Ryan Routh Sentenced to Life in Prison for Trying to Assassinate Trump

Ryan Routh, who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September 2024, was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison.

The ruling was handed down by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who has a history of biased rulings in favor of the president. Prosecutors had been seeking a life sentence to “send a message that seeking to assassinate a Presidential candidate will result in the most severe punishment,” they wrote in a memo before the sentencing.

Routh had planned the assassination for months, prosecutors said, adding that he was willing to kill anyone who attempted to stop him and didn’t express remorse. Routh sought to have Cannon recuse herself from the case, citing her dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case in 2024, but his motion was rejected.

The sentence is not surprising, considering that Routh represented himself while on trial in September last year. He ended up being found guilty on all five charges related to the assassination attempt, and reportedly tried to stab himself with a pen moments after the verdict. Cannon’s response was to appoint a new lawyer to represent Routh.

Routh’s lawyer last month sought a reduced sentence of 27 years to “meet the need for punishment, provide the defendant with correctional treatment and provide for mental health treatment in a custodial setting.” Instead, Routh, who turns 60 in two weeks, will now spend the rest of his life behind bars to set an example.

This story has been updated.

Two Minnesota school districts and an 89,000-member teachers’ union filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Department of Homeland Security, accusing federal agents of breaking their promise not to conduct raids inside or around schools during Operation Metro Surge.

“The Department of Homeland Security scrapped that policy without explanation, without using the proper procedures,” attorney June Hoidal told MPR News. “And that’s not how federal agencies get to act.”

The lawsuit, filed by Fridley and Duluth districts and the state teachers’ union Education Minnesota, claims that agents “conducted enforcement operations in or near schools and school buses, and detained minor students.”

It also refers to a January incident in which Border Patrol agents pepper-sprayed, tackled, and handcuffed people on the grounds of Minneapolis’s Roosevelt High School, just hours after ICE officers shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. “This conduct has caused direct harm to the regular functioning of school districts and teachers, as well as the students they serve,” it read.

“Right now, students are afraid to come to school. Parents are afraid to drop them off. Staff are coming to work wondering if today will be the day that something happens in one of our buildings,” Fridley Superintendent Brenda Lewis said Tuesday. “We are seeing attendance impacts. Families are choosing virtual learning, not because it’s best for their child, but because fear has taken over, and this fear is not perceived.… This is justified fear.”

The president has a new appeal for voters ahead of a contentious 2028 midterm election, and it comes in the shape of a violent slaver who never actually stepped foot in the continental United States.

Donald Trump is reportedly planning to erect a statue of Christopher Columbus outside the White House, according to a Washington Post exclusive published Wednesday. It will likely be placed on the south side of the White House grounds, close to E Street and north of the Ellipse, two people with knowledge of the plan told the Post.

The Columbus statue is expected to be reassembled from a Reagan-era piece that was erected in Baltimore in 1984. The statue was destroyed and dumped into the city’s harbor by protesters in 2020, leaving just remnants behind.

Those fragments have been stitched back together thanks to funding from a group of Italian American businessmen and politicians, as well as financial support from local charities and federal grant funding.

The White House refused to comment on the reported plan but affirmed its support for the Italian explorer.

“In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement. “And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump.”

Columbus has been officially celebrated in the U.S. since 1934, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated Columbus Day a national holiday in an attempt to fold the country’s Italian American immigrants into early American history.

Since then, Columbus has been hailed as the first voyager to reach North America—despite the fact that he never actually landed here. In truth, Columbus’s four voyages all ended up in the Caribbean. Nonetheless, the fifteenth-century explorer is credited with initiating sustained European contact with the Western hemisphere, marking the beginning of the transatlantic slave trade.

Columbus’s legacy became hotly contested in 2020, when a nationwide debate on race swept the country, sparking questions as to whether the historically controversial colonizer’s myriad accolades should be revisited. In 2021, President Joe Biden recognized Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day, marking a federal shift in the country’s relationship to Columbus.

Trump campaigned, in part, to bring Columbus Day back, and signed a proclamation in October in order to do so.

“We’re back, Italians. OK? We love the Italians,” Trump said at the time.  

Last month, Trump claimed that resurrecting Columbus’s positive memory could win over Italian Americans come election season.

“The Italian people are very happy about it. Remember when you go to the voting booths, I reinstated Columbus Day,” he said.

Among the many layoffs The Washington Post announced Wednesday was reporter Caroline O’Donovan, who covers tech companies and corporate accountability with a focus on Amazon, the company founded by Post owner Jeff Bezos.

O’Donovan, who had worked at the newspaper since 2022, confirmed the news in a post on X. Her last story, published January 28, was ironically about Amazon’s own layoffs last week that put at least 16,000 employees out of work.

The day before, she wrote about tech executives and their relationships with President Trump following the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal agents, notably beginning the article by mentioning how Amazon CEO Andy Jassy attended a documentary screening of Melania with Trump the same evening that Pretti was killed.

O’Donovan also recently traveled to Minneapolis to cover the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown there. Her coverage of Amazon seemed to have slowed slightly in the middle of 2025, but she was still writing about the company just prior to her layoff.

Ever since Bezos took over the newspaper in 2013, critics have raised questions about how the Post would cover his business holdings, chief among them online retail giant Amazon, and whether the billionaire would seek to influence the Post’s coverage. While the Post was criticized at times for failing to disclose Bezos’s ownership in some stories about Amazon, and its coverage of Amazon seemed to fall short in some cases, it never seemed to give the company a free pass.

That might change now that there isn’t a dedicated reporter at the Post covering Amazon. What also might change is the newspaper’s relationship with President Trump, which has softened considerably in Trump’s second term. One thing is for sure: One of America’s foremost newspapers is now considerably smaller and weaker than it was at the beginning of the week.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s office just tried to clean up allegations she buried a whistleblower complaint—but made an even bigger mess, instead.

In May, a whistleblower accused Gabbard of restricting the distribution of a highly classified intelligence report for political purposes, saying that the inspector general for the Intelligence Community had failed to report a potential crime to the Department of Justice—also for political reasons.

Typically, an employee is able to share a complaint alleging wrongdoing directly with lawmakers, as long as the DNI instructs them on how to securely transmit it. But eight months later, the whistleblower’s complaint was still not transmitted to Congress—and was reportedly locked away in a safe, a person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

In a series of posts Tuesday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence tried to combat claims that Gabbard had “hindered dissemination” of the whistleblower complaint, citing a February 2 letter from Christopher Fox, the inspector general for the intelligence community.

ODNI claimed the letter proved that security guidance was provided and that Gabbard had “acted immediately, delivered what was required, supported lawful whistleblower channels,” even for a complaint that was deemed “baseless.”

But the letter doesn’t actually exonerate Gabbard, or her office.

In the letter, Fox claimed that Gabbard was never actually notified about the complaint—even after the former Intelligence Community Inspector General Tamara Johnson determined in June that the complaint was of “urgent concern” if true, and the whistleblower asked that it be transmitted to the congressional intelligence committees.

Fox wrote that days after making her determination, Johnson received newly obtained evidence and issued a memo finding that the allegation against Gabbard “did not appear credible” but that she could not determine the credibility of the other claim. Andrew Bakaj, the attorney representing the whistleblower, said he was never informed that any such determination was reached.

Johnson’s supplemental memo had “no legal effect” on the whistleblower’s right to submit the complaint to Congress, Fox wrote.

For months, nothing happened, but on September 17, ODNI acting general counsel Christopher Fonzone cited “complexity in classification” as the reason transmission was delayed, according to Fox. In October, Fonzone was removed from his role and replaced by Jack Dever, and Johnson was removed from her role and replaced by Fox.

Fox claimed he learned about the complaint the day after he was appointed. “Accordingly, I prioritized its transmittal to Congress since the moment I first learned of it,” he wrote. But he also wrote at length how he’d personally determined the complaint did not meet the definition of “urgent concern.”

In December, months into Fox’s supposed crusade to transmit the complaint to Congress, he finally got around to asking Gabbard about providing guidance. “I inquired about security guidance and she revealed to me that the Acting General Counsel prior to Mr. Dever’s confirmation had never informed her of the outstanding requirement for this security guidance,” he said.

Gabbard “committed to providing the guidance as soon as practicable,” Fox wrote, adding that he also received communication from White House counsel that they were reviewing the claims for a potential assertion of executive privilege. Fox received security guidance from Gabbard on January 30, and wrote that he intended to pass along the memos.

Here’s what Fox’s letter does confirm: “In the present case, the intelligence report from which the complaint was derived is the most sensitive to-date received by IC OIG as an ‘urgent concern’ complaint,” he wrote.

The letter also suggests that ODNI spokesperson Olivia Coleman lied in a statement Monday when she claimed “the Whistleblower’s complaint is with the Congressional Intelligence Committees for review.”

During a press conference Tuesday, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Vice Chair Mark Warner said his committee had yet to receive the complaint.

When asked if he wanted to apologize to the family of slain Minnesota protester Alex Pretti, Vice President JD Vance replied, “For what?”

Vance sat down for an interview with The Daily Mail, in which he continued to cast federal agents as the real victims of Operation Metro Surge while offering virtually no sympathy for a U.S. citizen who was shot dead in the street by his own government.

“Have you apologized, did you plan to apologize to the family of Alex Pretti?” The Daily Mail’s Philip Nieto asked Vance.

“For what?”

“For, you know, labeling him an assassin with ill intent.”

The day Pretti was killed, Vance shared a post on X from White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller that read, “An assassin tried to murder federal agents and this is your response,” referring to calls for ICE to leave Minneapolis after killing Pretti. Calling Pretti—who was disarmed and then shot—an “assassin”is beyond slanderous, and just one of many false right-wing narratives that emerged in the aftermath.

“I just described to you what I said about Alex Pretti, which is that he’s a guy who showed up with ill intent to an ICE protest,” Vance continued.

“But if it’s determined that his civil rights were violated by this FBI investigation, will you apologize?”

“So if this hypothetical leads to that hypothetical leads to another hypothetical—”

“It’s a real case that’s open,” Nieto responded.

“Like I said, we’re gonna let the investigation determine.… I don’t think it’s smart to prejudge the investigation, I don’t think it’s fair to those ICE officers.”

Pretti was killed by Border Patrol, a mistake that only reaffirms Vance’s indifference toward the event.

Vance couldn’t care less about Pretti’s killing. He, Miller, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and many on the right smeared Pretti immediately after he was killed, calling him some trained domestic terrorist looking to assassinate ICE agents. But now, when the entire country can see that an act of brutal injustice occurred, the vice president wants everyone to wait and see.

The state-sponsored violence in Minnesota will not stop until citizens desist from protesting it, according to Trump officials.

Border czar Tom Homan revealed Wednesday that the administration’s strategy is not to comply with local demands—which have included calls from both politicians and residents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection to leave Minnesota altogether—in order to quell the civil unrest.

Instead, under the guise of closing the agencies’ bloody Minnesota chapter, Homan demanded that Minnesotans stop fighting back under their First Amendment rights so that the Trump administration could continue its mass deportation agenda unfettered by public opposition.

“My goal, with the support of President [Donald] Trump, is to achieve a complete draw down and end this surge as soon as we can,” Homan said during a press conference in the state. “But that is largely contingent upon the end of the illegal and threatening activities against ICE and its federal partners that we’re seeing in the community.

“We will not draw down on personnel providing security for our officers. I will not let our officers be put at risk,” Homan continued. “So we will not draw down on personnel providing security and responding to hostile incidents until we see a change in what’s happening with the lawlessness, with the impeding and interfering and assaulting ICE and border patrol officers.”

Later in the presser, Homan declined to confirm that the agencies would not stop random citizenship checks and racial profiling during their operations.

Federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis last month: ICU nurse Alex Pretti and award-winning poet Renee Nicole Good. Meanwhile, zero ICE agents have died during immigration enforcement operations since the agency was founded in 2003. Almost all protesters arrested and accused of assaulting ICE officers have seen their charges dropped.

Pretti’s and Good’s deaths—and the Trump administration’s ensuing smear campaign to frame the duo as “domestic terrorists”—were not received well by the American public. Instead, protests ensued across the country, demanding an immediate end to ICE’s brutality. People of all stripes flooded town halls for Republicans and Democrats alike to vent their frustrations, booing lawmakers’ support for a recent Homeland Security funding package that provided ongoing support for ICE.

The Washington Post made massive layoffs Wednesday, cutting one-third of its total staff, its sports and books sections entirely, and downsizing its international and local Metro sections.

The cuts were announced in a video message to staff, without any comments from the newspaper’s owner, billionaire founder of Amazon.com Jeff Bezos, who has been criticized for cozying up to President Trump in his second term and shifting the newspaper’s opinion section rightward towards “personal liberties and free markets.”

“The actions we are taking include a broad strategic reset with a significant staff reduction,” the Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, said on the call.

Bezos’s silence on the cuts follows his silence last month after the FBI raided the home of a Post reporter, Hannah Natanson, who covers the White House’s efforts to cut the federal workforce. One staffer at the time said it was “nauseating and irresponsible to have our owner remain silent given this unprecedented event.”

Now, Bezos is silently presiding over cuts to the once venerable Post, which has lost thousands of subscribers due to its owner’s decision to court the Trumpian right. One of the laid-off staffers also happens to be Amazon beat reporter Caroline O’Donovan, which isn’t suspicious at all.

Remaining staff are obviously not happy with the move, with the Post’s unionized staff issuing a statement calling out the billionaire: “If Jeff Bezos is no longer willing to invest in the mission that defined this paper for generations and serve the millions who depend on Post journalism, The Post deserves a steward that will.”

Likewise, the Washington-Baltimore News Guild also issued a statement:

This story has been updated.

Last month, President Trump told The New York Post he’d be skipping this year’s Super Bowl—in Califorinia—because it was “just too far.” New reporting from Zeteo found that to be a lie, and a pitiful one at that.

The real reason the president is skipping the Super Bowl is because he knows he’d be drowned in a sea of 69,000 boos. Advisers privately warned him that the chances he’d be jeered were high, making lots of fodder for viral clips, according to four sources familiar with the conversations.

The Trump team likely came to this realization thanks to the president’s horrendous approval ratings, following the fatal federal government shootings of Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.

Trump took the easy way out here. But perhaps being forced to skip the country’s premier sporting event out of fear of public opinion will shock Trump into realizing how unpopular he is.

Ex-Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, brother of King Charles, was forced to flee his decades-long home in the dead of night following revelations in the newest release of documents about Jeffrey Epstein.

Mountbatten-Windsor was suddenly moved Tuesday night from Royal Lodge to live in a cottage in Sandringham, the king’s Norfolk estate, a royal source told Reuters.

A friend of Mountbatten-Windsor told The Sun that the decision had been prompted by new revelations in the U.S. Department of Justice’s latest release of more than three million pages of Epstein-related documents.

“With the latest batch of Epstein files it was made clear to him that it was time to go,” the friend told the tabloid. “Leaving was so humiliating for him that he chose to do it under the cover of darkness.”

The newest trove of documents included emails suggesting that Mountbatten-Windsor had regularly kept in touch with Epstein for years after the New York financier was found guilty of child sex crimes. The dump also included never-before-seen images of Mountbatten-Windsor crouching over a woman whose face was redacted by federal investigators.

King Charles stripped Mountbatten-Windsor of his royal title in November, citing “serious lapses in judgement” following releases from the DOJ’s Epstein files.

In November, Epstein’s general ledger revealed that he had paid $200 each for two massages for “Andrew” in the year 2000, once in February 11 and again May 16. A flight log showed that Mountbatten-Windsor flew with Epstein, and his convicted co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, from New Jersey to Palm Beach on May 12, 2000.

Virgina Giuffre alleged that she had been sexually exploited by Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein’s other “adult male peers, including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen, and/or other professional and personal acquaintances.” The erstwhile Duke of York denied the accusation, and the suit was settled in 2022.