A New York Times reporter said he wasn't completely surprised upon learning a man he interviewed in 2023 was accused of attempting to assassinate former President Trump on Sunday.
"It struck me as surprising but also not that surprising," journalist Thomas Gibbons-Neff said Monday on MSNBC about learning that Routh was the suspect in the thwarted shooting.
Gibbons-Neff, a foreign correspondent for the Times, told MSNBC he spoke to Trump shooting suspect Ryan Routh last year for a story on foreign fighters and volunteers in Ukraine. The report, published on March 25, 2023, briefly detailed Routh's work as a pro-Ukraine activist who attempted to recruit Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight for Ukraine.
Gibbons-Neff said Routh was a "peculiar character" but not unlike many of the other U.S. volunteers he interviewed for the story.
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"He seemed way in over his head and very driven to help where he could," the reporter said of the suspect, who has an extensive criminal history.
Gibbons-Neff also published a first-person account of the interview and its circumstances for the Times on Sunday.
"He talked of buying off corrupt officials, forging passports and doing whatever it took to get his Afghan cadre to Ukraine, but he had no real way to accomplish his goals. At one point he mentioned arranging a U.S. military transport flight from Iraq to Poland with Afghan refugees willing to fight," Gibbons-Neff wrote about Routh.
"I shook my head. It sounded ridiculous, but the tone in Mr. Routh’s voice said otherwise. He was going to back Ukraine’s war effort, no matter what," he added.
On MSNBC, the reporter described Routh's determination to help Ukraine and "reinvent himself."
"You can't really underestimate Ukraine, Russia's invasion and what it's like to be there. I use the term loosely, ‘drinking the Kool-Aid,’" he said.
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Routh may have been "well-meaning" in his intentions but he also "has a criminal record," the reporter continued.
MSNBC host Ana Cabrera asked Gibbons-Neff if he had any "concerns" about the Trump assassination attempt suspect's "state of mind" when he spoke with him last year.
"Honestly, his state of mind was familiar to me and reminded me of a lot of people in that sphere that were very similar," the reporter responded.
Authorities say that Routh poked a rifle through a hole in the fence about 300 yards ahead of the former president while he was golfing Sunday at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., when Secret Service agents thwarted the assassination attempt by firing on the suspect. Routh fled before being arrested.
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Fox News' Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.
