Hello and good evening. Coming at you with Breaking News. At this hour, security is ramped up and the Secret Service is on high alert at mar alago after an apparent Assassination Attempt on former president Donald Trump. Now he is home tonight unharmed. But no less than a Dozen Police cars are visible at the resort and an Investigation Led by the fbi is under way after the Secret Service fired on an armed man while trump was on the course. Just a few hundred feet away. One person is in Law Enforcement Custody. Identified as ryan welsey routh. Age 58. An Ak47 And Scope were recovered at the scene among other things. President Joe Biden, Vice PresidentKamala Harris and governor Tim Walz have also made statements that theyre glad hes safe. Just last hour posted on Social Media calling him strong and resilient. So lets start in West Palm Beach where Kathy Park is standing by. Describe the scene for us, whats the latest. Reporter good evening so were right in front of the Golf Course. And i can tell you the security here has not led up. Earlier today we heard Law Enforcement real little crediting the quick actions of a witness who spotted the suspect right away. Right before 2 00 this afternoon when the incident played out. Officials are saying this Witness Saw the man jump out from the brush, the shrubbery that surrounds this Golf Course. And was quick to write down the actual License Plate numbers of the get away vehicle. It was a black nissan. And this person shared the information with police right away. And was able to track down the suspect along the interstate. But the interstate as you can imagine, was pretty chaotic. Even getting to this location earlier today. They were blocking off different ramps. Roadways, surrounding the Golf Course as the Investigation Kind of pressed ahead. They were able to get the suspect. And we heard earlier tonight this individual was actually pretty compliant. And surrendered to Law Enforcement quickly. But, chris just to kind of go back a little bit, and just kind of walk through exactly how we got here. It all unfolded around the 2 00 Hour Right before 2 00 p. M. This afternoon. The former president was on the Golf Course. Were hearing from sources any where between the fifth and sixth hole. And typically when the former president plays golf here, or at any Golf Course, he has Security Detail that has this kind of protective bubble around him. They were out in front. And they noticed something suspicious. Noticed an individual, a gunman was aimed toward the former president. Thats when these agents decided to react quickly. They fired were told at least four rounds. But theyre saying right now its unclear if the suspect actually fired at the agents. But were told, at this hour, no injuries to report. But obviously after they heard shots fired. Local state federal agencies moved in very quickly. Securing the area. Right now even though the security is pretty tight were told theres no danger. But obvious lip obviously this is just the beginning of the investigation, chris. Authorities are actually encouraging members of The Public. If you have any information. If youre in the area, to contact them right away. Ka thy park, Thank You for that. I know you have new reporting from Palm Beach county. You came out here, you were on the phone. Youve been on the computer, whats the latest . Sure thing. So the latest according to dave arenburg, this case is already going to be federal. It allows them to keep that suspect in custody until federal charges can be filed. Thats not going to apply here. Aaronburg is already saying this is going to go federal and its going to go there right away. So the specific types of charges that they could bring, still a little bit unclear. Its important to notice he did this interview with our colleagues that you dont need to fire a round for you to be charged with attempted assassination. Itll be interesting to see whether or not federal investigators have enough evidence to bring that forward. He says this individual who has been identified according to three senior u. S. Law enforcement officials as the alleged suspect here. That apparently, he was quote lying in wait for trump. He was waiting for the Form Ore President to get to that point in the Golf Course. And it was the Secret Service there that found him. As far as other part of this investigation. The technology involved here. You can imagine back in the day sort to speak. Maybe 5, 10 years ago how long perhaps it would have taken Law Enforcement to be able to find where he was. The fact that hes from North Carolina could have made that more of a challenge. This witness had the presence of mind not only to get the photograph of the car but to able to get the License Plate. They put that into a Data Base in the realtime crime center. A lot of Law Enforcement agencies have it now. They type it in. And its abc1234, they type that in and then it says okay. In this instance, hes On I95. And then they look at the various spots where those License Plate readers are capturing him. Hes going northbound. This is where he is. So 45 Minutes North of where this shooting occurred or where he was engaged by Secret Service, they find him. They take him into custody. And then they get the witness up to the scene to say, hey, is that the guy you saw who was in the bushes and who the Secret Service fired at with a gun he says yes. So thats apparently how theyre able to make this positive identification. Just a little bit Behind The Scenes about where this investigation stands. Theyve got the car presumably theyve got any sort of phones. They have a Social Media presence, a possible Twitter Account for him was just taken down. His Facebook Account was taken down earlier today. So theyll come through comb through those things. And they will figure out was this person talking to anybody. And the big question, how did hi purchase the gun. Because if he had prior Felon Arrests he would not be able to purchase this weapon. Did he purchase it illegally, did somebody give it to him illegally. Those are questions that theyre looking at in the next hours. We dont know if he would be in custody if it were not for that good samaritan, hero, fast thinking, you know, passer by. Who thought i better Write This Down and immediately contacted police. What more do we know about bryan Wesley Routh. Ive known that hes the only person in the country with his Name And Date of birth. What do we know about him. Thats what it looks like from public records. A portrait of him is emerging. Its not conclusive. It doesnt tell us definitively about motive. We know a few things. We know he lived for a long time in North Carolina. And theres a number of convictions there. One for possession of weapon of mass destruction. We dont know much about that. We have a linked in account that says he moved to hawaii at one point. We have a long history of tweets on x now. With all kinds of things all over the map. Some very strange things including at one point inviting the North Korean dictator kim jongun to go to hawaii to do work with him. He traveled to ukraine. He was describing his efforts to go fight for the ukrainian cause. But because he was 56 years old at the time with no military experience, they did not accept him. He tried to recruit people to go fight for ukraine. Those are the kind of things that were finding out about him. It doesnt tell us why he chose to do this or what his motive was. It raises the questions with all these charges that he was able to attain this rifle. And one good thing, is that the Secret Service was able to spot the rifle. That was lucky. But it still doesnt answer the question why someone was able to get at Shots Range of the former president. You can say that they were doing their job well. Thats right, thats the point of going ahead of President Trump. And clearing the bubble. You heard the officials a few hours ago point out that Donald Trump does not have the same level of security that a current president would have. And that if he was president , its possible that the entire Golf Course would have been cleared in advance when he played. And thats going to raise some questions because hes already had an attempt on his life. Theres intelligence that iranians are trying to kill him. If Donald Trump doesnt merit the maximum Security Service at this point who does. Theres going to be questions asked about what the Secret Service and what are they bringing. Some of those questions are already being raised by various members Whos Job it is frankly to oversee this and some others who are supporters of Donald Trump. But tom, im wondering, two Assassination Attempts in just a little over two months. And i wonder if one of the things theyll be looking for maybe well find if they are scrubbing whats in his computer. Is how closely he followed the first Assassination Attempt. You have to raise the question of a copy cat. You absolutely do. And to piggy back to what kevin was mentioning. Its a short amount of time but a long way to go to this president ial election. I can tell you tonight based on our reporting there are serious questions being asked at the top of the federal Law Enforcement in this country as to how does the rest of this president ial election go. We have candidates criss crossing the country. They love these large rallies. And were seeing the former president in butler, pennsylvania. How are these individuals aware of trumps travels or somebody elses travels. Were told, this is blatantly obvious toward former President Trump. Thats the amount of threats that are coming in is very high. The amount of threats are coming in against Vice PresidentKamala Harris his opponent very high. Along with her running mate. The Secret Service is pausing and saying how do we possibly protect all these people and Oh By The Way chris, less than a mile from where you and i are sitting. A week from today, people are going to be coming into town 100 foreign dignitaries, foreign leaders. Its the high week where you have everybody in town. Now the Secret Service as part of a national Specialty Event is going to be there having to protect all this. Working in their favor is the fact they have the new York CityPolice Department that can throw hundreds of cops over A Thousand cops on this and try to help them out protecting everybody whos here. Its a huge question. Its not as if were in quote unquote peacetime. We have the Middle East where we have israel and hamas, israel and hezbollah. Thats very much a concern. They did arrest someone tied to iran or sympathetic to iran. You have that as a potential issue. You obviously have what russia has been doing with ukraine invading ukraine. Something that came up perhaps in this individuals background. So putting it all together, there are serious threats that exist on top of just the challenge normally of running the uaga or the amount of events that we typically have when you have two candidates. Thank you so much. Lets bring in carol lenyn. Washington Post Investigator who won a Pulitzer Prize on her reporting of the Secret Service. Lets talk Secret Service tonight. Let me pick up carol, where tom just left off. Tell us about staffing at the Secret Service because it was raised after the first Assassination Attempt and already those questions are being asked again now. You know theres a lot of struggle in the Secret Service at all times because for the last 12 years, there have been caps on how many people they can hire and what i have heard ever since the last Assassination Attempt, I Cant believe im saying the last Assassination Attempt in july. Is that, the number of people who are especially trained tacticians is exceedingly low. In other words the people who do counter surveillance, counter sniper, Cover And Evacuation or whats called the counter assault team. Those specialists who are really important in protecting the president in addition to his working shift the Security Detail, immediately around him. That group is really on hard times. They are far fewer of them than have been in the past. And thats a real challenge. And tom earlier is exactly right. That this agency is responsibility right now for protecting more than 40 people in addition to the president. And now, add the candidates. The Vice President ial candidate on the republican side. The former president , the republican nominee. Add that to the number on top of that after the Assassination Attempt chris, you had the secret Service Director telling lawmakers, Ron Rowe telling people were ramping up the protection for harris, Joe Biden, for the two president ial candidates. Theyre all these people are getting close to president ial protection. Why would a man with a long gun be that close to Donald Trump . And they know the bushes are there. The Palm Beach county sheriff, Ric Bradshaw told reporters just how close the gunman was to the former President Of The United States. Let me play that sound. And at this level that he is at right now. Hes not the sitting president. If he was we would have had the entire Golf Course surrounded. But because hes not security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible. So i would imagine the next time he comes to the Golf Course, there will probably be a little more people around the perimeter. But, the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done. So, even if, and congress would have to get involved i presume. Even if we need to hire more Secret Service agents, we need to have more people around Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, the president. All the other 40 people you talked about. Its not like they can snap their fingers right. Maybe they can call on some retired agents but, is it even realistic to think that they can significantly ramp up protection between