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‘I Met Trump’s Would-Be Assassin.’ Plus. . .

Are U.S. airlines effectively boycotting Israel? Matt Walsh’s new film on anti-racism grift. And much more, in today’s Front Page.

It’s Monday, September 16, and this is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Are U.S. airlines aiding Iran in its war against Israel? Jay Solomon investigates. Ben Kawaller talks to Matt Walsh about his mockumentary “Am I Racist?” Kat Rosenfield reviews Kat Timpf’s new book on the dangers of binary thinking. And much more. 

But first: The latest on yesterday’s apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump—and our reporter’s interaction with the would-be assassin. 

‘I Met Trump’s Would-Be Assassin’

Barely two months after a bullet came millimeters from taking Donald Trump’s life at a rally in Pennsylvania, the Secret Service spotted a gunman hiding in the bushes at his golf club in West Palm Beach and opened fire. The man fled and was later detained. Trump was unharmed. “Nothing will slow me down,” he said in an email to supporters. 

Law enforcement said they did not know if the suspect had fired a shot, but that he had an “AK-style” rifle with a scope and was about 400 yards from the former president on Sunday. “With a rifle and a scope like that, that’s not a long distance,” said Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw. Law enforcement also identified the suspect in custody. 

Ryan Routh is not a name that was familiar to most Americans when he was identified yesterday as the suspected would-be assassin of Donald Trump. But when it was made public, my colleague Tanya Lukyanova got a call from someone she used to work with. Why? Because Tanya had interviewed Routh last year over video for a piece she reported for Semafor on American-trained Afghan commandos who wanted to fight for Ukraine. 

Routh had started something called the International Volunteer Center, which purported to help foreigners seeking to assist Ukraine’s war effort. He spoke to Tanya about his frustration with Kiev over how it handled foreign fighters. “Ukraine is very often hard to work with,” he told Tanya. “Many foreign soldiers leave after a week in Ukraine or must move from unit to unit to find a place they are respected and appreciated.” 

Ryan Routh via X.

“He was this zealous guy, an American who really wanted to volunteer to help Ukraine,” said Tanya of Routh, whom she spoke to for about twenty minutes over video while he was perched outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., last summer. 

“You can tell right away that he’s crazy, but I think people thought, ‘Who cares? He’s supporting the right cause,’ ” said Tanya. “Everyone knew him as a little zealous, a bit much. But nobody really cared about that ‘too much’ because he was on the side of good. He was helping Ukraine.” 

During a press conference, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw holds a photograph of the rifle and other items found near where the suspect was discovered regarding an apparent assassination attempt of former president Donald Trump on September 15, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Back then “he was just a harmless loon, who didn’t do anything too crazy.” (Though not totally harmless: records indicate a long list of run-ins with the law in North Carolina, including a 2002 conviction for possessing a fully automatic machine gun.)

But Routh hardly seemed a career criminal to Tanya. “He reminds me of Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading, if I am completely honest,” said Tanya, referring to the Coen Brothers’ black comedy and its protagonist—a bumbling, dim-witted personal trainer who attempts to blackmail a CIA analyst. “A guy who is overzealous and goes a little overboard on the conspiratorial side of things. But until he does something terribly wrong, nobody quite thinks of him that way. 

“Ryan Routh wasn’t a story, until he allegedly went to Trump’s golf course with a gun.”

Are U.S. Airlines Effectively Boycotting Israel? 

Are U.S. airlines unwittingly aiding Iran in its attempt to isolate and harm Israel? For most of the past year, none of the three major American airline carriers—United, American, or Delta—have flown to Israel. Right now, Israel’s flag carrier, El Al, is the only direct link between Israel and its closest ally and economic partner. And none of the major U.S. carriers have any definitive timeline on when flights might resume. 

The carriers insist this is simply a security decision, but the outspokenness of some airline unions against travel to Israel has raised concerns among members of Congress and the Israeli government that there may be more to the story. 

Today, The Free Press’s Jay Solomon investigates the travel disruptions contributing to Israel’s wartime woes, and asks “Are U.S. Airlines ‘Playing Into Iran’s Game’?

Matt Walsh Talks DEI, Division, and Robin DiAngelo

The fourth-highest grossing movie at the box office over the weekend was a mockumentary starring The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh called Am I Racist?. Think Borat but for DEI, with Walsh pretending to be an anti-racism “expert” and then trying to get white people to confess their terrible racism. Moviegoers seem to have enjoyed it—on Rotten Tomatoes, it has an audience score of 99 percent, which sounds quite good.

But you probably haven’t read any reviews from the critics: Most outlets ignored it.

“It must be that ignoring a film so poisonous to the spiritual health of the nation is the only appropriate response from polite society,” says The Free Press’s Ben Kawaller. Thankfully, Ben has “never identified as a member of such a group” (his words, not mine!). And so he went to Nashville to meet Walsh at his favorite cigar lounge, to talk about the movie the legacy press has ignored. 

Watch their conversation—over stogies in Nashville (Ben gets all the tough assignments)—in full below: 

Meanwhile, in other culture war news, Fox News personality Kat Timpf has a new book out, ‘I Used To Like You Until. . . ’ 

It’s about how politics has consumed everything, including our friendships. And it reminded our own Kat (Rosenfield) of a relationship she lost to politics. Read Kat’s review: “To the Woman Who Trashed Me on Twitter.” 

Sarah Gillis stepping out of the manned Polaris Dawn mission's “Dragon” capsule after it splashed down Sunday. (Photo by Polaris Program/AFP via Getty Images)
  • The Polaris Dawn crew splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. SpaceX’s five-person mission spent five days in space, completing the highest maximum altitude by a manned flight in fifty years as well as the first commercial space walk in history. One of the crew members FaceTimed her family from space using Starlink. Read Max Meyer’s recent Free Press essay on “The Man-Made Miracle of SpaceX.” 

  • “I don’t like those comments,” said J.D. Vance when asked about recent posts by far-right activist Laura Loomer—who accompanied Donald Trump to the debate last week. Loomer said that the White House “will smell like curry” and its speeches will be “facilitated via a call center” if Kamala Harris—whose mother was born in India—wins in November. Vance, whose wife is also Indian American, insisted that Loomer, who recently appeared in Trump’s entourage, is “not affiliated with the Trump campaign.” Watch Batya Ungar-Sargon on the latest Free Press live: “I’m an undecided voter. I am not going to vote for somebody whose closest adviser is tweeting that the White House is going to smell like curry, and I am not going to vote for somebody whose vice president cannot disavow a Holocaust minimizer.” 

  • On Sunday, the Iranian-backed Houthis fired a long-range missile from Yemen into central Israel for the first time. The Israel Defense Forces successfully intercepted the missile, preventing direct injuries. Still, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the terrorists “should have known by now that we exact a heavy price for any attempt to harm us.” 

  • A Des Moines Register poll shows Harris trailing Trump by four points in Iowa. The survey is getting a lot of attention for two reasons. First, it was conducted by Ann Selzer—whose track record on polling the Hawkeye State makes her perhaps the most respected pollster around. Second, back in June, Selzer’s poll recorded an eighteen-point lead for Trump over Biden. 

  • Republicans in Ohio have rubbished the “cat-eating Haitians” story pushed by Donald Trump in last week’s presidential debate. Mike DeWine, the state’s GOP governor, said on Sunday that “it is not helpful” for Republicans to spread “garbage” claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets. He added: “What we know is that the Haitians who are in Springfield are legal. They came to Springfield to work.” Springfield mayor Rob Rue, also a Republican, trashed the cat story and bemoaned “these federal politicians” who are “hurting our city.” Springfield’s city hall and two schools were evacuated after bomb threats last week. 

  • “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,” said Donald Trump on Truth Social Sunday. It’s not clear to me how much Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris last week will really matter. She endorsed Joe Biden four years ago, so it was hardly a surprise. But Trump sure seemed annoyed by it, and was determined to fire back. And as someone who once made the mistake of suggesting that her latest album may not be a classic, my advice to the former president is: Criticize Tay-Tay at your peril, sir.

  • At last night’s Emmy Awards, the best joke was about how unfunny The Bear is. This very stressful show, about a troubled chef, then went on to break its own record for the most Emmys won in a single year by a comedy. Read our critic, Tanya Gold, on The Bear, which she admittedly did not find that amusing. Meanwhile, Richard Gadd won multiple Emmys for Baby Reindeer, which is about as funny as The Bear. It’s about a comedian getting stalked, and is based on Gadd’s actual life. Read Kat Rosenfield on the ethical quandaries of Baby Reindeer.

Oliver Wiseman is a writer and editor for The Free Press. Follow him on X @ollywiseman

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