing the scene. Somebody saw him fleeing
the scene. He was arrested, and then fast forward to today,
about a year later after all that happened. Last September,
(33:30):
he was found guilty on all five counts, including attempting
to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer,
and multiple firearms offenses, and his maximum sentence would be
life in prison. The sentencing is going to be in December.
(33:50):
I believe the important part that I wanted to just
finish up here before we move on to hearing about
Kamala Harris and her new book is The Mental Health.
This person definitely mentally is completely unstable. And not only
is that taken from this what he was attempting to do,
(34:17):
which was killed Donald Trump, but then to make the
determination that he was going to represent himself in court,
which again we have illustrated not a winning strategy, and
especially in a high profile case like this, there was
no chance that you were likely to win with all
of the different prosecutors, lawyers, evidence that was piling up
(34:37):
against you. And not only did he represent himself, but
he produced no physical or court admissible evidence. And he
also only had three witnesses that he called to the
stand as the defense attorney for himself, and two of
the three people were friends or ex colleagues who basically said,
I hadn't talked to this guy in years. Again, not
(35:00):
a winning strategy. This guy not so bright, and certainly
he is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Now I don't know
at what level you could diagnose this guy, but I
was making the argument that if he would have gotten
himself a lawyer, certainly that would have been a polite
further defense. Can we get this guy diagnosed with something,
(35:22):
whether it's insanity, schizophrenia, anything, and it could change how
maybe the verdict or the sentencing could go, and maybe
we can get a plea deal on some of these charges,
and maybe he's not going to get life in prison anymore.
He's fifty nine years old, for whatever it's worth. And
you know, I'm speculating as to what maybe goes on
in a person's life when he gets to that point.
I know many people who've been fifty nine years old
(35:43):
and they have been perfectly fine individuals. But something certainly
seemed to have broken in this guy sometime in his fifties.
And it seems like he's a bit of an activist
in some ways. He sees himself that way. At least
he's traveled in different parts of the world and seems
to be very motivated and act to do stuff like this.
But he certainly just has multiple screws loose. And that
(36:05):
was further illustrated by the fact that when the verdictor
was read today, he picked up a pen and tried
to stab himself in the neck with it. Again, not
normal behavior. Now I have some emails here from Zachary
says Emory. We used to deal with this problem with asylums,
but now we just throw our hands up and let
them walk the same streets as the rest of us.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
We need to bring back asylums.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Well, I come from the state of Iowa, and I
know some people in Nebraska are like.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Go book, will you use the guy familiar look? I
like living in Nebraska. Relax.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
I just know more about how it was to grow
up in Iowa because that's where I was from. And
in Iowa when I just got it into this industry,
I was covering news really for the first time in
my early twenties. And then Governor Terry Brandsaid cut the
amount of space in mental health institutions in the state
of Iowa in half, closed up a couple of the facilities.
(37:03):
Not only were jobs lost, but many people were like, Okay,
so what about the people that were, you know, mentally
you know, I don't know the right term for this,
So I'm just going to say the people who were
in some way needing to be in some sort of
mental health institution for fear of offending someone with the words
(37:26):
I was going to use. Anyway, we talk about mental
health with these people all the time. Is like gun
violence or people attempting gun violence, or a potential assassin here.
You think, okay, so what is good? Like no person
in the right mind would be like, yes, this is
what I should do. So we need to approach it
from a mental health situation. Yet every time we talk
(37:52):
about mental health, nobody really has a solution. Now, asylums.
Maybe that's the way we can go. You know, certainly
you would hope that you'd have some standards there that
people who need that kind of help to live and
to function on a day to day basis, they would
have the ability to do so in a safe environment
for themselves in for others. But I am fearful of
(38:15):
Zachary's right. Just way too many people that need that
type of help, need that type of supervision for their
own lives. I think it's important for them to have that,
And I don't know if the people that need that
in all places are getting that. Because we want to
cut costs, we want to cut funds, we want to
(38:36):
you know, make them, we want less state sponsored governmental
programs that in theory would help keep people like this
alive and under supervised care. I don't know It's an
interesting topic of conversation though, and you just never know.
(38:59):
Are people on drug or people got mental issues? Are
they just dealing with the crisis. Is it something that's fixable,
don't know. Judith says, I've always thought that everyone was
assigned to Trump's detail that day on the golf course
should be investigated and possibly fired from their Secret Service duty.
My reason for this is why in the sam Hill
(39:21):
didn't anybody check the perimeter of the golf course. Plus,
they have said that the Secret Service agent who had
Ryan Ruth in his sites that day missed killing him,
which tells me the agents was not properly training the
use of firearms or it was done on purpose to
miss shooting Ryan Ruth. And I think that this whole
(39:42):
scenario was pre planned to scare Trump from continuing to
run as president of the United States. It makes perfect
sense to me. And if that is the case here,
the government didn't plan on the random woman who took
down Ruth's Ruth's plate number is this is so clear
to me? She says, Well, Judith, a couple of things,
(40:03):
and I appreciate your concern. We're getting into some conspiracy
stuff though with some of this stuff. And I don't
say that because I'm discounting what she's saying, But we
have to take into account first and foremost, there is
a great question why is the perimeter of the golf
course not fully secured? See exact same thing that I
always am arguing about the perimeter of the Butler County
(40:27):
event that Donald Trump almost was assassinated at with the
shooter on the roof of one of those buildings, got
multiple shots off before Donald Trump was able to duck
down and was lucky to survive.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
That.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
One guy didn't survive that, which is a real tragedy. Also,
no perimeter at the Charlie Kirk event. Guy gets up
on the roof, gets clean shot off, clean enough to
where no doubt a twenty two year old assassin essentially
can go up on top of a roof with clean
eye side of Charlie Kirk make a shot in nailing. Yeah,
(41:07):
that is a security failure. This I agree. I agree
Judith with that part. We need to do better with
securing a perimeter. But that is not just this day,
It's a problem in general. Now the Secret Service agent
who tried to take him out because he had the gun.
You have to understand. You can't just be firing your
(41:28):
weapon willy nilly. You have to be very like for
a police officer, if there's somebody shooting at you, you're
going to be firing. Basically, it will as you take cover.
But as far as this goes, we didn't know exactly
what the situation was or how many people who were
just bystanders would be in the area. I don't blame
(41:52):
a Secret Service agent who doesn't feel an immediate threat
at being shot at after the person attempts to flee.
That to me that you're just trying to be safe
and also potentially just be sure that you're doing the
right thing lethal force. If you do that and you
(42:13):
kill somebody or injure somebody who had no had nothing
to do with this, that is a completely different problem
you're now going to have to solve. So I want
to give a little bit of grace there for just
taking a shot and not hitting a person that's trying
to flee. I don't think it was an attempted miss
I don't think somebody in the Secret Service was trying
to take out Trump. You really think this is for
(42:35):
all my conspiracy theorists out there, If somebody from Iran
or Russia or anywhere else was trying to assassinate Donald Trump.
You think they would have recruited the twenty year old
that took shots at him in Butler County, Pennsylvania. There's
certainly some stuff that doesn't add up about that particular
individual and the access that he was able to get,
(42:59):
but a lack of security from the Secret Service, a
lack of security from local law enforcement, including the law
enforcement officer that was trying to get on the roof
to detain him. They knew he was there and were
trying to find him for thirty minutes and couldn't get
a hold of him, couldn't find him, and then he
had the ability to get on the roof and still
get shots up. That is an absolute catastrophe of local
(43:22):
security by the law enforcement that's local and the Secret Service.
At the time, Secret Service they addressed that the local
law enforcement in Butler County, Pennsylvania, they had to address
it their own way too. But they're not recruiting a
twenty year old nobody who couldn't even make his high
school rifle team to try to take Donald Trump out.
(43:45):
Same thing here, like you think the Secret Service was
working in cahoots with this insane guy because they wanted
Trump to be taken out. If the Secret Service really
wanted a potential presidential candidate and the potential presidents of
the United States to be taken out, there would be
plenty of opportunities for them to allow that to happen
(44:05):
or to help make it happen. And that didn't happen
except for the two times that we know about. Yes,
the perimeter on both cases are something I completely agree with.
We need to do better next time. But the idea
of the Secret Service somehow cooperating to try to allow
this crazy guy to try to eliminate Donald Trump, I
(44:28):
just don't see it. This isn't going to be And
if you're trying to scare Donald Trump out a running
for president again, I mean, there was no way it
was going to happen, especially after the Pennsylvania thing. This
was a couple months after Pennsylvania. This was in September
of last year. There was no way he was not
running unless they actually succeeded in taking him out. They
(44:48):
did not, So I don't know. Maybe I'm a little
bit more like not a conspiracy guy when it comes
to this stuff. I really just think that the perimeter
wasn't properly secured. This guy had gone to the course
seventeen times in a run up to learn about the
course and where he'd be at at a certain time.
He was hanging out there for like ten hours in
the bushes nearby, and was lucky to be spotted by
(45:12):
a Secret Service agent who noticed the stock of the
gun as they were approaching that hole on the golf course.
Got very, very lucky, indeed, got a couple of other things.
I wanted to just mention here to wrap up this
mental health situation. And at the bottom of the hour,
we'll play some audio from Kamala Harris making the media
rounds us her book's officially been released. That's all coming
(45:33):
up on news radio eleven ten kfab
We got a pretty interesting development this afternoon. A guilty
verdict was officially delivered for Ryan Ruth. He is the
guy who was on the golf course that was trying
to aim a gun at Donald Trump. His daughter stood
(00:23):
up after the verdict was read, which was guilty all
five counts.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
All these counts were.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
All over the attended assassination of a presidential candidate. That's
the most serious criminal count. They proved that he had
the intent to carry out the crime and had taken
substantial steps to do so. They cited the fact that
he took seventeen trips to Trump's golf course and excessive
stalking of Trump before the in and of itself. If
(01:03):
he would have had a shot, he would have taken it.
That's what they believe would have happened. Also, thirty eight
different witnesses testified for the prosecution, which was simp Look, guys,
I'm not a legal expert, but the one thing that
I know is if the prosecution is thirty eight witnesses
(01:23):
that have all this information, and you are the defense
attorney representing yourself, which is what he did. He represented himself.
He questioned three witnesses, two of him were friends and colleagues.
(01:44):
They had not seen or spoken to him in years,
according to each of them as they were on the stand.
Those are the only three people he brought to the stand,
and he also did not introduce any evidence deemed to
be admissible in court. Now, again, I don't know what
this guy expected to happen when he did this to himself.
(02:05):
You would think if you were going to do something
this insane, like try to carry out this well, like
going to the golf course seventeen times to map out
the place, it's pretty clear that you're going there for
something more than golf. There have been golf courses that
I've been to that I would say I was a
frequent visitor to golf at to actually like do the
(02:29):
thing you're supposed to do with golf courses. And I
don't know if I've been there seventeen times, right, I'm
not that kind of frequent golfer. This guy had gone
that many times in a pretty short amount of time.
Not only did he do that, but based on web searches,
flight tracking activity, text about Trump rallies, plane movements, license
(02:51):
plate reader records, and other surveillance, they had plenty of
evidence that they had put into this thing.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
There was no doubt.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
That this this guy had done the job. And I
don't know, he's just kind of a he's a weirdo.
There's all sorts of different stuff that's going on in
this guy's head. And then after his verdict was read,
he grabbed a pen and was attempting to like take
(03:22):
himself out of a parent it appeared with a pin.
Four different US marshals in the courtroom jumped on and
basically and restrained him and his report. His daughter reportedly
stood up and said, don't do anything. I will get
you out with the bleep bleep. He didn't hurt anybody.
This is not fair. This is all rigged. You guys
(03:44):
are bleep holes. It's not supposed to be funny. But
it's not my fault that it is. Okay, let's just
call a spadis bait here. Five criminal counts, all guilty
attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer,
(04:04):
multiple firearms offenses, maximum sentence of life imprisonment. He is
certainly probably, I would imagine get that. The trial has
been going on for a while, it was a foregone conclusion,
especially when we found out he was going to represent himself.
I don't want to give anybody who's trying to be
a criminal any ideas, but the one thing that I
(04:28):
would tell you is probably a bad move is for
you to represent yourself in court. You have the option
to do that, but let's not kid ourselves here. You're
not gonna win. I would love to know if anyone
in the last fifty years, from a tiny civil court
(04:52):
suit that nobody pays any attention to, even in a
small town, all the way up to these giant, nationally
televised and followed, highly followed, you know, court cases, I
would love to know how many people who represented themselves
one and what that percentage is like. Is there a
(05:14):
chance that it's zero? I mean, somebody had to have
accidentally won somehow on some sort of like procedural situation.
You can't tell me that it happens that often, though,
especially in a case of this high profile. You've brought
a gun to a golf course trying to take out
Donald Trump while he was a candidate for president, a
(05:35):
former president. He's the president now, and you got found
out by doing that, and your best efforts are you're
going to straight up represent yourself in court.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
He's going to.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Not just represent himself in court, but when he represents himself,
he's not gonna put any evidence into the case that
was admissible by the court. And then he only calls
three witnesses. Two of the three friends and colleagues, and
they had acknowledged during the cross examination they hadn't seen
or talked to this guy in a long time. Guy's insane. Now,
(06:18):
obviously his daughter and probably whomever is still close to
this guy and probably like, oh, no.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
He's innocent.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
This wasn't that big of a deal, you guys, he
rigged this all, even though I don't think that there's
anything that you can say about this that is anything
close to rigged. Guy's fifty nine years old. And this
is the other thing that I just want us to
be cognizant about. And I'm very cognizant.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
You know.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
I just had a birthday last week. I'm thirty five now,
and I know that I'm not that old compared to
a lot of other people. But something that I've noticed
with people around my age and a little bit older,
is this the whole like midlife crisis thing kind of
(07:06):
can start for people if they're just genuinely unhappy in
some of the aspects of their life, whether it's a career,
whether it's their love life, whether it's their social life,
whether it's where they live their purpose. There are moments
in there that I'm seeing people and I kind of
went through a miniature version of that, I suppose during
the summer, just you know, trying to take a look
(07:29):
at what my life is and is this what I
want my life to be for the rest of my life.
In a variety of ways.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
It's good.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
It's good to think about that stuff. I feel like
though the later some of that stuff happens, sometimes it
can really knock some screws loose in a person's mindset.
And somebody who gets into their early mid fifties and
start to have that plus get that element of I
(07:56):
just don't care about what people think anymore, which is
a thing that I've noticed. People will get a bit
more cavalier in the things they say and do, more
cavalier in the things they wear. Their willingness to kind
of put themselves out there not really having a care
in the world about what other people think of them.
It's a freeing thing, I'm sure, but when it gets
(08:19):
a little too crazy in an already unstable person's mind
like this guy, that's when you start thinking, oh, I'm
just going to do something even more incredulous. I'm going
to try to take out a presidential candidate with a gun,
a firearm. It's crazy to me. And then after that,
(08:41):
just you can see the screws being so loose that
even in the trial, him representing himself as just it's comical.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
It really is. I just have no other way to
explain it.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It's so funny to me that somebody in this high
profile of the case thought the best plan of action
wasn't to go deeply into debt, potentially to like honestly
maybe get to like a plea agreement or a deal
or something. I don't know if that was even an
(09:13):
option that was put on the table, but instead thinking
that he can do this himself, representing himself as his
own lawyer, bringing no evidence to the table, and only
having three witnesses, two of whom are apparently people he
considered a friend or a colleague who didn't even talk
to him and hadn't talked to him in years. A
(09:38):
lot kind of like there's a lot going on wrong there.
What did you think was going to happen? And I'd
love to hear from his daughter on that. It's just like,
so you just thought he was gonna win somehow? What
are what were you talking about here? Anyway, it's two
eighteen that Ryan Routh, the guy who's the would be
(10:02):
Trump assassin on the golf course from last September, officially
found guilty of all five counts and we'll see what
he's sentenced. I would imagine it's going to be the
maximum sentence. I wouldn't want this particular individual to be
roaming the earth freely. At this point. My friend's Peyton
sitting here with me. Peyton, you had an interesting idea here.
(10:26):
You mentioned, first of all, thank you for doing some research.
You couldn't find a definitive win loss record for people
recently who have represented themselves.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Yeah, a lot of it was kind of what the
court case was for you know, a lot of pro
bono instances. That's kind of the highest success rate. And
still that is around ten percent, give or take. You know,
I don't know even though reliable that is. But yeah,
it's interesting, right because whenever you represent yourself and you're
(10:59):
not a lawyer. Even if you were a lawyer, it's
tough to really dig into like every nuance of the case,
and people may not even take a lot of your
arguments even that seriously, and especially when you don't have
evidence that you've brought to the case, which he has
brought zero evidence to the case. We're talking about Ryan Routh,
of course, the guy who's who just got found guilty
of all five counts of potentially assassinating Donald Trump at
(11:21):
his golf course back in September of last year. But
he not no evidence and only three witnesses, and two
of the three witnesses said they hadn't even talked to
this guy in a long time. And then after the
guilty verdict, he grabbed a pen off the desk and
he was trying to like stab himself in the neck
with it, which interesting strategy.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
But we were talking about just kind of like mental
mental thoughts of this guy's a whack job. I mean,
he's crazy. Only a truly deranged person would come to
the conclusion that not only should I try to take
out a presidential caseident and a former president and think
(12:03):
that that's the right thing to do, but that after
I'm caught represent myself in court and have no evidence
and no legitimate witnesses that can help my case. I mean,
truly a deranged person. Nobody thought that was close to him,
and I don't think there can't be very many people
close to him based on the information we have. Nobody
(12:23):
was just like, dude, this is a bad idea. But
if theoretically he had a good lawyer, you might have
been able to turn his derangement and the way that
he behaves, in the way that he even like his
decision making process, you potentially could have gone with like
an insanity proposal, and maybe he would have been found
(12:47):
guilty still, but you would have definitely had a better
chance that maybe a lighter sentence or some sort of
compromise to the verdict, would you not.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
And I wonder how big of a difference there is
between the environment during the sentence in a insanity deal
versus you know, but I think that that's kind of
something that's been more likely recently with instances like this,
assassination attempts or mass shootings, things of that nature, and
(13:19):
the sentence you could argue there there'd be a chance
that it could be lighter or.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Maybe even in situations you could get a clear something
out of it, right. Yeah, Now, in this case it's
too high profile, and the guy had a gun on
a golf course trying to take out Donald Trump, he
certainly was still going to get a massive punishment and
he was going to be found guilty no matter what.
But you also brought to this point when we were
talking off the air, there's a chance that a lot
of courts probably are shying away from the whole insanity
(13:47):
thing because nowadays, with all the prescription medication you can take,
it's not really that hard to get diagnosed with ADHD,
or with bipolar disorder or OCD or any variety of
what would be considered mental ailments. When you are diagnosed
with those things, it can become kind of a crutch.
(14:10):
It can become an excuse of a certain type of behavior,
especially when you say I'm not on my medication. Who's
responsible at that point? Is it yourself for not taking
the medication? Is it your doctor or your pharmacist for
not getting you the right amount of medication? Have you
been misdiagnosed? And I can't rule out And this is
(14:32):
not a knock on anybody who's listening to me that
has bipolar, ADHD, OCD or any of the other mental
ailments that you can prove that can be diagnosed, But
how much of that is a placebo effect? How much
of that is Oh, I've been diagnosed with OCD by
a doctor. I either have or have not been given
(14:53):
medication for it. But they told me that's what I have.
I can just kind of say or do whatever is
on my mind, and then after the facts, they oh,
I'm sorry, I have OCD, you know what I mean. Like,
I've seen and been around people that have used those
types of diagnoses as a way to justify some level
(15:16):
of behavior. Now most of the time, it's just like, hey,
why are you touching stuff on my desk? Oh, I'm sorry,
I'm just OCD. Like I just had to fix this
thing that I'm seeing, and it's like in my head,
I'm just like, that's very strange, it's very weird. I'm
gonna move my desk back to the way that I
wanted it. But it's kind of funny to me that
(15:38):
somebody would go out of their way to say the
reason that I did this was because I have this
mental condition. So I don't know, is there a bigger
piece of this puzzle possibly, but when you decide not
(15:58):
to have a good lawyer representing you to fight that fight.
If you are a guy who is accused of something
this large, on a massive scale, a nationally televised, nationally
covered court case, and you have this, you know, situation
(16:19):
at hand where you have to make the determination of
do I get a good lawyer and maybe get deep
into debt and then they can come up with the
legitimate argument that can help me out and I don't
have to say anything that's possible. But if it's not,
then you're gonna go away for a very long time.
(16:41):
The guy obviously is not in his right mind. Real quick,
we'll hit the phones four h two, five, five, eight,
eleven ten, I have Brandon on the phone line. Brandon,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Well, how about it, Emory, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Doing good man? What do you think about this?
Speaker 4 (16:56):
Oh? I think I agree? How to first set with you?
By the way, I have to say, I actually listen
to both of your radio shows. You're more than one
in the morning here because where I'm at I get
des Moines and then I get here, so uh, basically
it's like Emory all day down here.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I appreciate it, Brandon. Hopefully you're enjoying all that me.
I don't even know if I like me that much.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Well, well, hey, you know, but we all are. And
of course the intro music he used to use. There
was a clip I used to remember hearing your your
you play at the beginning of the show, the very
back in March or something that was. It was a
different tune than what you hear now, but that was you.
(17:42):
You've got cool music on your Thanks many.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Hey, well I got I'm running a little a bit
of time here, but you got some thoughts on this
crazy guy?
Speaker 4 (17:49):
That's yes, yes, I do. That's whole insanity thing that
that you know, And I agree with you one hundred percent,
because here's the thing, right, I have adhd I have.
I have autism. All right, if I had committed a crime, Okay,
let's let's say. Let's just say I went up and
turn around and shot through somebody's window and there was
(18:11):
a guy standing there in the you know, of course
they're going to have to treat me like they would
treat any individual who was fully healthy who did what
they did, because you know what, if I willingly knew
what I was doing and I walk in there, then
you know, I can't sit there and claim insanity because
(18:32):
if I was absolutely clearly aware that I was doing wrong,
it doesn't matter. You know. Unfortunately people today, I hear
that excuse all the time. Oh well, he has autism,
he's got this and this. That's why I know he died.
If I committed a crime, I did it because I
chose to, not because I have, you know, mental health.
That's the way I have always been raised.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Hey, and Brandon, I think you're one hundred percent on
and that's why I think that it wouldn't have worked
for this guy, but at least it would have been
a better defense than whatever the heck he decided to do.
I appreciate the call, buddy that Hey, thanks for calling,
and thanks for listening to me all the time. Man,
I really do appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Man.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
There is just there's a lot going on here. The
Trump assassin who was found to be guilty of all
five charges. He was trying to stab himself in the
(19:33):
neck with a pen, I believe is what they said,
and he was restrained by Marshalls and all this crazy stuff.
The conversation in and of itself. Was I mean, I'm
just sorry. I'm a little distracted. I just got an
(19:54):
email from a friend listens to the program. Aaron sent
this to me. Buckle up for this one. I did
not see this. Maybe this was something that many people
had known. This actually sent to me, my Chris. I
had multiple friends who emailed the show. And uh, the
(20:21):
son of the guy Ryan Routh who was found guilty
for attempting to assassinate Donald Trump on his golf course
last September. You know, he had the gun. They said
he went there seventeen times. He has a son named
Oran O. R. A. N. And this past July, just
(20:47):
like a couple months ago, Oran Routh appeared in federal
court for sentencing for account of possessing child pornography of
a child under the age of twelve and pleaded guilty
to the charge in exchange for other charges, including multiple
counts of possessing and transporting child pornography. He sentenced to
(21:08):
seven years in prison in five years of supervised probation. Okay,
so his uh, yeah, there you go. Now he was
taken back into custody after the guilty plea, at least
for a while, not exactly sure what his location is.
(21:31):
I don't really care. This was in Greensboro, North Carolina.
And yeah, it's because of his father's situation. They feel
like his safety is being compromise or something. Wow, so
this is a messed up family, messed up. There's a
lot going on here.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I got an email from a friend of the program
named Craig, and Craig said this, and I just wanted
to clarify what I said. I kind of made the
we jumped from. Okay, so this guy was found guilty
and that's the news to the next step was this
guy was found guilty and felt like his daughter was
(22:13):
dealing it was rigged and he's like trying to stab
himself in the neck at this at the verdict, and
then after the verdict he's like, we can tell this
as a truly deranged individual. He tried to shoot Donald
Trump and he was sitting there kind of in broad
daylight along the golf course, was spotted and detained before
he was able to get a shot off, thankfully before
(22:35):
anything too crazy happened. But he has been I mean
this entire time. It's just like there's something wrong with
this guy. And he represented himself he didn't hire a
defense attorney, and he didn't bring any evidence of the case,
and he only called three witnesses, and two of the
three were friends, who basically said, I hadn't seen or
(22:57):
talked to this guy in years, so I couldn't imagine
that awkward situation they found themselves in. I had a friend, Carl,
by the way, Peyton, he said. According to Cornell Law Journal,
in federal cases from nineteen ninety eight to twenty seventeen,
so that's essentially a twenty year period, twelve percent of
people who represent themselves win their cases. Twelve percent. That's
(23:20):
way higher than I thought would have thought. I was
pretty close ten percent. Yeah, you did a good job,
but journalistic integrity. Thank you for the message, Thank you
for the update. Yeah, Carl percent, Yeah, twelve percent over
the twenty year period between nineteen ninety eight and twenty seventeen,
that's still not great. So if you're Ryan Routh, I
would imagine that that was a bad move.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Now.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
I also made the lead from there to say the
reason you would have a defense attorney. If this guy
really has multiple screws loose, like it appears he does,
that would become the argument because we have all the
evidence stacked up against them, the seventeen times that he
went to the golf course to try to scope out
like he could be and maybe where he could get
a shot off, and all this stuff. There's a ton
(24:04):
of evidence of what he googled and purchases that he made,
flight logs, everything that he was looking at. This guy
he was guilty on arrival, but if he had a
good offense attorney, there are ways, and I don't want
to call him loopholes, but there are ways in which
you could change the defense from yes, this guy is
completely guilty and I have nothing to argue. It's like, okay, no,
(24:28):
this is a fifty nine year old guy who obviously
has some mental health conditions that we need to address,
and as part of whatever verdict we have here, maybe
there's a compromise of his sentencing and we can get
him the help or the medication that he could need,
and that could potentially rule out the harshest of the sentences,
which is life imprisonment, which is certainly what he's going
(24:49):
to face when he goes and gets his sentence hearing
coming up later this year. Now, Craig sent me this
email and I wanted to read this for full transparent,
He says, I listened to your show and enjoy it.
Making broad statements about how easy it is to be
diagnosed and medicated is a slippery slope. Please educate yourself
on mental disorders before using ADHD or OCD as an
(25:12):
example for a disorder and insane lunatic. Has being a
very productive and professional man who's both ADHD and OCD.
I took offense to some of your statements, Sincerely, Craig, Well, Craig,
I apologized that you took offense to my statements. So
let me reclarify what my stance is here and just
make sure that we're all on the same page, because
I understand that as soon as I bring up something
(25:34):
that maybe you have, you hear what I'm saying differently
than what I'm actually saying. I don't think this guy
has only ADHD or OCD. I am not suggesting that
it's as easy pasy to get diagnosed with this stuff
as possible, but there are kids that are given medication
for ADHD or bipolar or things of that nature, and
(25:56):
it doesn't appear that there is a ton that needs
to be done to acquire that level of medication in
a lot of cases. That's not every case, but that
kind of increase in how frequently people are being diagnosed
with this stuff, no matter how severe it may be,
(26:18):
that kind of thing has been used and has been
starting to be used more so as an excuse for
poor behavior in certain people, whether it's young people or
full sized adults, fully responsible adults. This isn't to say
that every person that has ADHD or OCD doesn't actually
(26:38):
have something wrong with them, And this isn't to say
that everybody with ADHD or OCD acts like a lunatic
like this guy. My point is, if we have that
many people using that as a defense for their own actions,
it makes it a lot more difficult for somebody like
this guy to use it as a defense when he
tries to commit a crime like assassinating Donald.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
So my apology of it sounds like I'm insensitive to
people that have these mental disorders. That is not It's
not intended to be degrading or generalizing to the people
who actually do suffer from mental disorders. And I'm not
trying to say that people abuse that one hundred percent
of the time, but there are definitely people out there
(27:25):
that are using that kind of disorder, whether it's diagnosed
or not, as some sort of excuse to justify actions
that they make in their lives. And the very last
thing that I want anyone to think or do is
that that's somehow okay. Again, I'm suggesting merely that if
(27:48):
this guy would have hired a defense attorney, maybe that
would have been an option he could have had as
a defense saying Okay, this man truly has insanity, or
this guy definitely has something wrong with his mental makeup.
We need to help him address this. Even though he
should be punished, maybe we can make that punishment less
severe through this argument. He didn't want that advice. He
(28:08):
decided to represent himself, so it obviously doesn't matter. But yeah,
so my apologies, Craig. I am sorry that it sounded
like this. I'm sorry that this is not a maybe
not as articulate talking about this stuff is. Maybe somebody
(28:28):
who is a true mental health professional may be, but
it does make for good discussion, and I appreciate the discourse.
It looks as though the sentencing is going to be
held in December. The I think the biggest lesson that
we are going to learn from this. As a society,
(28:52):
We're not going to learn much from a guy like this,
but we're going to learn something. What we learn is
that we are living amongst people who absolutely, under no
circumstance should be wandering around to their own devices in
(29:13):
the free world. And I say this not because I
want people to have their freedom restricted, but because we
need to be on the defensive. We cannot assume that
every single person in an entire movement like this guy,
this Ryan Routh, like I think most people on the
political left would also say, he does not represent anything
(29:37):
that I believe in. Okay, this is literally just a lunatic.
But I think we go a few steps further, and
this goes to the Charlie kirkussas, and this goes to
school shooters, which, yes, you can view a bunch of
different trends, but the unfortunate reality that we live in
here in America is we see a lunatic doing something
(30:01):
absolutely horrid, and we want to come up with the
answers try to prevent the next lunatic from trying to
do the same type of thing. And when we can't
get all the lunatics to come forward to the point
where we can give red flags and make sure that
they don't have the ability to do something crazy like this,
then we are back to square one. It's a big
(30:25):
vicious cycle where we're just like, okay, so how do
we figure out who's going to do this next? And
the answer is there's no way we're gonna know. I
hate that we don't have a better way to know, but.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Is there somebody out there that can help me with this,
because if there was ever a moment where you felt
in some way like you were unsafe walking down the street.
I was walking in the Old Market district a couple
nights ago, my wife and I. We're just walking, it's
(31:01):
dark out, we're going to a restaurant. I think it
was on my birthday actually, And as we were turning
a corner to go towards the bar that we were
going to go to, there was a woman who was
there and she was alone, and I had no reason
to think that she was nothing but a normal person,
But as we got closer to her, she was just
saying stuff like she was talking on the phone to somebody,
(31:24):
but she was walking very erratically and there was no
phone in her hand, there was no earbut in her
ear she was like talking to herself very loudly. Now,
certainly you could make the argument that she was probably
on some sort of substance and that's what she was
doing on a weekday night, just wandering around the Old
Market district. But for a split second there, I like,
(31:46):
as we were passing her, we were going the opposite direction.
I was a little uncomfortable, and I was glad that
my wife wasn't walking on the streets in that area
with people that are behaving that way. Now that's not
to say that everybody who's acting that level of erraticness
is going to commit a heinous crime against others, but
(32:07):
it makes you feel unsafe. What's the answer? How do
you rid a society of people who are completely unhinged.
The answer is, I don't think you can, but you
need to live life defensively. Right when you're driving on
the roads and you're going through different areas of traffic
and you know that there are certain spots that you
(32:27):
know sometimes people run a red light here, Sometimes people
aren't looking and they're blind spot on this area of
the highway as the two lanes merge or something, you
kind of just have to assume that people aren't willing
to be trusted. And I'm not saying don't trust anybody
in your life, but I think we just have to
live life very defensively because you just never know who
(32:48):
and what might be around that corner when you're just
trying to live your life. Good luck to you out
there in the way that we were talking, not just
about Ryan Ruth, the guy who was the would be assassin.
He had a gun on a golf course. He was
attempting to end Donald Trump's life if given the opportunity.
(33:09):
Before he was spotted by a Secret Service agent and
from there they were able to get him, corral him.
They saw him fleeing the scene. Somebody saw him fleeing
the scene. He was arrested, and then fast forward to today,
about a year later after all that happened. Last September,
(33:30):
he was found guilty on all five counts, including attempting
to assassinate a major presidential candidate, assaulting a federal officer,
and multiple firearms offenses, and his maximum sentence would be
life in prison. The sentencing is going to be in December.
(33:50):
I believe the important part that I wanted to just
finish up here before we move on to hearing about
Kamala Harris and her new book is The Mental Health.
This person definitely mentally is completely unstable. And not only
is that taken from this what he was attempting to do,
(34:17):
which was killed Donald Trump, but then to make the
determination that he was going to represent himself in court,
which again we have illustrated not a winning strategy, and
especially in a high profile case like this, there was
no chance that you were likely to win with all
of the different prosecutors, lawyers, evidence that was piling up
(34:37):
against you. And not only did he represent himself, but
he produced no physical or court admissible evidence. And he
also only had three witnesses that he called to the
stand as the defense attorney for himself, and two of
the three people were friends or ex colleagues who basically said,
I hadn't talked to this guy in years. Again, not
(35:00):
a winning strategy. This guy not so bright, and certainly
he is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. Now I don't know
at what level you could diagnose this guy, but I
was making the argument that if he would have gotten
himself a lawyer, certainly that would have been a polite
further defense. Can we get this guy diagnosed with something,
(35:22):
whether it's insanity, schizophrenia, anything, and it could change how
maybe the verdict or the sentencing could go, and maybe
we can get a plea deal on some of these charges,
and maybe he's not going to get life in prison anymore.
He's fifty nine years old, for whatever it's worth. And
you know, I'm speculating as to what maybe goes on
in a person's life when he gets to that point.
I know many people who've been fifty nine years old
(35:43):
and they have been perfectly fine individuals. But something certainly
seemed to have broken in this guy sometime in his fifties.
And it seems like he's a bit of an activist
in some ways. He sees himself that way. At least
he's traveled in different parts of the world and seems
to be very motivated and act to do stuff like this.
But he certainly just has multiple screws loose. And that
(36:05):
was further illustrated by the fact that when the verdictor
was read today, he picked up a pen and tried
to stab himself in the neck with it. Again, not
normal behavior. Now I have some emails here from Zachary
says Emory. We used to deal with this problem with asylums,
but now we just throw our hands up and let
them walk the same streets as the rest of us.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
We need to bring back asylums.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Well, I come from the state of Iowa, and I
know some people in Nebraska are like.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Go book, will you use the guy familiar look? I
like living in Nebraska. Relax.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
I just know more about how it was to grow
up in Iowa because that's where I was from. And
in Iowa when I just got it into this industry,
I was covering news really for the first time in
my early twenties. And then Governor Terry Brandsaid cut the
amount of space in mental health institutions in the state
of Iowa in half, closed up a couple of the facilities.
(37:03):
Not only were jobs lost, but many people were like, Okay,
so what about the people that were, you know, mentally
you know, I don't know the right term for this,
So I'm just going to say the people who were
in some way needing to be in some sort of
mental health institution for fear of offending someone with the words
(37:26):
I was going to use. Anyway, we talk about mental
health with these people all the time. Is like gun
violence or people attempting gun violence, or a potential assassin here.
You think, okay, so what is good? Like no person
in the right mind would be like, yes, this is
what I should do. So we need to approach it
from a mental health situation. Yet every time we talk
(37:52):
about mental health, nobody really has a solution. Now, asylums.
Maybe that's the way we can go. You know, certainly
you would hope that you'd have some standards there that
people who need that kind of help to live and
to function on a day to day basis, they would
have the ability to do so in a safe environment
for themselves in for others. But I am fearful of
(38:15):
Zachary's right. Just way too many people that need that
type of help, need that type of supervision for their
own lives. I think it's important for them to have that,
And I don't know if the people that need that
in all places are getting that. Because we want to
cut costs, we want to cut funds, we want to
(38:36):
you know, make them, we want less state sponsored governmental
programs that in theory would help keep people like this
alive and under supervised care. I don't know It's an
interesting topic of conversation though, and you just never know.
(38:59):
Are people on drug or people got mental issues? Are
they just dealing with the crisis. Is it something that's fixable,
don't know. Judith says, I've always thought that everyone was
assigned to Trump's detail that day on the golf course
should be investigated and possibly fired from their Secret Service duty.
My reason for this is why in the sam Hill
(39:21):
didn't anybody check the perimeter of the golf course. Plus,
they have said that the Secret Service agent who had
Ryan Ruth in his sites that day missed killing him,
which tells me the agents was not properly training the
use of firearms or it was done on purpose to
miss shooting Ryan Ruth. And I think that this whole
(39:42):
scenario was pre planned to scare Trump from continuing to
run as president of the United States. It makes perfect
sense to me. And if that is the case here,
the government didn't plan on the random woman who took
down Ruth's Ruth's plate number is this is so clear
to me? She says, Well, Judith, a couple of things,
(40:03):
and I appreciate your concern. We're getting into some conspiracy
stuff though with some of this stuff. And I don't
say that because I'm discounting what she's saying, But we
have to take into account first and foremost, there is
a great question why is the perimeter of the golf
course not fully secured? See exact same thing that I
always am arguing about the perimeter of the Butler County
(40:27):
event that Donald Trump almost was assassinated at with the
shooter on the roof of one of those buildings, got
multiple shots off before Donald Trump was able to duck
down and was lucky to survive.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
That.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
One guy didn't survive that, which is a real tragedy. Also,
no perimeter at the Charlie Kirk event. Guy gets up
on the roof, gets clean shot off, clean enough to
where no doubt a twenty two year old assassin essentially
can go up on top of a roof with clean
eye side of Charlie Kirk make a shot in nailing. Yeah,
(41:07):
that is a security failure. This I agree. I agree
Judith with that part. We need to do better with
securing a perimeter. But that is not just this day,
It's a problem in general. Now the Secret Service agent
who tried to take him out because he had the gun.
You have to understand. You can't just be firing your
(41:28):
weapon willy nilly. You have to be very like for
a police officer, if there's somebody shooting at you, you're
going to be firing. Basically, it will as you take cover.
But as far as this goes, we didn't know exactly
what the situation was or how many people who were
just bystanders would be in the area. I don't blame
(41:52):
a Secret Service agent who doesn't feel an immediate threat
at being shot at after the person attempts to flee.
That to me that you're just trying to be safe
and also potentially just be sure that you're doing the
right thing lethal force. If you do that and you
(42:13):
kill somebody or injure somebody who had no had nothing
to do with this, that is a completely different problem
you're now going to have to solve. So I want
to give a little bit of grace there for just
taking a shot and not hitting a person that's trying
to flee. I don't think it was an attempted miss
I don't think somebody in the Secret Service was trying
to take out Trump. You really think this is for
(42:35):
all my conspiracy theorists out there, If somebody from Iran
or Russia or anywhere else was trying to assassinate Donald Trump.
You think they would have recruited the twenty year old
that took shots at him in Butler County, Pennsylvania. There's
certainly some stuff that doesn't add up about that particular
individual and the access that he was able to get,
(42:59):
but a lack of security from the Secret Service, a
lack of security from local law enforcement, including the law
enforcement officer that was trying to get on the roof
to detain him. They knew he was there and were
trying to find him for thirty minutes and couldn't get
a hold of him, couldn't find him, and then he
had the ability to get on the roof and still
get shots up. That is an absolute catastrophe of local
(43:22):
security by the law enforcement that's local and the Secret Service.
At the time, Secret Service they addressed that the local
law enforcement in Butler County, Pennsylvania, they had to address
it their own way too. But they're not recruiting a
twenty year old nobody who couldn't even make his high
school rifle team to try to take Donald Trump out.
(43:45):
Same thing here, like you think the Secret Service was
working in cahoots with this insane guy because they wanted
Trump to be taken out. If the Secret Service really
wanted a potential presidential candidate and the potential presidents of
the United States to be taken out, there would be
plenty of opportunities for them to allow that to happen
(44:05):
or to help make it happen. And that didn't happen
except for the two times that we know about. Yes,
the perimeter on both cases are something I completely agree with.
We need to do better next time. But the idea
of the Secret Service somehow cooperating to try to allow
this crazy guy to try to eliminate Donald Trump, I
(44:28):
just don't see it. This isn't going to be And
if you're trying to scare Donald Trump out a running
for president again, I mean, there was no way it
was going to happen, especially after the Pennsylvania thing. This
was a couple months after Pennsylvania. This was in September
of last year. There was no way he was not
running unless they actually succeeded in taking him out. They
(44:48):
did not, So I don't know. Maybe I'm a little
bit more like not a conspiracy guy when it comes
to this stuff. I really just think that the perimeter
wasn't properly secured. This guy had gone to the course
seventeen times in a run up to learn about the
course and where he'd be at at a certain time.
He was hanging out there for like ten hours in
the bushes nearby, and was lucky to be spotted by
(45:12):
a Secret Service agent who noticed the stock of the
gun as they were approaching that hole on the golf course.
Got very, very lucky, indeed, got a couple of other things.
I wanted to just mention here to wrap up this
mental health situation. And at the bottom of the hour,
we'll play some audio from Kamala Harris making the media
rounds us her book's officially been released. That's all coming
(45:33):
up on news radio eleven ten kfab
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