Alert maralago after an apparent Assassination Attempt on former president Donald Trump. 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 underway 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 wellesley ralph, age 58 according to senior law and officials briefed on the matter. President biden, Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Walz are all expressing relief that trump is safe and Mike Johnson posted just last hour on Social Media calling him strong and resilient. Lets start at West Palm Beach were nbc News Correspondent Kathy Park is standing by. Describe the scene for us. What is the latest . Good evening. We are right in front of the Golf Course right now and i can tell you the security here has not let up. Earlier today we heard Law Enforcement really 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 that this witness saw a man jump out from the brush, the shrubbery that surrounds this Golf Course and was quick to actually write down the License Plate Number of the suspects getaway vehicle. It was a black nissan and then this witness who is not identified shared this information with Law Enforcement right away and that is when local Law Enforcement here on the ground was able to eventually track down the suspect along the interstate, but the interstate was pretty chaotic. Even getting to this location earlier today they were blocking off different ramps, roadways surrounding the Golf Course as the investigation pressed ahead but they were able to get the suspect and we heard earlier tonight that this individual was actually pretty compliant and surrendered to Law Enforcement quickly. Just to kind of go back a little bit and 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. We are hearing from sources, anywhere 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 and noticed that the gunman was aiming toward the former president. That is when these agents decided to react quickly. They are fired at least four rounds but they are saying right now its unclear if the suspect actually fired at the agents, but we are 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 security is pretty tight we are told there is no danger but obviously this is just the beginning of the investigation, and authorities are actually encouraging members of the public if you have any information, if youre in the area, witness anything, to contact them right away. With me now is nbcs Kim Delaney and and tom winter. You came out here, you on the phone, youve been on the computer. Whats the latest . The latest, according to the States Attorney there, this case is already going federal so the state is not even bringing prosecution. The reason why the state would do this this happens in New York when we see terrorism or other highprofile cases, it allows them to keep that suspect in custody until federal charges can be filed. Thats not going to apply here. Theyre already saying this is going to go federal right away so the specific types of charges they could bring are still a little bit unclear. What is important to notice that he did this interview with our colleagues last hour that you dont need to fire to be charged with attempted assassination so it will be interesting to see whether or not federal prosecutors have the evidence to bring that forward. He says this individual, ryan Wesley Routh, who has been identified according to Law Enforcement officials, as the alleged suspect, that apparently he was quote, lying in wait for trump, so he was waiting for the former president to get to that point in the Golf Course and then as kathy laid out, it was the Secret Service there that found him. As far as this investigation, the technology involved here, you can imagine maybe five, 10 years ago, how long it would have perhaps taken Law Enforcement to be able to find out where he was and the fact that he is from North Carolina Couldve made that more of a challenge except for here, this witness had a presence of mind to get a photograph of the car and to be 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 this now. They type It In, so the license for the sake of conversation is abc 1234 they take that in then it says okay, in this instance, hes in i95 and they look at various spots were License Plate readers are capturing him and say oh, hes going northbound so 45 Minutes North of where the 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 the gun . He says yes, so that is apparently how theyre able to make this positive identification. Theyve got the car. Presumably they have the phones and the possible Twitter Account for him was just taken down. His Facebook Account was taken down earlier today so they will come through those things saved by those various Social Media companies so they will be able to try to figure out if this person was talking to anybody and i think the big question, ultimately, how did he purchase the gun because of he has multiple prior Felony Arrest he wouldve likely been prohibited from buying this weapon so did somebody give it to him . Did he purchase it illegally, did somebody give it to him illegally . Those are questions in the hours and days to come. Impossible to know, but you can certainly say we dont know whether he would be in custody if it were not for that good samaritan hero fast thinking, you know, passerby who thought you know, id better Write This Down and immediately contacted police, but what more do we know about ryan Wesley Routh because i read that he is the only person in the country with his Name And Date of birth. What do we know about them . Thats what it looks like from Public Records and so a portrait of him is emerging. It is not conclusive. It does not tell us definitively about motive but we know a few things. We know he lived for a long time in North Carolina and there appears to of been a number of criminal convictions there including one conviction for possession of a Weapon Of Mass Destruction back in 2002. Unclear exactly what that was about. Other charges and convictions related to possessing stolen property. Two, we read he moved to hawaii at one point. We have a long history of tweets now with some very strange things including at one point inviting the North Korean dictator, kim jongun, to go to hawaii to do work with him. We also know he was passionate about the ukraine war, on the side of the ukrainians and traveled to ukraine. There is a Youtube Video we have authenticated where he is giving an interview in describing his efforts to go try to fight for the ukrainian cause but because he was 56 years old at the time with no Military Experience they didnt accept him as a fighter than he tried to recruit people to that cause. At one point he had a scheme to try to recruit former afghan prou. S. Fighters to go fight for ukraine so those are the kinds of things we are learning about him. Again, it does not tell us why he might have done this and what his motive may have been, and tom is right. With these convictions it raises a question about how he possessed an Assault Rifle but clearly as you said at the beginning, there were a lot of lucky things here. The first thing is that the Secret Service saw that Rifle Poking out of the brush on the outskirts of this Golf Course is theyre going to clear the next hole for Donald Trump to play. That was a lucky thing but still raises questions as to how yet again, someone got within Rifle Range of the former president. I guess to be fair, we could ask, was it lucky or was it a secret Service Agent who was very alert and doing his job extraordinarily well. Thats a fair point. Absolutely right and that is the point of going ahead of mr. Trump at the Golf Course and looking for threats and clearing the hole with that Security Bubble but you heard the Palm Beach Law Enforcement officials at the News Conference a few hours ago point out that Donald Trump does not have the same level of security the current president would have and that if he was president , it is possible the entire Golf Course wouldve been cleared in advance when he played and that is going to raise some questions because hes already had one attempt on his life. There is intelligence suggesting the iranians are trying to kill him. If Donald Trump doesnt merit maximum secret Service Protection at this point, who does, so there will be questions asked again about what kind of resources they are bringing to bear to protect Donald Trump. Yes and some of those questions are already being raised by various members whose job it is to oversee this and some others who are supporters of Donald Trump, but tom, im wondering, two Assassination Attempts and just a little over two months, and i wonder if one of the things they will be looking for, maybe they will find if they are scrubbing what is in his computer, is how closely he followed the first Assassination Attempt. You have to raise the question of a copycat. You absolutely do, and to Piggyback Off of What Ken was just mentioning, we still have a short amount of time but a long way to go with respect to the president ial election and i can tell you tonight based on our reporting there are serious questions being asked at the top of federal Law Enforcement in this country as to how does the rest of this campaign go . We have candidates crisscrossing the country. They love these big rallies. They love these outdoor events. Who is tracking what, what is happening, how are these individuals aware of trumps travels or anybody elses travels and we are told that the Threat Stream this is now blatantly obvious toward former President Trump that the amount of threats coming in is high. The amount of threats coming in against Vice President Kamala Harris, very high, along with her Running Mate so i think the secret Service Tonight is pausing and saying, how do we possibly protect all these people and oh, by The Way, less than a mile from where you and i are sitting a week from today people are coming into town, 104 and carries, foreign leaders, it is the u. N. General Assembly Week where you have everybody in town so now the Secret Service is going to be there having to protect all this. Working in their favor is the fact they have the new York City Police Department that can throw hundreds of cups, over 1000 cops at this and try to help them out as far as protecting everybody who is here, but it is a huge question, not as if we are in quote unquote peace times. We have the middle east, we have israel and her us, israel and hezbollah. Iran is involved. To kens point, that is an active concern from Law Enforcement. They did arrest somebody hoping to put together an Assassination Plot sympathetic to iran, so you have that is a potential issue and you obviously have what russia has been doing with invading ukraine, something that came up perhaps with this individuals background, so putting it all together, there are serious threats that exist on top of the challenge normally of running the you and ga are the amount of events would typically have in a Campaign Season when you have two candidates, so it is a lot. Thank you so much. Lets bring in Msnbc Contributor Carol lenaghan investigative reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the Secret Service. Let me pick up, carol, were tom just left off. Tell us about staffing at the Secret Service because it was raised after the first Assassination Attempt in already those questions are being asked again now. You know there is 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 specially trained tacticians, is exceedingly low. In other words, the stable of people who do countersurveillance, counter sniper, Cover And Evacuation of what is called a 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. There are far fewer of them than there have been in the past, and that is a real challenge. Tom earlier was exactly right that this agency is responsible right now for protecting more than 40 people in addition to the president , and now, at the Vice President ial candidate on the republican side, the former president , the republican nominee. Add that to the number, and on top of that, after the Assassination Attempt, you have the secret Service Director telling people, we are beefing up to the hilt, the protection for trump, for Kamala Harris, for Joe Biden, for the two Vice President ial candidates. All of these people are getting not president ial level treatment, but getting very close to president iallevel treatment. Theyre getting support from the military and still, this happened, which is going to be the burning question. A smart and alert secret Service Agent saw a weapon and a man on the perimeter, but why would a man with a long gone be that close to Donald Trump . And, they know that the bushes are there. The Palm Beach County Sheriff told reporters just how close that gunman actually was to the former president of the united states. Let me play that sound. At this level that he is at right now, he is not the sitting president. If he was, we would have had this entire Golf Course surrounded but because he is not, security is limited to the areas of the Secret Service as deep as possible. I would imagine the next time he comes to a Golf Course there will probably be more people around the perimeter, but the Secret Service did exactly what they shouldve done. So, even if in congress would have to get involved, i preserve 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 people that you talked about, it is not like they can step the fingers, right . Maybe they can call on some retired agents, but is it even realistic to think that they could significantly ramp up protection between now and Election Day . You know, i want to stress two things in answer to again a very good question. Number one, the candidate is probably going to have to do something different in order to protect himself and i dont mean that the secret Service Cant protect him, but it is true, they cant snap their fingers and create a fortress around him and allow him to also golf on a course that is accessible by roadways and residential streets. You know, there is going to have to be some sort of consideration of another kind of Security Bubble around him, and some changes in his routine of a Golf Course that is Semi Public and next to residential streets probably is not ideal. After the shooting in butler, the then director of the Secret Service told the Trump Campaign no more outdoor events for a little while, until we figure out how to secure you in those places. I think you are going to see the director and now, Acting Director Ron Rowe come out and say either to the campaign or publicly say we are going to have to do something differently because even if every single department of Homeland Security Agent gets pulled up from the border or from Homeland Investigations or from tsa, if all of these agents get put on to security for the candidates, i still dont think that is going to really be either practical, or enough. I dont need to tell you how integral being around people, being around voters is, especially toward the end of the campaign, going into battleground states. Yes, holding big rallies, outdoor rallies, but going into small places, going into coffee shops, going into diners, they call them otr, Off The Record, but an open public places, and i guess my question is about to what extent can you really limit that, and who has the final say. Take us inside the power structure. If the Acting Director of the Secret Service says to Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, you cant do an outdoor rally anymore, Donald Trump, who by The Way, golfs almost every chance he can, certainly when he is near one of his courses, he often has meetings there. He often is that with close friends and people who have donated to his campaign, can he say yes i am or do they have the final word . How does that work . There is no hard and fast absolute rule other than a candidate can say you know what . Im going to do what i want to do. Im going to take the risk they want to take, and so sorry. They could do that. But, The General, practical reality is the Secret Service tries to cajole and pressure and basically Guilt Trip President s and their staff and candidates and their staff to do what is safe. I mean, ive had agents tell me about the time they insisted that Bulletproof Glass be put up and then Candidate Obama was president elect. When he was at grant park, there were a lot of questions, how are we going to protect this guy who has literally a bullseye on him because he is about to be the first black president , and they insisted, we are putting up Bulletproof Glass, and the story. But, you asked the right question. What can the candidate or the President Say, take a hike. And the answer is yes, he can.