Speaker 1: Kyoda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. US
Speaker 1: politics is in a free fall after the attempted assassination
Speaker 1: of former President Donald Trump. The shooting killed a spectator
Speaker 1: and injured to others, while the Secret Service fatally shot
Speaker 1: the gunman, a twenty year old man from Pennsylvania, where
Speaker 1: the rally was being held. The shocking incident comes at
Speaker 1: a time when the United States is already polarized politically,
Speaker 1: smack bang in the middle of the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: election race. The Republican National Convention is still going ahead
Speaker 1: this week, and pundits are already predicting that this event
Speaker 1: could have a major impact on the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: presidential election. Today on the Front Page, we speak to
Speaker 1: University of Wyke at the International law professor Al Gillespie
Speaker 1: on what's next and how this event could change the
Speaker 1: US political landscape. But first we'll get the latest from
Speaker 1: CBS News campaign reporter Jake Rosen, who was at the
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania rally when the shots rang out. Jake, you were
Speaker 1: covering Saturday's Trump rally and Butler Pennsylvania. What was it
Speaker 1: like being there on the ground.
Speaker 2: You know, I do these often.
Speaker 3: It's part of my job at CBS to go wherever
Speaker 3: the former president is. I'm here in Milwaukee now. He
Speaker 3: just landed a couple hours ago, and you're only one
Speaker 3: hundred feet from him. The campaign loves to make sure
Speaker 3: that you have a good shot of you know, when
Speaker 3: he's speaking and you're doing live shots. We thought yesterday
Speaker 3: was potentially going to be a presidential announcement, and so
Speaker 3: you know, there was an kind of an environment of
Speaker 3: excitement by its supporters. Everyone I spoke to there thought
Speaker 3: maybe it could have come yesterday.
Speaker 2: Obviously that didn't happen.
Speaker 3: But you know, you go through layers of security when
Speaker 3: you're dealing with Trump rallies and Biden events and many
Speaker 3: events with US officials, high ranking YOU officials, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm certainly still in shock. I know my coworkers who
Speaker 3: were there definitely are. It's just not something that you
Speaker 3: expect to ever see happened in your lifetime, let alone
Speaker 3: when you're there physically on the job.
Speaker 1: What was it like when the shots rang out?
Speaker 3: You know, I've said this to a couple of people,
Speaker 3: but coming off of our July fourth holiday where people
Speaker 3: launch fireworks off. It sounded like someone maybe brought some
Speaker 3: in and lit them off. It sounded like maybe someone
Speaker 3: nearby the rally site set off some fireworks. You know,
Speaker 3: here in America we love an explosion or two. And
Speaker 3: even in my neighborhood to Washington, DC. And after the
Speaker 3: assassination in attempt last night, people in the Butler, Pennsylvania
Speaker 3: area were still lighting off fireworks.
Speaker 2: But we heard top pop pop.
Speaker 4: If you want to really see something, that said, take
Speaker 4: a look at what happened.
Speaker 3: Over from turned and grabbed his ear and one of
Speaker 3: the bullets hit a hydraulic lift that holds the speakers
Speaker 3: up when Trump speaks, holds a you know, massive set
Speaker 3: of speakers. And I heard a hiss and saw some
Speaker 3: smoke come from there. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 3: we look back at Trump. The crowd is shrieking. There
Speaker 3: the sound of women and children yelling and calling for help.
Speaker 2: I'll never forget it.
Speaker 3: We saw, you know, a swat team come right up
Speaker 3: on stage with Secret Service and protect Trump.
Speaker 2: But you can hear it all, you know.
Speaker 3: I was just watching some of the video from yesterday
Speaker 3: for the first time, and it took the crowd by surprise.
Speaker 3: It certainly took all of us by surprise.
Speaker 1: And you would have spoken to some attendees there, Hey
Speaker 1: were they shocked?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I spoke to the people who refused to leave because
Speaker 3: they didn't know what to do. I think part of
Speaker 3: the struggle in that situation as a reporter is the
Speaker 3: first thing I wanted to do is call my parents.
Speaker 2: And let them know I'm okay.
Speaker 3: There wasn't enough self service there to really do that,
Speaker 3: so I just went around with my cell phone and
Speaker 3: went up the people who were still leaning up against
Speaker 3: the press area of railings and hanging out there. We
Speaker 3: were making sure that people were okay. An elderly woman
Speaker 3: handed me a chair and asked me to just get
Speaker 3: it out of the way as she was trying to
Speaker 3: get her family through. And I talked to a doctor
Speaker 3: yesterday who was off duty, an emergency room physician who
Speaker 3: tried to save.
Speaker 2: The life of the man who was killed.
Speaker 3: He did CPR on the man and tried to save
Speaker 3: his life in the stands before the medical officials got there.
Speaker 2: And you know, the man had blood all over his shirt.
Speaker 3: He was shaken, his partner was shaken, and it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's just a scene that's unfortunately become all too real
Speaker 3: in America and now stretched into American politics.
Speaker 2: I heard the shots.
Speaker 4: I thought it was far crackers to begin with. Somebody
Speaker 4: over there with screaming he's been shot, he's been shot.
Speaker 4: So I made my way over. I said, I'm in
Speaker 4: a merchant department, physician, let me help you. The guy
Speaker 4: had spun around, was jammed between the benches. He had
Speaker 4: a headshot here, there's lots of blood and he had
Speaker 4: brain matter there. So I got him s genitor CPR
Speaker 4: fIF chest compressions as well as a brief point.
Speaker 1: I guess from a New Zealand's perspective, it's astonishing that
Speaker 1: someone can get so close to a former president with
Speaker 1: a firearm. I'm not sure if you know our laws here,
Speaker 1: but guns aren't as prevalent, I guess as they are
Speaker 1: in America. Is that the kind of feeling there at
Speaker 1: the moment, because from the outside looking in, the fact
Speaker 1: that people can carry around guns in the US is
Speaker 1: just astonishing.
Speaker 3: You know, when you go to these rallies, and I
Speaker 3: only speak of this, and you know in the context
Speaker 3: of what you have to go through, but you go
Speaker 3: through bomb dogs.
Speaker 2: They smell your bags.
Speaker 3: Like I have to go with a camera bag and
Speaker 3: a tripod and backpacks and stuff. When I go, you
Speaker 3: go through metal detectors. Security agents open your bag and
Speaker 3: check through them. So I think you're operating under the
Speaker 3: presumption that you're safe, right, And I think in this
Speaker 3: case what seems to have happened is either short staffing
Speaker 3: or mistaken you know, assignments by Secret Service and the
Speaker 3: local police. And this gunman who was you know, four
Speaker 3: hundred feet away, climbed up on a roof and despite
Speaker 3: warnings from people who were watching the Trump rally from
Speaker 3: outside that initial Secret Service security perimeter, it just wasn't
Speaker 3: enough time to save you know, the life of the
Speaker 3: man who was shot and to stop former President Trump
Speaker 3: from being hit with a bullet. And you know, I
Speaker 3: will add that the way that his head was turned
Speaker 3: and he was hit, you know, Trump boton looks around,
Speaker 3: but just the way that his head was if it
Speaker 3: was turned a different way, it might have been a
Speaker 3: different story.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me the lightest on what we know
Speaker 1: about the alleged shooter.
Speaker 3: So he was a twenty year old man from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: He was a registered Republican The latest reporting that CBS
Speaker 3: has is that the man had some kind of explosive
Speaker 3: device in his car which was near the rally site.
Speaker 2: Not at the rally, but near there.
Speaker 3: And look, I believe that a bomb squad found explosive
Speaker 3: material and bomb making material at his home. And we
Speaker 3: have not found any kind of manifesto or anything yet,
Speaker 3: but our social media investigative teams and everyone is doing
Speaker 3: their best right now to piece together what we think
Speaker 3: got him to the point where he felt like he
Speaker 3: needed to try to take the life.
Speaker 2: Of a former president.
Speaker 1: And the Republican National Convention is still going ahead. You're
Speaker 1: there in Milwaukee this way. They're concerns about safety ahead
Speaker 1: of that event.
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, you know, this event just like the Democratic one,
Speaker 3: just like things like the World Cup, the Super Bowl,
Speaker 3: massive supporting events in America, celebrity events. They're operated and
Speaker 3: run by Secret Service, the same group that runs these rallies,
Speaker 3: and they're certainly concerned. There's a couple of security perimeters.
Speaker 3: The former president is here. He got here right before
Speaker 3: you and I started speaking, and you know, we'll kind
Speaker 3: of have to see you. You know how these politicians
Speaker 3: and speakers talk about what happened yesterday, but it just
Speaker 3: seems like, you know, it's this tangible feeling of nervousness
Speaker 3: among my colleagues and I who are there and who
Speaker 3: are now here, and just generally across the board that
Speaker 3: there's so much going on in the world outside of
Speaker 3: America that we are already on alert for, and now
Speaker 3: there's one very, very significant development that I think just
Speaker 3: makes you know, the hair on the back of your
Speaker 3: neck stand up a little bit as you kind of
Speaker 3: walk around the city. And I was in Chicago at
Speaker 3: the airport about an hour and a half ago, and
Speaker 3: just makes you look behind your back a couple more
Speaker 3: times than usually would.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Jake. With four months to go
Speaker 1: until Americans head to the polls, this shooting could not
Speaker 1: have come at a more contentious time for American politics
Speaker 1: to discuss the wider ramifications of this. We're joined now
Speaker 1: by Alci Llespie Ow. The FBI and other authorities are
Speaker 1: currently sweeping the shooter's social media accounts searching for any
Speaker 1: kind of possible motive. Now it's all dependent on what
Speaker 1: they find, of course, but what are the early indications
Speaker 1: of what this could have actually possibly been.
Speaker 5: Well, most people will recognize it as an assassination, and
Speaker 5: that's more of a political term than a legal term
Speaker 5: or an attempted assassination, and that's where you target a
Speaker 5: high profile person. Searching for the social media is important
Speaker 5: because they'll be looking more for a motive, and if
Speaker 5: you can find a motive, that could change it from
Speaker 5: an act of murder or attended murder to an act
Speaker 5: of terrorism. And that means they'll be trying to find
Speaker 5: out the ideological purpose of why the shooter did this act.
Speaker 1: They're also following up on the suggestion it could have
Speaker 1: been a domestic terrorism attack. What's the difference there, Well.
Speaker 5: If it's terrorism, it means that it will be viewed
Speaker 5: very differently, not just legally, but also politically, because people
Speaker 5: will instantly start to associate that one person with any
Speaker 5: groups that they may have associated with. And so often
Speaker 5: when you designate some of the terror act, you can,
Speaker 5: if it's not carefully done, implicate wider communities or people
Speaker 5: with like minded views. It shouldn't be political, but often
Speaker 5: when it is designated this terrorism, it can be seen
Speaker 5: as political.
Speaker 6: I want to speak to you tonight about the need
Speaker 6: for us to lower the temperature in our politics and
Speaker 6: to remember or we may disagree, we are not enemies.
Speaker 6: We're neighbors. We're friends, co workers, citizens, and most importantly,
Speaker 6: we are fellow Americans. We must stand together. There's no
Speaker 6: place in America this kind of violence, for any violence, ever, period,
Speaker 6: no exceptions. We can't allow this violence to be normalized.
Speaker 6: You know, the political record in this country has gotten
Speaker 6: very heated.
Speaker 2: It's time to cool it down.
Speaker 1: The US is already quite tense in the midst of
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four US presidential election. What could this
Speaker 1: event mean for the race going forward?
Speaker 5: Well, there's so much going on right now. I mean
Speaker 5: in terms of the race going forward. With regards to
Speaker 5: further tanks, there's always a risk that you'll get either
Speaker 5: copycats where someone will find inspiration and the notoriety of
Speaker 5: the killer and do a similar act, or you might
Speaker 5: get a reprisal attack as well, where someone will lash
Speaker 5: out against the community that they perceive the attempted assassin
Speaker 5: to have come from. And so the risk of violence
Speaker 5: will be elevated in a number of areas. I don't
Speaker 5: think that the actual terror threat levels in America have
Speaker 5: yet increased, but they will be increasingly vigilant around high
Speaker 5: profile events. And the second thing that you need to
Speaker 5: watch for is the inquiry process, because whenever you have
Speaker 5: such a high profile attack and is in all countries,
Speaker 5: you have to find out why that happened, and so
Speaker 5: that it's never good to call for quick inquiries as
Speaker 5: mister Biden's done. You want to have initial inquiries and
Speaker 5: then you want to get right to the bottom of
Speaker 5: the details of why this person did that and how
Speaker 5: they achieved it. With regards to the actual election, I
Speaker 5: know a lot of people are saying it's going to
Speaker 5: be a landslipe for Trump right now, but I think
Speaker 5: it's premature to actually come to that position because there's
Speaker 5: a fair chance that mister Biden might even be the
Speaker 5: preferred candidate going into the election in November, and so
Speaker 5: I think there's still a lot of water to go
Speaker 5: into the bridge in what is already a very tense
Speaker 5: political campaign cycle.
Speaker 1: The history of assassination attempts and assassinations of US presidents
Speaker 1: isn't new, and with it comes that barrage of conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: People still can't agree on what actually happened to JFK,
Speaker 1: for instance. This time, though social media is playing a
Speaker 1: big role in spreading theories on both sides of the aisle. Hey,
Speaker 1: some of the right wing saying Biden or George Soros
Speaker 1: was behind it, some of the left arguing the shooting
Speaker 1: was staged. What do these suggestions mean for US politics?
Speaker 5: It's not just US politics, it's politics and all democracies.
Speaker 5: That the amount of misinformation and disinformation is on steroids
Speaker 5: right now, and that we need to take a little
Speaker 5: bit of a step back, try to be calm and
Speaker 5: let the authorities go about their processes so that we
Speaker 5: can get to some certainty. It's not new that dis
Speaker 5: misinformation or disinformation or even propaganda, but the spread of it,
Speaker 5: the speed of it, and the depth of it is unprecedented.
Speaker 5: And the risk is that this information is then used
Speaker 5: by others to go on and justify violence against other
Speaker 5: civilians intercourse of their actions.
Speaker 1: This shooting comes as a tax over. Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: a right wing think tank wish list for Republican presidency,
Speaker 1: has been making the headlines.
Speaker 7: Product twenty twenty five is a collection of conservative policies
Speaker 7: and a blueprint for the next conservative president, which includes
Speaker 7: policies like a crackdown and abortion pills. The reinstatement of
Speaker 7: the Trump era immigration bans, a ban on transgender people
Speaker 7: serving in the military, and eliminating the Department of Education.
Speaker 7: The handbook outlines an expansion of presidential power and plans
Speaker 7: to fire as many as fifty thousand government workers to
Speaker 7: be placed with conservatives, including a top to bottom overhaul
Speaker 7: the Department of Justice and the FBI.
Speaker 1: Does this incident just bury any attack lines on Trump
Speaker 1: for the next we are?
Speaker 5: I hope?
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 5: I hope the Americans can take a pause from this
Speaker 5: terrible incident and come together. I was heartened by a
Speaker 5: millennia Trump's post about the importance of getting above politics
Speaker 5: and just coming together as a community. Ideally, in my world,
Speaker 5: there'd be no campaigning for the next ten days, that
Speaker 5: Biden and Trump would come together and collectively condemn political
Speaker 5: violence under any justification. The problem is that the election
Speaker 5: cycle is now only perhaps one hundred days away, and
Speaker 5: trying to pause it and not use this for an
Speaker 5: unnecessary gain for one party or the other will be
Speaker 5: very difficult to achieve. But right now, all Americans need
Speaker 5: to just take a deep breath, because the risk is
Speaker 5: not just to the presidential campaign, it's to the integrity
Speaker 5: of their country in general, because if more conflict breaks out,
Speaker 5: it could just spread more conflict.
Speaker 1: Since the attack, we've seen an outpouring of nation from
Speaker 1: world leaders after the shooting, including Israel's Benjamin Natan Yahoo.
Speaker 1: What does an assassination attempt like this mean for international relations?
Speaker 5: Sometimes assassinations are linked to foreign countries, and if they're
Speaker 5: linked to foreign countries, it can make it very difficult
Speaker 5: to maintain stable relationships. We yet to see all the
Speaker 5: information about the killer, but primar face, it appears that
Speaker 5: he was a lone wolf acting by himself. Most politicians,
Speaker 5: especially in Western democracies, will come out and condemn this
Speaker 5: because they will realize that if you don't condemn it, unfortunately,
Speaker 5: very quickly you two could become a target. So it's
Speaker 5: in best self interest, not just for their own preservation,
Speaker 5: but also as a question of politics and principle.
Speaker 1: Now do you think this incident is enough to change
Speaker 1: the public's perception of Trump and see him re elected
Speaker 1: or will it only drive divisions in the US.
Speaker 5: I am always hopeful that there's a good middle ground
Speaker 5: in America, and I think that's somewhat optimistic on my part,
Speaker 5: that there is a good common center between the Democrats
Speaker 5: and the Republicans where they can find unity, and I'm
Speaker 5: hoping they can find unity in their joint condemnation of
Speaker 5: any kind of political violence. But the realistic side of
Speaker 5: me understands that ever since mister Biden won the election
Speaker 5: has become a much more contested and a much more
Speaker 5: angry country. Americans nearly always do the right thing. It
Speaker 5: just takes some time to get there, but it will
Speaker 5: take extraordinary restraint from many people right now not to
Speaker 5: lash out, both in terms of blaming other communities and
Speaker 5: seeking vengeance for themselves.
Speaker 1: This attempted assassination on Trump. Obviously, it's astonishing that someone
Speaker 1: can get a firearm as close to a former US
Speaker 1: president as this person has. What do you think it
Speaker 1: will do to the debate around gun control in America.
Speaker 5: It will make it difficult, especially now that the president
Speaker 5: has been a target of a loan shooter. Normally, what
Speaker 5: happens when you have an incident like this is they
Speaker 5: review the firearms platform that was used, how the firearm
Speaker 5: was accessed by the shooter. In America, in the past,
Speaker 5: they have prohibited these types of firearms. Between nineteen ninety
Speaker 5: four and two thousand and four, but that prohibition lapsed
Speaker 5: on semi automatic. I don't think that there will be
Speaker 5: a appetite for prohibition of these firearms, but I expect
Speaker 5: you will see a lot of focus around the laws
Speaker 5: that allowed potentially an unlicensed person without a background check
Speaker 5: to have access to firearm that his father may have bought.
Speaker 5: So I don't think you'll see prohibition, but I think
Speaker 5: you may see a tightening, especially in Pennsylvania, around the
Speaker 5: safe storage of firearms.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us out that said, for this episode
Speaker 1: of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 1: stories and extensive news coverage at ZAD Herald dot co
Speaker 1: dot z. The Front Page is produced by Ethan Seals
Speaker 1: with sound engineer Patti Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to
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Speaker 1: and tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.