Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
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Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that,
Speaker 2: let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Monday.
Speaker 2: We have a great show for everybody today. Unfortunately, a
Speaker 2: couple of things. Crystal actually one of her kids is
Speaker 2: sick and she's not able to make it this morning.
Speaker 2: It was an emergency, so I'll be holding down the fort. Luckily,
Speaker 2: I do have some practice at this now, at this point. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, we have full spectrum coverage here at breaking
Speaker 2: points this morning of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump
Speaker 2: at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday. We brought
Speaker 2: you two breaking new segments over the weekend breaking some
Speaker 2: of that down. But we're going to go a full
Speaker 2: through the timeline of the events, some of the fallout,
Speaker 2: what we know about the shooter so far, the FBI investigation.
Speaker 2: President Biden's response will then dissect exactly what we know
Speaker 2: about the Secret services colossal failure here in preventing this
Speaker 2: attempted assassination, some of the holes that have opened up,
Speaker 2: and some of the background also into the problems inside
Speaker 2: of this agency that are now glaringly revealed after this incident.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk a little bit about President Biden
Speaker 2: and his political future. His political future appear saved more
Speaker 2: so now by the attempted assassination and some of the
Speaker 2: news coverage and some of the planning going on now
Speaker 2: behind the scenes by the Democratic Party. How they think
Speaker 2: that they can weather this and perhaps go all the
Speaker 2: way to election day without more calls from elected officials
Speaker 2: calling on Biden to drop out. We're going to give
Speaker 2: everybody a preview of the RNC, which of course kicks
Speaker 2: off today and will go all the way to Thursday.
Speaker 2: Some news about Donald Trump and the speech that he
Speaker 2: has given, and about also some changes that he's made
Speaker 2: to that speech in the wake of shooting, how he's
Speaker 2: feeling exactly, and how this will change the presidential election
Speaker 2: race going into twenty twenty four. Will finally end the
Speaker 2: segment on a funny note, somebody who you saw very
Speaker 2: recently here on this program, the advisor to Democratic billionaire
Speaker 2: Megadonner Reed Hoffman, has apparently been caught in the immediate
Speaker 2: aftermath of the shooting. Who you saw in our Counterpoints
Speaker 2: debate against Shank Yueger about Biden staying in the race, Well,
Speaker 2: he apparently was caught telling journalists in the hours after
Speaker 2: the attempted assassination that the entire thing was apparently stayed.
Speaker 2: So a real view into the democratic elite mind and
Speaker 2: some of the conspiracies that harbor there. As we said
Speaker 2: at the top, this is a full spectrum breaking points coverage.
Speaker 2: Thank you to everybody, our premium subscribers who enable us
Speaker 2: to be able to put out that breaking news coverage
Speaker 2: to continue doing the show here every day. Our own
Speaker 2: Emily Jishinski is on the ground at the RNC, so
Speaker 2: throughout the week we'll check in with her about what's
Speaker 2: going on. She'll be doing interviews and other things. And
Speaker 2: then don't forget we also the entire crew will be
Speaker 2: on the ground for the DNC which is in August
Speaker 2: in Chicago. So thank you to all of our premium
Speaker 2: members here, the guys who enable us to continue doing
Speaker 2: this work. Let's start with the attempted assassination on Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: and I'll try and just start at the very beginning
Speaker 2: of the incident. So let's go ahead and play some
Speaker 2: of the video here. This was in Butler, Pennsylvania, approximately
Speaker 2: six fifteen pm. You saw Trump, he was in the
Speaker 2: middle of his speech, only five minutes or so. Immediately
Speaker 2: you see shots begin to ring out and Secret Service
Speaker 2: agents who jump immediately on top of the president. Most
Speaker 2: striking things is that you can see the incredible confusion
Speaker 2: going on behind Donald Trump. And unfortunately, that heartbreaking screen
Speaker 2: that you hear in the background is people realizing that
Speaker 2: an innocent bystander, just a normal person who woke up
Speaker 2: on Saturday, he was excited to go to the former
Speaker 2: president's rally, lost his life and was shot.
Speaker 4: Er.
Speaker 2: Doctor who was on the scene said that he was
Speaker 2: shot in the head and almost certainly a fatality.
Speaker 3: Immediately after it happened.
Speaker 2: We know a little bit more about that individual, and
Speaker 2: I'll bring you some news about him. But what you're watching,
Speaker 2: obviously is just an incredibly chaotic scene. You have these
Speaker 2: Secret Service agents. We can actually hear them on the microphone.
Speaker 2: That is being picked up there where they're saying get down,
Speaker 2: get down. Then they realize that the shooter has down.
Speaker 2: They say that the threat has been neutralized. As Trump
Speaker 2: begins to rise, they bring him up and they surround
Speaker 2: him and create a barrier with their own bodies around
Speaker 2: the former president. One of them is actually checking him
Speaker 2: for wounds while he is standing there. Trump obviously is
Speaker 2: both He's a little bit confused in the immediate moment,
Speaker 2: but then he says wait, wait, wait, and that is
Speaker 2: there one of the most iconic moments where he shouts fight, fight,
Speaker 2: fight to the crowd, puts his fist up, also creating
Speaker 2: that iconic image that we have now all probably seen
Speaker 2: over the weekend where you can see the Associated Press
Speaker 2: photographer was right below him and was able to capture
Speaker 2: Trump with his fist in the air, blood on his face,
Speaker 2: in the American flag flying high in the background as
Speaker 2: he has rushed to his vehicle. Let's go to the
Speaker 2: next part here as well and put that image please
Speaker 2: up on the screen. This is where a lot of
Speaker 2: the questions now are centering what the hell happened here
Speaker 2: with this response from law enforcement. So what you can
Speaker 2: see directly in front of you. This is a map
Speaker 2: that's been put together. You can see the stage where
Speaker 2: Donald Trump was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania. You can also
Speaker 2: see where the wounded rally attempt attendee was sitting. You
Speaker 2: can see behind where the law enforcement counter snipers were
Speaker 2: positioned on the rooftop. There's been a lot of discussion
Speaker 2: around the actions of those counter snipers. But then over
Speaker 2: to the left on that building rooftop was the location
Speaker 2: of the gunman's body. So there's a lot of questions
Speaker 2: here about how exactly a gunman is able to walk
Speaker 2: on to a rooftop with a direct line of sight
Speaker 2: to former President Donald Trump. He's able not only to
Speaker 2: the rooftop, he's able to get into the prone firing
Speaker 2: position and then able to squeeze off some seven to
Speaker 2: eight shots at the former president. Let's go and put
Speaker 2: the next graphic up please. That is also very helpful
Speaker 2: in kind of discovering what happened here. This shows you
Speaker 2: actually on the ground image and it also realizes just
Speaker 2: how close that this individual was able to get. We're
Speaker 2: talking about one hundred and thirty yards that this individual
Speaker 2: is able to get from the former president, and one
Speaker 2: of the most obvious and direct lines of sight. Now
Speaker 2: there's big discussions here about the failures of the Secret Service,
Speaker 2: but I think that image actually really puts everything together
Speaker 2: quite well. You could see exactly where the shooter was,
Speaker 2: you could see where the Secret Service snipers were, and
Speaker 2: you can also see where Donald Trump was. They're on
Speaker 2: the stage, and unfortunately, in the path of that assassin's bullet,
Speaker 2: a innocent bystander was hit in the head while he
Speaker 2: was covering his own family. Just absolutely tragic in the
Speaker 2: results that have happened here. What I think that this
Speaker 2: image underscores most for us is the fail and some
Speaker 2: shocking questions that now have to be asked of the
Speaker 2: Secret Service and how exactly they allowed something like this
Speaker 2: to happen. Everything that we're beginning to learn now behind
Speaker 2: the scenes points to absolutely colossal incompetence. Let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen. In terms
Speaker 2: of what we know about the shooter, they've released his name.
Speaker 2: The individual's name here is Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: about a forty minute drive from the Butler, Pennsylvania rally
Speaker 2: where Donald Trump was attending. There is very little known
Speaker 2: about mister Crooks. He was a twenty year old man.
Speaker 2: He was killed by Secret Service counter at snipers after
Speaker 2: he took shots at the former president. The thing is, though,
Speaker 2: is all we really know about him so far is
Speaker 2: that he recently graduated from high school, twenty year old,
Speaker 2: does not appear to have had a significant social media presence.
Speaker 2: Discord confirmed that he did have an account with them,
Speaker 2: but they claim, at least for now, that the account
Speaker 2: has been taken down and that he was not known
Speaker 2: to have engaged in any political discussion or anything related
Speaker 2: to the investigation. The authorities say that they are fighting
Speaker 2: and searching, you know, for any clues to the motive
Speaker 2: of mister Crooks.
Speaker 3: But in terms of what.
Speaker 2: We know about him so far is just some smatterings
Speaker 2: that have begin to come out from some of his classmates.
Speaker 2: So we actually have here a student in class who
Speaker 2: was in the classes with mister Crooks claimed that he
Speaker 2: was quote bullied almost every day and relentlessly because of
Speaker 2: his appearance and for being an outcast.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
Speaker 3: He was bullied almost.
Speaker 5: Every day in what way can you explain? I mean,
Speaker 5: he would sit alone at lunch I mean, he was
Speaker 5: just an outcast, and you know how kids are nowadays,
Speaker 5: so they're going to see someone like that and they're
Speaker 5: going to target him because they think it's funni or whatever.
Speaker 5: So it's the best way I can describe it. And
Speaker 5: it's honestly kind of sad, Like I don't want to
Speaker 5: say this is what provoked it, but you never know. Good.
Speaker 6: You said he was a loner.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to say he was a loner more
Speaker 5: because he was just he was quiet, but like he
Speaker 5: was just bullied, Like he was bullied so much, so much.
Speaker 7: Yeah, what did they still remember at all?
Speaker 1: What they said to him or called him.
Speaker 5: No, he was just made fun of, I guess for
Speaker 5: the way he dressed, or his appearents.
Speaker 2: Made fun of for the way he dressed. We can't
Speaker 2: surmise a lot. All we know really about mister Crooks
Speaker 2: is also what he was wearing on that day. He
Speaker 2: was wearing khaki, I think it was pants and with
Speaker 2: a T shirt that was tucked into with the T
Speaker 2: shirt was of a gun. YouTube were very popular, but
Speaker 2: you know, he's not a political person and the shirt
Speaker 2: itself doesn't mean anything in and of itself. The FBI
Speaker 2: has now taken control of the entire investigation. They also
Speaker 2: cast a little bit of a shock at the Secret Service.
Speaker 2: They said, yeah, it's surprising that this individual was able
Speaker 2: to get in contact.
Speaker 3: Here's a little bit about what we know. It's broken overnight.
Speaker 2: The FBI is now telling us that the gunmen quote
Speaker 2: appears to have acted alone, but investigators remain unsure of
Speaker 2: his motive, his political beliefs. They have not even been
Speaker 2: able to determine what evidence might yet be on his
Speaker 2: cell phone, so there's some questions there. We also, apparently,
Speaker 2: according to them, they found quote rudimentary explosive devices in
Speaker 2: the gunman's vehicle, and possible explosives were also found at
Speaker 2: his residence. We know that mister Crooks apparently lived in
Speaker 2: his home with his parents. Parents are two registered social
Speaker 2: workers and or counselors. In terms of his own political history,
Speaker 2: a lot has been made.
Speaker 3: Listen, you can make up with this what you will.
Speaker 2: He is quote registered as a Republican, also donated fifteen
Speaker 2: dollars to a group allied with Democrats on the day
Speaker 2: of Joe Biden's inauguration. That appears to basically be it.
Speaker 2: He quote had an engineering degree from a nearby community college,
Speaker 2: probably associate's degree. He quote liked to play chess, video games,
Speaker 2: and was learning how to code. Unlike most people in
Speaker 2: his generation, he seemed to have a minimal presence online,
Speaker 2: leaving no telltale trial of public comments or social media
Speaker 2: posts in and of itself frankly a bit suspicious. I
Speaker 2: don't know a single twenty year old who isn't very,
Speaker 2: very active, or perhaps he had a pseudonymous username or
Speaker 2: something that has not yet been uncovered. We're waiting on
Speaker 2: discussions and information from the FBI. Didn't also, though, want
Speaker 2: to pass over the individual who was killed at the
Speaker 2: Trump rally. Corey competore And here is Governor Josh Shapiro
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania, who told us a little bit about Corey.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 8: We lost a fellow Pennsylvanian last night, Corey comparate tour.
Speaker 8: I just spoke to Corey's wife and Corey's two daughters.
Speaker 8: Corey was a girl dad. Corey was a firefighter. Corey
Speaker 8: went to church every Sunday. Corey loved his community, and
Speaker 8: most especially, Corey loved his family. Corey was an avid
Speaker 8: supporter of the former president and was so excited to
Speaker 8: be there last night with him in the community. I
Speaker 8: asked Corey's wife it would be okay for me to
Speaker 8: share that we spoke. She said yes. She also asked
Speaker 8: that I share with all of you that Corey died
Speaker 8: a hero, that Corey dove on his family to protect
Speaker 8: them last night at this rally. Corey was the very
Speaker 8: best of us. May his memory be a blessing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's very well said from the governor
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania. That image was released by Corey's own daughters,
Speaker 2: who say that he dived on top of them in
Speaker 2: the midst of the shooting. And it's very likely, at
Speaker 2: very least that scream, that horrifying, some blood curling screen
Speaker 2: that we heard in that video was people realizing that
Speaker 2: Corey had been shot, as well as some other individuals
Speaker 2: who were injured at this rally. President Biden spoken three
Speaker 2: times now since the attempted assassination, but perhaps his most
Speaker 2: high profile comments came last night from an Oval Office
Speaker 2: address in which President Biden urged unity. Let's take a
Speaker 2: listen to what he had to say.
Speaker 6: Here in America, everyone must be treated with dignity, respect,
Speaker 6: and hate must have no safe harbor. Here in America,
Speaker 6: we need to get out of our silos, or we
Speaker 6: only listen to those with whom we agreed. Where misinformation
Speaker 6: is rampant, for foreign actors fan the flames of our
Speaker 6: division to shape the outcomes consistent with their interest, not ours.
Speaker 6: Yesterday's shooting at Donald Trump's rally in Pennsylvania calls on
Speaker 6: all of us to take a step back, take stock
Speaker 6: of where we are, how we go forward from here. Thankfully,
Speaker 6: Former Trump is not seriously landed. I spoke to him
Speaker 6: last night. I'm grateful he's doing well in Jill and
Speaker 6: I keep him and his family in our prayers. And
Speaker 6: in America, we resolve our difference at the battle box.
Speaker 6: Now that's how we do it, at the battle box,
Speaker 6: not with bullets. You know, we're blessed to live in
Speaker 6: the greatest country on earth, and I believe that with
Speaker 6: every soul, every power.
Speaker 3: Of my feed.
Speaker 6: So tonight I'm asking every American to recommit to make America.
Speaker 6: So make America, to think about what's made America so special.
Speaker 6: Here in America, everyone must to be treated with dignity, respect.
Speaker 2: So that's what we've gotten so far from current President
Speaker 2: Joe Biden. I'll save the politics for a little bit
Speaker 2: later in the show. Just note that he did still
Speaker 2: struggle through some of his sentence there in a mere
Speaker 2: six minute Oval Office address that was the longest actually
Speaker 2: comments that he gave since the attempted assassination. A couple
Speaker 2: of minutes in the immediate aftermath, and a couple of
Speaker 2: minutes yesterday on Sunday afternoon, and then finally his eight
Speaker 2: PMO Office address urging unity. So continuing, just in terms
Speaker 2: of the details, I want to make sure I give
Speaker 2: everybody that they can This is a little bit that
Speaker 2: came out in a report now from the Wall Street
Speaker 2: Journal where they say that the AR fifteen rifle that
Speaker 2: mister Crooks used, we know that it belonged to his father. Now,
Speaker 2: apparently the elder mister Crooks told investigators that he believed
Speaker 2: his son had gone to a gun range on Saturday.
Speaker 2: He became concerned when he could not reach him, and
Speaker 2: he called police after the news of the shooting. There's
Speaker 2: gonna be a lot of investigation into the Crook's parents, obviously,
Speaker 2: because not only was their gun used in the attempted assassination,
Speaker 2: but apparently there were explosive devices alleged or rudimentary ones
Speaker 2: that were left at the residence and including in mister
Speaker 2: crooked cars. So some questions, you know, exactly about what
Speaker 2: they knew and some possible negligence on their own part
Speaker 2: and what was happening according to the FBI. According to them,
Speaker 2: they say Crooks was not known previously to law enforcement,
Speaker 2: which frankly is a little surprising having been covering a
Speaker 2: lot of these mass shootings and other types of incidents
Speaker 2: over a long period of time. That's almost always the case.
Speaker 2: They also claim that Crooks has no history of mental illness.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind, you know, however, he could have been
Speaker 2: allegedly treated or whatever by his own parents, because they
Speaker 2: themselves social worker and counselor licensed by the state of Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: so its possible that it was kept in house. This
Speaker 2: is just speculation on my own part, just trying to
Speaker 2: piece together some of the details, but so far right now,
Speaker 2: I mean, all we can really say is just this
Speaker 2: a shocking, insane event really that happened. We should keep
Speaker 2: in mind, I mean, this is the first time that
Speaker 2: a bullet has touched a president, even a foreign president
Speaker 2: or rally like this since Ronald Reagan was shot in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one here in Washington, d C. And there
Speaker 2: were a lot of people who were looking at that
Speaker 2: previous incident and thinking about how the Secret Service itself
Speaker 2: was supposed to reform. We should really keep in mind
Speaker 2: that was a very very different time.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: John Hinckley, the attempted the person who attempted to assassinate
Speaker 2: President Reagan, he was just mere feet away from Ronald
Speaker 2: Reagan there and he was somehow was able to get
Speaker 2: a gun there in the presidence of the President. There
Speaker 2: also were significant changes to security protocols in the aftermath
Speaker 2: of those two incidents, of the JFK assassination and also
Speaker 2: of the Reagan attempted assassination. After the JFK won, that's
Speaker 2: when the Secret Service you know, was formed, at least,
Speaker 2: you know, for Congress, and they were supposed to do
Speaker 2: the sightline investigations. They were supposed to have counter sniper teams.
Speaker 2: After the Reagan assassination, that's actually when they first started
Speaker 2: doing metal detectors and a lot of other policies implemented
Speaker 2: over at the White House and also at presidential events.
Speaker 2: And then slowly the security umbrella you know, has gone
Speaker 2: forward and I can tell you that's part of the
Speaker 2: reason why I was so stunned, and me along with
Speaker 2: many others, believed, because of the way that the shots
Speaker 2: were heard on the microphone that it was core could
Speaker 2: have been a small caliber bullet and rifle. This was
Speaker 2: even and according to the people in the crowd, is
Speaker 2: because the disbelief on everyone's part was how could anybody
Speaker 2: even possibly get a shot off from outside of the
Speaker 2: security perimeter, from that sideline, just a mere one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty six yards away from where the president is
Speaker 2: speaking directly at the president enough to get mere millimaters
Speaker 2: away from his face and have a bullet go through
Speaker 2: his ear. I'm sure you've seen much of this, but
Speaker 2: we are literally living in a very lucky world where
Speaker 2: the former president was not assassinated. If he had not
Speaker 2: turned his head at that exact moment, he would be
Speaker 2: a dead man and we would have I mean, think
Speaker 2: about footage from the nineteen sixties and then compared to
Speaker 2: the high resolution of where we are today, not to mention,
Speaker 2: you know, the political and the just civic fallout from
Speaker 2: what that would look like, just what mere days before
Speaker 2: the Republican National Convention, So literally, really dodged a bullet.
Speaker 2: I think the nation and foreign President Trump, he himself
Speaker 2: apparently has undergone quite a change in the way that
Speaker 2: he's just looking at things. Who knows, you know, if
Speaker 2: it'll last or any of that. But at the very least,
Speaker 2: I don't think you can literally get shot in the
Speaker 2: head and not be a different person on the other
Speaker 2: end of this. And questions continue to remain about the
Speaker 2: Secret Service, about the failures in this investigation, failures in
Speaker 2: the in the in the setup for everything that went
Speaker 2: down behind the scenes. There also is a lot of
Speaker 2: questions to continue now about the Secret services response potential
Speaker 2: cover up here. We haven't really heard a lot from
Speaker 2: the Director of the Secret Service, who herself she was
Speaker 2: in Aspen, Colorado, whenever this all happened, and apparently flew
Speaker 2: back to Washington. She's released only a very very short statement.
Speaker 2: We also, according to them, they said quote that they've
Speaker 2: made no changes to the security procedures at the Republican
Speaker 2: National Convention. That itself seems absolutely insane to me. But
Speaker 2: to help let me break some of this more down,
Speaker 2: Ken Clippenstein, the great journalist who's done some work and
Speaker 2: has now written a piece here about the Secret Service failures,
Speaker 2: tracing things all the way back inside of this agency.
Speaker 2: Will join me now to break some of this down.
Speaker 2: Let's get to it. Joining me now is independent journalist
Speaker 2: Ken Clippenstein. He is an authority and a good friend
Speaker 2: of the show. And it's good to see you, sir.
Speaker 3: Hey, good to be back.
Speaker 2: So, Ken, you and I were just talking a little bit.
Speaker 2: I think it would be very useful for the audience.
Speaker 2: I went over already the aerial photographs and others that
Speaker 2: show the stunning Secret Service sale failure at the Trump
Speaker 2: rally that led to the attempted assassination. But let's take
Speaker 2: a step back and actually go through everything that this
Speaker 2: agency has failed on just in the last decade or so,
Speaker 2: which really give us a picture. And you wrote a
Speaker 2: little bit about this, let's put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen. Wrote how the Secret Service missed the Trump
Speaker 2: shooter and why we are going to be blamed for it. So, Ken,
Speaker 2: let's go back a bit, a little bit in time,
Speaker 2: and just from your memory, tell us about some of
Speaker 2: the failures inside the Secret Service. I set up a
Speaker 2: culture of incompetence that led to this incident.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a culture that people that have worked
Speaker 4: in the agency, have tried to draw attention to There
Speaker 4: was report just last night that a bunch of Secret
Speaker 4: Service agents got together and are trying to send a letter,
Speaker 4: I believe, to Congress to try to address some of
Speaker 4: these problems. I would encourage anybody curious about the agency
Speaker 4: and in disbelief about their ability to drop the ball
Speaker 4: on something like this, as indeed many liberals, at least
Speaker 4: on Twitter were within hours of the shooting, one of
Speaker 4: the top trending terms on Twitter, if not the top
Speaker 4: trending term, was the word stage the belief that the
Speaker 4: shooting was staged, which I think speaks to the lack
Speaker 4: of understanding people have for how many scandals that this
Speaker 4: agency has been embroiled in, and the course of my
Speaker 4: reporting on it, looking back at many of the scandals
Speaker 4: that I just read peripherally from following the news, I
Speaker 4: stumbled across my own report about their deletion of January
Speaker 4: sixth text messages that were unable to be obtained by Congress,
Speaker 4: And this was just something I forgot because they come
Speaker 4: across so many of these different things, and so I mean,
Speaker 4: this is a scandal plagued agency that has deep, deep
Speaker 4: cultural problems that proceed by a long shot, what happened
Speaker 4: this weekend, which was a shooter being able to get
Speaker 4: within several hundred feet of the president and able to
Speaker 4: situate himself on top of a roof with an air
Speaker 4: style rifle, and the fact that the Secret Service was
Speaker 4: able to clear that.
Speaker 3: Now it wasn't.
Speaker 4: Within the direct range that the crowd was. They're supposed
Speaker 4: to pass the law through a magnometer that checks for
Speaker 4: you know, metal objects weapons. But you know, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of I've been seeing the discourse, a lot of
Speaker 4: debate over you know, oh, this was local LA enforcements responsibility. Well,
Speaker 4: that's just moving the goalposts, because the whole point of
Speaker 4: an agency like this is to be able to anticipate
Speaker 4: problems like this so that you don't have to farm
Speaker 4: it out to local law enforcement, which isn't going to
Speaker 4: have the resources or training necessarily to be able to
Speaker 4: respond to these things.
Speaker 3: That kind of the contact behind all this, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3: We actually have the video.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is one of the craziest videos where
Speaker 2: you have an individual in the immediate aftermath, a witness
Speaker 2: telling the BBC about how he tried desperately to alert
Speaker 2: the police, local law enforcement and others that there was
Speaker 2: a gunman on the rooftop in the two minutes or
Speaker 2: so before the shooting. He was not the only person
Speaker 2: who noticed him. There's there a multiple other video evidence
Speaker 2: of showing people begging law enforcement saying that person is
Speaker 2: up there and he has a gun.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to that interview.
Speaker 7: We noticed the guy crawling army, you know, bear crawling
Speaker 7: up the roof of the building beside us, fifty feet
Speaker 7: away from us. So we're standing there, you know, we're pointing.
Speaker 7: We're pointing at the guy crawling up the roof and
Speaker 7: he had a gun, right he had a rifle. We
Speaker 7: could clearly see him with a rifle. Absolutely, we're pointing
Speaker 7: at him. The police are down there running around on
Speaker 7: the ground. We're like, hey man, there's guy on the
Speaker 7: roof with the rifle. And the police were h what,
Speaker 7: you know, like like they didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 7: You know, We're like, hey, right here on the roof,
Speaker 7: we can see him from right here. We see him,
Speaker 7: you know, he's he's crawling and next thing, you know,
Speaker 7: I'm like I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, why is
Speaker 7: Trump still speaking, Why have they not pulled him off
Speaker 7: the stage. I'm standing there pointing at him for you know,
Speaker 7: two three minutes. Secret Service is looking at us from
Speaker 7: the top of the barn. I'm pointing at that roof,
Speaker 7: just standing there like this, and next thing, you know,
Speaker 7: five shots ring out. So your certain that the shots
Speaker 7: came from not going on the one hundred percent And
Speaker 7: he was up there for a couple of minutes. He
Speaker 7: was up there for a couple of minutes, absolutely at
Speaker 7: least three to four minutes. And you were telling, we
Speaker 7: were telling the police, we were pointing at him for
Speaker 7: the Secret Service who were looking at us from the
Speaker 7: top of the barn. They were looking at us the
Speaker 7: whole time, and we were standing.
Speaker 8: By that tree.
Speaker 7: They binoculars they see probably not because the roof the
Speaker 7: way the slope went, he was behind where they could see.
Speaker 7: But why is there not secret Service on all of
Speaker 7: these roofs here?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean this random guys, he's got three to four minutes,
Speaker 2: he's saying before the shooting. Can so just take us
Speaker 2: through what that reveals about the failure in that quote
Speaker 2: middle tier of the perimeter, that's what it's being described
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So what's interesting is that this is not an
Speaker 4: urban setting. There were not a number of buildings that
Speaker 4: would have been difficult to clear. This was one of
Speaker 4: the only buildings in the vicinity, so it would not
Speaker 4: have been hard to clear it. And in fact, it's
Speaker 4: been reported that a local, a member of local law enforcement,
Speaker 4: actually climbed up a ladder and saw this guy and
Speaker 4: pointed it, but then the shooter pointed his weapon at
Speaker 4: him and then he fled. This is exactly the reason
Speaker 4: that you need a specialized force that can be trained
Speaker 4: to respond to high stress situations like this. You know,
Speaker 4: we can criticize that number of local law enforcement. They
Speaker 4: all we want, but they might not be trained for
Speaker 4: those kinds of high pressure situations. And so that's why.
Speaker 4: And so if you look at the Secret Services response
Speaker 4: once once the shooting began, then the response was very quick,
Speaker 4: but this was was an intelligence feel And what's interesting
Speaker 4: about that is if you look at just exactly one
Speaker 4: week prior to the shooting, there was an interview that
Speaker 4: went pretty unnoticed with George Stefanopolis of ABC on the
Speaker 4: Part who was interviewing the Director of Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle,
Speaker 4: and he brought up in a question that looks really
Speaker 4: prophetic now, and I would encourage people to look that up.
Speaker 4: He brought up specifically the question of polarization and political
Speaker 4: extremism within the country in the context of the election,
Speaker 4: and asked her if she thought that this was going
Speaker 4: to be something to be concerned about, and she gave
Speaker 4: the most just token answer where she said, quote, it's
Speaker 4: definitely something we look into, and that was all she
Speaker 4: had to say about it. And this is an agency
Speaker 4: that we've allocated all this money to. Earlier this year,
Speaker 4: the intelligence community put out its first ever what's called
Speaker 4: open Source Intelligence strategy, and this was signed by both
Speaker 4: the CI director and the Director of National Intelligence, and
Speaker 4: the document says that they want to make this the
Speaker 4: primary means of intelligence collection. And what's so interesting about
Speaker 4: this case is that it's a real stress test of
Speaker 4: that idea and it fails because as far as we know,
Speaker 4: this kid wasn't on social media. And so all this
Speaker 4: money that we're throwing into these g wiz technology to
Speaker 4: try to hoover up all this information from social media platforms,
Speaker 4: use AI and all sorts of algorithms that private companies,
Speaker 4: frankly can make a lot of money off of failed
Speaker 4: to catch this guy, and are going to fail to
Speaker 4: catch the next you know, lone wolf who's described as
Speaker 4: a loaner, because those people are not online. It's a
Speaker 4: failure of the system that we increasingly rely on to
Speaker 4: collect intelligence because there are all sorts of ways that
Speaker 4: threats behave that aren't going to leave that kind of
Speaker 4: digital exhaust.
Speaker 2: Right and to take it. You know, just again, back
Speaker 2: is you don't need to do all of that. You
Speaker 2: could actually just do your job at a very basic level,
Speaker 2: and then you could have prevented this entire thing. The
Speaker 2: only headline that should have come out is crazy and
Speaker 2: you know, arrested at Trump rally with the gun outside,
Speaker 2: not even at Trump rally. Outside the Trump rally with
Speaker 2: the gun, shouldn't be able to get anywhere near the rooftop,
Speaker 2: could not let alone breakoff shots. Now you're highlighting very
Speaker 2: important thing here, which is that a local law enforcement
Speaker 2: actually confronted this person on the rooftop and apparently the
Speaker 2: gunman pointed his rifle at him, the guy retreated, and
Speaker 2: in that moment of retreat is exactly when the shots
Speaker 2: broke off towards Trumpet. I could possibly have saved his life,
Speaker 2: of Trump's life in that and that he would probably
Speaker 2: not you know, he didn't feel like he was in
Speaker 2: the op where he was rushing the shots in that
Speaker 2: moment at the very least, still a little bit of
Speaker 2: a uvalde situation now, as you said, to be fair,
Speaker 2: not perhaps not trained, probably shocked that something like this happened,
Speaker 2: but still very surprising. We also know a little bit
Speaker 2: about the failure here is that allegedly this rooftop was
Speaker 2: known as a quote well known high priority vulnerability. Here's
Speaker 2: a quote senior secret service source telling that to NBC News.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 9: I want to get your reaction, and at this hour,
Speaker 9: we do have some new information for you. A senior
Speaker 9: secret service source familiar with the planning of yesterday's event
Speaker 9: tells NBC News that the roof where the shooter was
Speaker 9: located was a well known high priority vulnerability. It was
Speaker 9: identified just the day before during a security walkthrough. We've
Speaker 9: also just learned that there were two counter sniper teams
Speaker 9: on site and that the counter sniper did not need
Speaker 9: approval to shoot. One source telling NBC News that prior
Speaker 9: protocols were not followed. The FBI now says the alleged shooter,
Speaker 9: twenty year old Thomas Matthew Crooks, appears to have acted alone.
Speaker 9: This all provides new context for the shocking scene last
Speaker 9: night in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: So they're saying ken that this was a well known
Speaker 2: priority vulnerability. There was nobody there. There's no barricade or anything.
Speaker 2: We also Susan Crabtree over at Real Clear Politics. She's
Speaker 2: reporting that the Secret Service counter snipers only had some
Speaker 2: twenty four hours to secure the scene, which is very
Speaker 2: contrary to procedures. So, I mean, the failures on this
Speaker 2: individual level are just stunning from what we're learning so far,
Speaker 2: it was particularly.
Speaker 4: Surprising these how long standing the complaints on the part
Speaker 4: I mean, I know former Secret Service that described the
Speaker 4: lack of resources not as a whole, because as I
Speaker 4: was describing, there's investment in all kinds of fancy gadgets,
Speaker 4: but in the specifics of what they actually need. And
Speaker 4: you can find no shortage of you know, op eds
Speaker 4: and books and interviews of former Secret Service agents describing
Speaker 4: these problems. So in so many ways, this is almost
Speaker 4: like a nine to eleven kind of event because we
Speaker 4: had so many warnings prior to it and a total failure,
Speaker 4: bipartisan failure, and a part of both parties to respond
Speaker 4: to this and not just search resources, but search resources
Speaker 4: specific to what the people.
Speaker 3: That do the job need.
Speaker 4: And you know a lot of these people on the
Speaker 4: I'm criticizing the institution, the agency because the people to
Speaker 4: take the oath, it's very serious oath. They're willing to
Speaker 4: put themselves in harms way the ones that I know
Speaker 4: seem to take it seriously, and you know, to the
Speaker 4: extent there are going to be efforts to try to
Speaker 4: throw individuals under the bus just completely misses the point,
Speaker 4: because this is an institutional failure that needs to be
Speaker 4: responded to in a way that ameliorates whatever the systemic
Speaker 4: failure was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, and let's be clear here said there
Speaker 2: are people who literally stormed the stage and jumped on
Speaker 2: top of the present, got the counter sniper who immediately
Speaker 2: takes out the shooter with a couple of seconds.
Speaker 3: I noticed. This is not in any way to demigrate
Speaker 3: their work.
Speaker 2: It's to say that at an institutional and leadership level,
Speaker 2: this was obviously a glaring failure. And let's talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about that culture now of incompetence.
Speaker 3: Just in the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: We had the news just what two months ago that
Speaker 2: the head of Kamalas Harris's Secret Service detail had some
Speaker 2: sort of mental breakdown, apparently causing a lot of strife
Speaker 2: within the agency. In May, we had the news that
Speaker 2: a petition is circulating within the agency saying that people
Speaker 2: were not receiving adequate training and that they were worried
Speaker 2: about insider threats. Then you also talked about the January
Speaker 2: sixth failure there and also the cover up that happened
Speaker 2: with text messages from some of the agents. I mean
Speaker 2: we're talking here, Ken, That's just three things in the
Speaker 2: last year or a couple of years that tell us
Speaker 2: about what's going on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can go back to the Obama administration, and
Speaker 4: as I recall, there's a case where they were soliciting
Speaker 4: hookers in Columbia and Columbia and so Yeah, and I
Speaker 4: was doing research on this, and we were joking about
Speaker 4: this before we went on camera. I just stumbled across
Speaker 4: my own reporting which I had forgotten, which was the
Speaker 4: deletion of the January sixth text messages, which was would
Speaker 4: have been central to providing a important window and what
Speaker 4: exactly happen that day. And so what's frustrating to me
Speaker 4: about these national security failures from nine to eleven to
Speaker 4: January sixth and all the things in between, is the
Speaker 4: extent which the public ends up getting blamed for things.
Speaker 3: And in none of.
Speaker 4: Those cases are high level officials ever punished. In the
Speaker 4: case of nine to eleven, all the intelligence they had,
Speaker 4: the failure to share it, nobody was fired for that
Speaker 4: much less the kind of institutional changes that are going
Speaker 4: to prevent something like that. So I would, you know,
Speaker 4: I really hope that in the response and the justified
Speaker 4: outrage on the part of the public, that this is
Speaker 4: pointed at the right things and not the and doesn't
Speaker 4: become the usual parts in football, so that we can
Speaker 4: prevent something like this from happening again.
Speaker 3: One of the things I want to get your reaction to.
Speaker 2: We finally have first statement from the head of the
Speaker 2: Secret Service, and in her statement she says at the
Speaker 2: very end that she is confident. She says confident, which
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how she can say this in the
Speaker 2: security plan that our Secret Service R and C coordinator
Speaker 2: and our partners have put in place, which we have
Speaker 2: reviewed and strengthened in the wake of Saturday's shooting, and
Speaker 2: there's no you know, taking responsibility inside of this. Can
Speaker 2: there's just well, we take the responsibility protecting him seriously,
Speaker 2: We're going to do a review.
Speaker 3: Et cetera and all of that. But we have not
Speaker 3: heard from her.
Speaker 2: And actually yesterday there was a press conference by the
Speaker 2: Secret Service about Milwaukee and the RNC. They wouldn't answer
Speaker 2: a single question about the attempted assassination. So it feels
Speaker 2: like there is a real cover up at least being
Speaker 2: attempted or trying to move past this. But I don't
Speaker 2: think they can. I mean, this is too high profile
Speaker 2: of an incident that's happened here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is gonna be anmpossible situation to.
Speaker 3: You know, ignore.
Speaker 4: But I think the important thing, you know, as the
Speaker 4: saying goes, never let a crisis go to was and
Speaker 4: boy was this a crisis. I mean, we may not
Speaker 4: get another opportunity like this, god willing, and if we
Speaker 4: and if we do, it might look a lot worse.
Speaker 4: So they're really going to need to respond in a
Speaker 4: way that is not what we've seen so far, which
Speaker 4: is immediately afterwards, even President Trump, the great critic of
Speaker 4: the so called deep state, the national security community immediately
Speaker 4: thank them now again, I you know, have respect for
Speaker 4: the rank and file individuals, But to say nothing of
Speaker 4: the institutional failure, I think says a lot. And it
Speaker 4: goes back to a point I was trying to make
Speaker 4: at the beginning of the interview, which is that because
Speaker 4: of the mystique and because of Hollywood, and because of
Speaker 4: people's impressions of the national security community, I think it's
Speaker 4: really hard for people to believe, much less understand that
Speaker 4: these are fallible agencies, just like anything else, and that
Speaker 4: it's a lot less like James Bond movie than it
Speaker 4: is like any job that you're familiar with, where things
Speaker 4: go wrong and people make mistakes and things are dysfunctional.
Speaker 4: So this is a really important moment not to just
Speaker 4: defer to oh, what do I know about the national Well,
Speaker 4: let's trust the experts. No, you know what you saw here,
Speaker 4: everybody saw it exactly was pretty much what happened.
Speaker 2: And that is actually the scary part, right because that
Speaker 2: could embolden some crazy individuals out there who are like, wait,
Speaker 2: it's this easy. Like you said, they believed Hollywood, they
Speaker 2: believe this is good. This is this entire thing was
Speaker 2: just a crime of opportunity. Yes, you had a crazy person,
Speaker 2: but I mean, at the end of the day, he
Speaker 2: lived forty minutes away. He says, I'm going to go
Speaker 2: and try and kill the president. At least, you know,
Speaker 2: from what we can see right now, in a normal situation,
Speaker 2: he gets arrested walking to that place with the gun,
Speaker 2: and boom, he's.
Speaker 3: Going to jail.
Speaker 2: You're never going to hear about his name again, and
Speaker 2: everybody just gets to move on. But because of the
Speaker 2: systemic failure after failure after failure, being able to get
Speaker 2: onto the rooftop, being able to put shots off, then
Speaker 2: killing an individual in the crowd, and almost killing the
Speaker 2: former president, now it is in the national scandal, and
Speaker 2: you think, how could something like this ever happen? So
Speaker 2: that's really well said about how Also, I think that
Speaker 2: the eventual response here is going to try and shift
Speaker 2: the blame to the public. They're going to increase the
Speaker 2: national security state the same way that they did after
Speaker 2: nine to eleven, but without solving for the basics, which
Speaker 2: is everybody just here does their job the same way
Speaker 2: they did. And you know, people were saying, oh, why
Speaker 2: weren't there any drones. You don't need to need a
Speaker 2: drone to do something like this, just barricade the rooftop off. Now, sure,
Speaker 2: use the drone if you need to, but we don't
Speaker 2: need to blow hundreds of billions of dollars, you know,
Speaker 2: on expansion of technology. You just need to learn how
Speaker 2: to basic competence of what we're doing. And we'll look
Speaker 2: to you Ken in the coming days about some more
Speaker 2: news about the investigation more. But we appreciate your analysis
Speaker 2: here man, Thank.
Speaker 3: You, Thanks Satter.
Speaker 2: At the same time, let's turn now to the political
Speaker 2: fortunes of President Biden. He appeared to be in a
Speaker 2: moment of at least crisis and shakiness after his disastrous
Speaker 2: debate performance, but Democratic insiders now believe that the attempted
Speaker 2: assassination on Donald Trump will cool the temperature and shift
Speaker 2: the story and attention away from those calls for Biden
Speaker 2: to step down. They now have a plan that they
Speaker 2: are standing down because of the quote fragile political moment.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen to face the nation where Bob
Speaker 2: Costa reports us.
Speaker 10: I've been speaking with some top Democrats. They believe that
Speaker 10: those Democrats who have the concerns about President Biden are
Speaker 10: now standing down politically, will back President Biden. Because of
Speaker 10: this fragile political moment, All of that talk about the
Speaker 10: debate faded almost instantly among my top Democratic sources as
Speaker 10: this unfold. That say it's time for the country to
Speaker 10: stick together and that means Democrats sticking together as.
Speaker 2: Well, faded almost instantly. And it appears now that the
Speaker 2: Biden campaign wants to use the current political moment actually
Speaker 2: to extenuate Biden's at least alleged political strengths. We should
Speaker 2: not forget, though, that before that assassination, this was the
Speaker 2: big attempted assassination. It was the biggest story in the country,
Speaker 2: and it was a moment of genuine crisis. In fact,
Speaker 2: the very day of the attempted assassination, President Biden had
Speaker 2: an insane, you know, interaction with members of the House.
Speaker 2: Democrats going to put this up there on the screen,
Speaker 2: and I'll read from this entire thing. So there's the
Speaker 2: new Democrats as a coalition on Capitol Hill. They decide
Speaker 2: to have a zoom call with President Biden. So Biden
Speaker 2: apparently showed up late to the meeting. He then referred
Speaker 2: to a congressman who has a bronze star quote somewhat unintelligibly,
Speaker 2: and then pulled back before saying more. Sources were telling
Speaker 2: reporters that they were quote aghast and they took it
Speaker 2: as deeply inappropriate. That was just the first of a
Speaker 2: crazy confrontation, basically insulting a congressman with a bronze star
Speaker 2: who was confronting him on his ability to continue running.
Speaker 2: Let's go to the next part here to just continue
Speaker 2: to look down a little bit. This was also a
Speaker 2: crazy moment and similar literally out of something like veep.
Speaker 2: During the Biden call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the
Speaker 2: President said that his staff passed him a note saying
Speaker 2: stay positive, you are sounding defensive.
Speaker 3: Biden then read the.
Speaker 2: Note aloud, according to the participants that were actually on
Speaker 2: the phone call, so literally reading the note aloud, almost
Speaker 2: like some of them. Sort of ron Burgundy situation and
Speaker 2: in every one of these congressional meetings like I'm pulling
Speaker 2: up the details you know here in front of me
Speaker 2: with moderate House Democrats. Not only did that situation have
Speaker 2: with Jason Crowe, but you had one lawmaker who said
Speaker 2: on the call, quote that was a complete disaster. We
Speaker 2: saw the same Joe Biden from the debate. Another lawmaker
Speaker 2: says it was awful. A third says members were not
Speaker 2: holding back. It got tense with Crow for sure. Crow
Speaker 2: was the person who told him that he should drop
Speaker 2: out of the race. At one point, they two representatives
Speaker 2: grilled Biden on how he plans to turn his campaign around.
Speaker 2: In response, they asked Biden, how you're going to win
Speaker 2: back disaffected voters. Biden said then that part of his
Speaker 2: plan was that members need to do a better job
Speaker 2: advertising his administration's accomplishment.
Speaker 3: So he told them you're the problem.
Speaker 2: Actually, you're the ones who need to go out out
Speaker 2: there and you need to show what I have done
Speaker 2: for you. As another congressman highlighted his distressing polding numbers,
Speaker 2: Biden quote tried to interrupt, adding caveats with having the
Speaker 2: congressman then having to interject to finish your question. Crowe's question,
Speaker 2: the Bronze Star recipient prompted what two members were described
Speaker 2: as shouting from Biden, who went off in a tangent
Speaker 2: challenged that congressman to quote, name me a foreign leader
Speaker 2: who thinks I'm not the most effective leader, as if
Speaker 2: any of them are going to talk to a random
Speaker 2: House Democrat. He says, tell me who the hell that is.
Speaker 2: Biden continued, he says that it was dead wrong that
Speaker 2: foreign leaders didn't lack confidence him in him, and he said, quote,
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear that crap. He then started
Speaker 2: continuing to shout at Jason Crowe for no reason. Another
Speaker 2: source told Axios that Biden's answer stress at the exchange
Speaker 2: ended then on a positive note, where Biden cut things
Speaker 2: off at the end and he said, if you're really
Speaker 2: getting input, then I'm not strong enough and I'd like
Speaker 2: to know more detail because I want to deal with it.
Speaker 2: He then departed early from the call, despite showing up late.
Speaker 2: He said, I need to go to Mass. Then another
Speaker 2: one of the congressmen who actually said who was up next,
Speaker 2: for wanting to have a question, He was cut off
Speaker 2: his staff, basically pulling Biden from the call, saying he
Speaker 2: has to go to Mass. Before they got to another
Speaker 2: congressman who said that he thinks that Biden should drop
Speaker 2: out of the race. That guy apparently was very unhappy
Speaker 2: that that happened. So look, I mean, this is all crazy,
Speaker 2: and it's also very telling too that this was part
Speaker 2: of the new Democratic coalition the quote unquote moderates, not
Speaker 2: really people we would agree with much on this show,
Speaker 2: but to look to them and actually see that they
Speaker 2: apparently had a lot more courage in their confrontation with
Speaker 2: President Biden as opposed to the so called Congressional Progressive Caucus,
Speaker 2: which barely confronted him at all. That really does highlight
Speaker 2: kind of what the political dynamics here are. Is that
Speaker 2: a lot of the people who have a lot on
Speaker 2: the line, maybe in terms of swing state Democrats and others,
Speaker 2: they are the ones who are paying most attention to this.
Speaker 2: But this does appear to have smoothed all that over.
Speaker 2: I will say the craziest part, though, is this reaction.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: A senior House Democrat is now saying, behind the scenes, quote,
Speaker 2: we have all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency.
Speaker 2: Now keep in mind, senior House Democrat can only mean
Speaker 2: like fifteen twenty people, people literally in leadership who are
Speaker 2: saying this literally on background. I mean, that's just stunning.
Speaker 2: And what they say here is that quote Congressional Democrats,
Speaker 2: all consuming angst over President Biden's candidacy has now taken
Speaker 2: an abrupt backseat in the midst of the wake of
Speaker 2: an assassination attempt against foreign President Trump. Democratic lawmakers say
Speaker 2: that their immediate focus now is on the personal security
Speaker 2: and that of their stabs, not on parties political woes,
Speaker 2: helping to allow a crucial cool down period for the
Speaker 2: embattled president. Quote, we're all just expressing condolences, keeping our
Speaker 2: teams safe. A senior House Democrat suggested that the atmosphere
Speaker 2: in the party is too chaotic for internal battles over leadership.
Speaker 3: Obviously, they talk.
Speaker 2: About the Biden campaign, you know, having these reach out
Speaker 2: sessions that happened over the weekend. Biden apparently met with
Speaker 2: Senator Chuck Schumer to shore up some of his support.
Speaker 2: You saw also that even that individual who I described,
Speaker 2: Jason Crowe, he appeared on television on Sunday and he
Speaker 2: was even asked about some of the eroding support and
Speaker 2: he says, look, it's a tough business. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of stake emotions can run high. I think the president
Speaker 2: heard our message very clearly, and in fact, he promised
Speaker 2: to come back with more useful information to address our
Speaker 2: concerns and to answer all of our questions. So look,
Speaker 2: you can keep all of that in mind. But I
Speaker 2: mean the most significant one to me is how Biden
Speaker 2: is responding to this, which is he's done very short messages. Now,
Speaker 2: as I said earlier, I didn't want to get too
Speaker 2: much into it, but in the span of six minutes,
Speaker 2: he said some crazy stuff. Just in that six minute
Speaker 2: Oval Office address, he said battle box instead of ballot box.
Speaker 2: He mixed up his words, stumbled over multiple times. These
Speaker 2: are short. These are basically off of a teleprompter. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is this lay up as layoup, get right as easy.
Speaker 2: There's no crowd, there's no mitigating circumstances. You're looking straight.
Speaker 2: You're looking straight at a camera the way I am
Speaker 2: right now, except he has a teleprompter in front of him. Now,
Speaker 2: as you guys can see from me doing monologue, that's
Speaker 2: probably the easiest.
Speaker 3: Thing to do.
Speaker 2: Whenever you were literally reading off of something and it's
Speaker 2: directly in your line of sight, you don't have anything
Speaker 2: that is distracting you.
Speaker 3: We do it here all the time.
Speaker 2: And that's why it's so shocking that even in that
Speaker 2: he finds it so difficult actually to continue. And this
Speaker 2: is the person who's been doing this now for decades,
Speaker 2: so it's not like you can even use the excuse
Speaker 2: that he's new to it or anything like that. We
Speaker 2: also know that this whole a lay our concerns, weighted
Speaker 2: out strategy, that's a winning strategy for Biden. Remember next
Speaker 2: week after the RNC, that's when the virtual roll call
Speaker 2: is apparently scheduled to happen, and Biden will be nominated
Speaker 2: basically officially on the DNC before you even get to
Speaker 2: the convention. So all you have to do is wait
Speaker 2: it out and survive a week. What's happening this week
Speaker 2: the rn C, which we're about to get to, which
Speaker 2: means that this weight and see strategy by Biden is
Speaker 2: basically just the is the winning one, at least for now,
Speaker 2: because what it means is that all he has to
Speaker 2: do is just call for unity, use the attempted assassination
Speaker 2: for his own political survival, and then House Democrats feel
Speaker 2: awkward calling for it or basically appearing presidential, you know,
Speaker 2: right now, and they're not really allowed to talk about
Speaker 2: a few of these things.
Speaker 3: And in the midst of all of that, what does
Speaker 3: it mean.
Speaker 2: It means all he's got to do is get make
Speaker 2: it to that virtual nomination and then boom, he's the nominee.
Speaker 2: There's not even a talk here about him dropping out
Speaker 2: or anything, and he is headed to a disastrous defeat
Speaker 2: in November. So that is the current Biden political fortune.
Speaker 2: Will bring you some more news about that tomorrow if
Speaker 2: anything breaks. But it is pretty stunning that this event
Speaker 2: basically not only did you know Trump was literally saved,
Speaker 2: but it appears to have saved the political fortunes of
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, at least for now. None of the calls
Speaker 2: that immediately happen in the aftermath of his big boy
Speaker 2: press conference, you guys remember that on Thursday. All of
Speaker 2: that appears to have fizzled out now and none of
Speaker 2: the attention is being focused on him, and he's using
Speaker 2: it very much to his advantage. I will stay on
Speaker 2: the campaign front. They've paused all their political advertising. They're
Speaker 2: not attacking Trump right now on the airwaves. Everybody's calling
Speaker 2: for unity. We'll see how exactly they're going to adjust.
Speaker 2: We do know that some of their fundraising had taken
Speaker 2: a massive hit. Some ninety million dollars or something in
Speaker 2: super pack dollars were frozen from the Biden campaign, even
Speaker 2: though he was bragging about all the money at his disposal,
Speaker 2: So he could have a very very difficult time now
Speaker 2: going into this, not to mention the political dynamics of
Speaker 2: having your opponent literally survive in an assassination attempt, get
Speaker 2: bloodied and put his fist in the air and probably
Speaker 2: one of the most iconic photos of all time. So
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a tough road I think there for
Speaker 2: mister Biden. Going ahead, all right, let's shift gears now
Speaker 2: to the RNC. We're learning some interesting news just this morning,
Speaker 2: a new interview that Donald Trump gave to the Washington Examiner.
Speaker 2: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This was an interview given to Selena Zito. You guys
Speaker 2: may remember her. She was really gained fame in twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen for covering Trump rallies. She actually was present at Butler,
Speaker 2: Pennsylvania and has an interesting interview here with the former
Speaker 2: president who is rewriting his convention speech quote to focus.
Speaker 3: On unity, not Biden.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to read a little bit from the
Speaker 2: interview just because it is very Trumpian in its speech quote.
Speaker 2: He says, the speech that I was going to give
Speaker 2: on Thursday was going to be a humdinger. He said,
Speaker 2: had this not happened, this would have been one of
Speaker 2: the most incredible speeches, he says, aimed though mostly at
Speaker 2: the policies of Joe Biden. Honestly, it's going to be
Speaker 2: a whole different speech now, he says, he has switched
Speaker 2: from planning to excite his voter base to one that
Speaker 2: demonstrates his belief that the attack on him at a
Speaker 2: rally had changed the election and campaign entirely. Most Republicans
Speaker 2: and Democrats have now acknowledged that. In the aftermath, Trump said,
Speaker 2: people across the country from different walks of life and
Speaker 2: political views have called him and noted that he was
Speaker 2: safe from death because he turned from the crowd to
Speaker 2: look at a screen showing data that he was using
Speaker 2: in his speech quote that reality is setting in. I
Speaker 2: rarely look away from a crowd. Had I not done
Speaker 2: that in that moment, well, we would not be talking today,
Speaker 2: would we talking? As he boarded his plane, Trump then
Speaker 2: continued saying his speech will meet the moment that history demands.
Speaker 2: It is a chance to bring the country together. I
Speaker 2: was given that chance, And he said, God alone prevented
Speaker 2: the unthinkable from happening, and he said fear not, and
Speaker 2: again he.
Speaker 3: Continued to invote God for his deliverance.
Speaker 2: He says, this is a chance to bring the whole country,
Speaker 2: even the whole world together. The speech will be a
Speaker 2: lot different. They asked him a little bit more about
Speaker 2: some of the events. He hailed Corey Contempore, the former
Speaker 2: fire chief who was shot and killed at the Trump rally.
Speaker 2: Trump said that his decision to raise his hand when
Speaker 2: the Secret Service was leading him off the stage was
Speaker 2: to let people know that he was okay and that
Speaker 2: America goes on, we go forward, and we are strong.
Speaker 2: Of the photograph, he said he believed it was an
Speaker 2: iconic image. He said that when he stood up and
Speaker 2: he saw the crowd had not moved, he needed to
Speaker 2: tell them that he and the country were going to
Speaker 2: be okay. The energy coming from the people in that
Speaker 2: moment they stood there. It's hard to describe what it
Speaker 2: felt like. But I knew that the world was looking.
Speaker 2: I knew that history would judge this, and I knew
Speaker 2: I had to let them know that we were okay.
Speaker 2: And so that's very interesting there to learn about the
Speaker 2: rewriting of the speech. It is one of those things
Speaker 2: that demonstrates how much an event like this can shake
Speaker 2: things up, not only in terms of how we internalize it,
Speaker 2: but for the candidate themselves. I mean, I was reading
Speaker 2: just this morning, Tucker Carlson gave an interview to Axios
Speaker 2: about Donald Trump in which he said that quote, getting
Speaker 2: shot in the face changes a man. I think you
Speaker 2: can really say that, so almost dying Rock's perspectives. Trump
Speaker 2: has shown little appetite for changing his ways previously, but
Speaker 2: his advisors tell us Trump plans to seize the moment
Speaker 2: by toning down his Trumpiness and dialing up efforts to
Speaker 2: unite a tinderbox America.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: I think it's real, Tucker Carlson said, who is speaking
Speaker 2: by the way at the RNC and says getting shot
Speaker 2: in the face changes a man. That is apparently something
Speaker 2: also echoed by others who spoke to Trump, who said
Speaker 2: that he seemed almost spiritual in his the aftermath, and
Speaker 2: that's something that is definitely not normal for the former president.
Speaker 3: Let's ahead and put this up there on the screen too.
Speaker 2: About the politics going into the RNC, Trump currently is
Speaker 2: maintaining a major edge over Joe Biden in the battleground states.
Speaker 2: On the GOP convention, So this is from CBS News.
Speaker 2: So amongst choice for president battleground states, likely voters Donald
Speaker 2: Trump fifty percent, Joe Biden at forty eight percent. Now,
Speaker 2: if you continue in battlegrounds, you actually look state by state,
Speaker 2: this is again likely voters. Michigan fifty one to forty
Speaker 2: nine for Trump, Pennsylvania one forty nine for Trump, Wisconsin
Speaker 2: one forty nine for Trump. These are all must win
Speaker 2: states for Joe Biden. And in fact, their own campaign
Speaker 2: has basically admitted that's the whole ballgame. They're not even
Speaker 2: going after Georgia, they're not even going after Arizona. They're
Speaker 2: bear basically sacrificing Nevada. And this will tell you why.
Speaker 2: If you look at the likely voters for the polls there,
Speaker 2: Arizona fifty one forty nine for Trump, Georgia fifty one
Speaker 2: forty nine for Trump, Nevada fifty one forty nine for Trump.
Speaker 2: North Carolina fifty two forty eight for Trump. Now, don't forget,
Speaker 2: we've seen after in the aftermath. New York is possibly
Speaker 2: in play there for Donald Trump. New Hampshire possibly in play.
Speaker 2: You've got other states that look like it could be
Speaker 2: total blowouts. My state of Virginia. Virginia looks to be
Speaker 2: certainly in play for Donald Trump. You've got places like
Speaker 2: Colorado and others, places that previously were like Redish, you know,
Speaker 2: ten twelve years ago that are now being looked at.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the share of people who
Speaker 2: definitely will vote, this is another place where you see
Speaker 2: major enthusiasm.
Speaker 3: And that's one place. By the way, a lot.
Speaker 2: Of people said, you know, Trump is going to get
Speaker 2: an approval bump from this assassination.
Speaker 3: Well, if you look just I'm just talking history.
Speaker 2: If you look back Ronald Reagan, he definitely got a
Speaker 2: major bump from his attempted assassination, but after about two
Speaker 2: months and he was healthy, it equalized out. What I
Speaker 2: really think this will lead to is a genuine sense
Speaker 2: amongst a lot of Republicans who are like, hey, they
Speaker 2: tried to kill this man, I am actually going to
Speaker 2: crawl over broken glass to vote for him. So if
Speaker 2: the enthusiasm gap wasn't big enough already, I think what
Speaker 2: we're going to see is a huge amounts of register
Speaker 2: Republicans and others who it may not even be swing voters.
Speaker 2: But all you need is for the Democrats to be
Speaker 2: depressed because their candidate is incredibly old, feeble, and barely
Speaker 2: capable of acting as president now, let alone five years
Speaker 2: from now. But you also have your candidate who they
Speaker 2: literally tried to kill. Somebody tried to kill him and
Speaker 2: he barely survived. Well, in that situation, it doesn't take
Speaker 2: a genius to figure out that a lot of people
Speaker 2: are going to be come crawling out of the woodwork
Speaker 2: who are registered Republicans who may previously have been on
Speaker 2: the fence about him. And if we continued down this
Speaker 2: path of mental and cognitive health, well, if you ask
Speaker 2: registered voters do you think that Biden has the cognitive
Speaker 2: health to service president? Only twenty eight percent say yes,
Speaker 2: Seventy one percent say no.
Speaker 3: It's basically fifty to fifty.
Speaker 2: Whenever it comes to the chance of Trump choice for president,
Speaker 2: does Biden have the mental health to serve? Eighty nine
Speaker 2: percent of Democrats say actually that Biden does. Thirty two
Speaker 2: percent say Biden does not. But if you look again
Speaker 2: at the registered and the likely voters, and you look
Speaker 2: at the overall picture.
Speaker 3: Very very different.
Speaker 2: Now even amongst Democrats, though there is a big divide.
Speaker 2: You have some fifty two percent who say he should
Speaker 2: continue running in the race after and that's actually gotten
Speaker 2: down since the debate. They say he should step aside,
Speaker 2: they say forty eight percent, so almost fifty percent of
Speaker 2: Democrats there saying he needs to go now. In terms
Speaker 2: of beating Donald Trump, voters have a pretty good insight
Speaker 2: into what's happening. They think that Kamala Harris. Only thirty
Speaker 2: percent say that she would have a better chance, thirty
Speaker 2: two percent say a worse chance, thirty seven percent basically
Speaker 2: say same chance as Biden. I think I kind of
Speaker 2: agree either it would be worse or maybe same, just
Speaker 2: because of how badly Biden is doing right now. But
Speaker 2: here is the other fascinating thing. And keep in mind
Speaker 2: this is before the assassination. This poll was done attempted assassination.
Speaker 2: Fifty three percent of Republicans say they are excited to
Speaker 2: vote for Donald Trump, Thirty three percent say satisfied, and
Speaker 2: only fourteen percent say they are disappointed. They're a full
Speaker 2: third of thirty six percent, a full third of Republicans
Speaker 2: back in twenty sixteen who said that they were disappointed
Speaker 2: and were upset about having to vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: In terms of the VP, there is some interesting stuff
Speaker 2: here about how this is all going to play out.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind, this is before the attempt assassination, but
Speaker 2: he apparently was mulling a quote Apprentice style VP reveal
Speaker 2: at the convention and considering the convention literally starts tomorrow
Speaker 2: and we still have absolutely zero idea about who it is.
Speaker 2: As well, I think it does tell you a little
Speaker 2: bit about how he is keeping the suspense and was
Speaker 2: before all of this even happened. Now, what they said
Speaker 2: is all of the finalists are expected to be at
Speaker 2: the convention. Trump has decided obviously to keep this quiet
Speaker 2: over the weekend and the attempted assassination happened. Trump's team
Speaker 2: themselves they have no idea, they said, nobody knows. They said,
Speaker 2: for instance that for the record, I don't know who
Speaker 2: it is. That's from the freaking campaign manager Chris las Savita.
Speaker 2: Trump was asked about this on Thursday. He says, I
Speaker 2: would love to do it at the convention or just
Speaker 2: slightly before the convention, like Monday. Today is Monday, so
Speaker 2: we'll see. We don't actually know in terms of how
Speaker 2: it would be revealed. The idea behind it is basically
Speaker 2: to have this mystery person behind the stage. Nobody knows
Speaker 2: who it is and they walk out on the stage,
Speaker 2: and that is the big revelation to everybody at the
Speaker 2: RNC and also to everybody at home. Now, we actually
Speaker 2: have some polling kind of interesting about who Republicans want
Speaker 2: to be the running mate. Now, amongst registered voters, sixty
Speaker 2: one percent said they be enthusiastic or satisfied with Marco
Speaker 2: Rubio forty three percent, with JD. Vance thirty four percent,
Speaker 2: with Doug burghamte percent, Tim Scott forty three percent, Nicki
Speaker 2: Haley thirty one percent, at least Stephanic. So that gives
Speaker 2: you a little bit of a sense who people would
Speaker 2: be most decided about. I'm not sure I'd take it
Speaker 2: necessarily for granted, just because I think whoever Trump picks,
Speaker 2: they're going to get an instant bump. Listen, there's been
Speaker 2: a lot of speculation about this. I have no inside
Speaker 2: information zero.
Speaker 3: Personally. I've tried, don't worry. I've done my best.
Speaker 2: But from what we understand is that basically all three
Speaker 2: were in consideration as of not that long ago.
Speaker 3: Doug Burgham, Marco Rubio.
Speaker 2: And JD. Vance all had interviews with Donald Trump at
Speaker 2: mar A Lago. I think it was earlier this weekend.
Speaker 2: All of them have received vetting paperwork. The donors really
Speaker 2: don't want Trump to pick Jdvans. Apparently Rubert Murdoch, the
Speaker 2: owner of Fox News and of the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 2: has been pushing Trump hard to pick Doug Burgham Marco Rubio.
Speaker 2: I'm sure he has a major donor constituency, but I
Speaker 2: know for certain certain donors like Paul Singer and others
Speaker 2: of major backers of him. JD also, though, has developed
Speaker 2: close relationship with Donald Trump Junior. Some people have noted
Speaker 2: on the schedule actually that Donald Trump Junior is scheduled
Speaker 2: to speak before the parent vice presidential pick for Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: All of them bring their own.
Speaker 2: Pluses and minuses to the ticket, and all of them
Speaker 2: have their own complications as well, So obviously we're gonna
Speaker 2: wait and see now. In terms of Trump, Trump is
Speaker 2: actually on the ground this morning in Milwaukee. He left yesterday.
Speaker 2: Let's what d two up there? Please on the screen?
Speaker 2: Trump put out a truth yesterday, says based on yesterday's
Speaker 2: terrible events, I was going to delay my trip to
Speaker 2: Wisconsin and the Republican Convention by two days, but I
Speaker 2: have decided that I cannot allow a shooter or potential
Speaker 2: assassin to force change or scheduling or anything else. Therefore,
Speaker 2: I will be leaving for Milwaukee as scheduled at three
Speaker 2: thirty pm. That was put out yesterday, and there was
Speaker 2: video that was released that actually showed him on the
Speaker 2: ground already in Milwaukee. There's also been a reaction from
Speaker 2: the Trump campaign. They've apparently put out a memo telling
Speaker 2: staff quote not to comment and to avoid dangerous rhetoric. So,
Speaker 2: in this shift, campaign managers of the Trump campaign have
Speaker 2: called on the campaign to quote issue dangerous rhetoric on
Speaker 2: social media. In a missive scent on Saturday, after the assassination,
Speaker 2: they wrote, we urge you to recognize the political polarization
Speaker 2: of this heated election. If something looks or feels off,
Speaker 2: flag it immediately for leadership or an on site security team.
Speaker 2: Do not comment publicly on the occurrence of today. We
Speaker 2: condemn all forms of violence, and we will not tolerate
Speaker 2: dangerous rhetoric on social media. So that obviously a bit
Speaker 2: of a tip shift in tone for the campaign, and
Speaker 2: they have very much an idea of what they're dealing
Speaker 2: with them. Then finally, let's just check in with the
Speaker 2: RCP polling average. Again to look at where things stand.
Speaker 2: Let's put this right now. This is just general election overall,
Speaker 2: right now, Trump leading by two point seven percent in
Speaker 2: the now polling average of everything that's been put out.
Speaker 3: Only one single.
Speaker 2: Poll that was conducted that let's look, let's see September
Speaker 2: or sorry, July ninth and tenth from NPR actually had
Speaker 2: Biden up by two points. Every single other one either
Speaker 2: had the race tide or Trump up by a minimum
Speaker 2: of two with an average of two point seven. So
Speaker 2: that obviously is absolutely shocking to have that happened right
Speaker 2: before the election. All of that to say is that,
Speaker 2: in general, what we know from political science, at the
Speaker 2: Republican convention usually get a quote convention bump one or
Speaker 2: two points. The reason me focuses a lot on what
Speaker 2: you're doing.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: There's not really a lot of evidence that it stays
Speaker 2: or it makes any difference. There's not a ton of
Speaker 2: evidence that vice presidential picks matter all that much for
Speaker 2: the ticket. Trump's previous pick of Pence was an exception
Speaker 2: because he needed to satisfy a lot of those other Republicans.
Speaker 3: This time around, these people are going to follow him anywhere.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind this also comes in the midst of
Speaker 2: attempted assassination. So the best that they can really do
Speaker 2: is just capitalize kind of on the sympathy that people
Speaker 2: have for Trump his call for you unit. I think
Speaker 2: it's probably a smart one, especially when you're in the
Speaker 2: leading position and you want to set yourself up for
Speaker 2: what the future would look like. On top of trying
Speaker 2: to contrast yourself with Joe Biden. The central thing here
Speaker 2: is that dissatisfaction with Biden is policy oriented, but a
Speaker 2: lot of it is just age two. So the more
Speaker 2: that you can just look vigorous, and what's more vigorous
Speaker 2: really than surviving attempt assassination, probably better off you're going
Speaker 2: to be, especially with every camera in the world that
Speaker 2: is aimed straight at you. So, as I said, we've
Speaker 2: got our own Amilygasinski. She's on the ground in Milwaukee.
Speaker 2: She'll be doing interviews and other things for us, and
Speaker 2: we'll be highlighting her throughout the week here on the program.
Speaker 2: Thank you to our premium sbscribers, by the way, for
Speaker 2: supporting that. All Right, a couple of fun stories that
Speaker 2: we had to throw in here about the craziness inside
Speaker 2: of the elite democratic mind. We're going to start first
Speaker 2: with Dmitri Melhorne. Now, you guys might remember Dmitri Melhorne.
Speaker 2: He's the advisor to Read Hoffman. He's the billionaire megado Or.
Speaker 2: We recently had him here on this program actually for
Speaker 2: counterpoints debates against Jenk Yuger about whether Joe Biden should
Speaker 2: stay in the race. It appears now he has actually
Speaker 2: been caught trying to tell reporters in the immediate aftermath
Speaker 2: of the attempted assassination that the entire thing was staged. Now,
Speaker 2: if he didn't know anything about Dmitri, we're gonna give
Speaker 2: you a taste of who he was during that debate.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, everybody told Joe Biden to stepped down.
Speaker 1: Everybody was sure he was two olds, same people at
Speaker 1: the same points in twenty twenty, same people are making
Speaker 1: the same points now. But the democratic process and the
Speaker 1: deliberative process that chows Joe Biden is the process that
Speaker 1: we have. It is how American democracy works. The parties
Speaker 1: choose candidates and then the nation choose between them.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, he's the person who wants Biden to stay
Speaker 2: in the race. Debated Jenk about that topic. I thought
Speaker 2: that's all we would really hear from him, until days
Speaker 2: later we find out that apparently, in the aftermath, as
Speaker 2: I said, he was emailing top journalists memos about how
Speaker 2: this assassination attempt was staged. Just put this out there
Speaker 2: on the screen, because it's just unhinged, it's insane. So
Speaker 2: what we find here is that Dimitri is apparently sending
Speaker 2: out emails on Saturday at seven thirty four pm. Keep
Speaker 2: in mind that is after I did a breaking news
Speaker 2: segment for everybody where it was obvious and clear that
Speaker 2: this was an attempted assassination, and that was if anything,
Speaker 2: it was a huge security failure. So I believe I
Speaker 2: filmed mine at like six p fifty or something. The
Speaker 2: attempt assassination happened approximately six to fifteen pm. So in
Speaker 2: this email at seven thirty four pm he said to
Speaker 2: sympathetic journalists, which was also apparently sent here to Semaphore,
Speaker 2: he wrote that one possibility, which feels horrific, alien and absurd,
Speaker 2: but it's quite common globally, is that the shooting was
Speaker 2: encouraged and maybe even stage so that Trump could get
Speaker 2: photos and benefit from the backlash.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: This is a classic Russian tactic, which such is when
Speaker 2: Putin killed three hundred civilians in nineteen ninety nine and
Speaker 2: blaming it on terror is to ride the backlash to
Speaker 2: winning power. Others who have embraced this tactic committing raw
Speaker 2: evil and then benefiting from the backlash include Hamas on
Speaker 2: October seventh, if any Trump officials encouraged or knew of
Speaker 2: this attack, that is morally horrific and Republicans decency must
Speaker 2: demand that Trump should step down as unfit. The other possibility,
Speaker 2: he writes, is that some crazy anti Trumper in this
Speaker 2: chaotic moment, decided to assassinate the former president.
Speaker 3: So that's only a possibility. It's a possibility.
Speaker 2: Again, keep in mind, I mean, this is a person
Speaker 2: who controls the flow of billions of dollars in American politics,
Speaker 2: one of the single most influential donor advisors in all
Speaker 2: of Washington, d C. That is one of the reasons
Speaker 2: why that we had him on the counterpoints debates. But
Speaker 2: what's more significant here is to just see how unhinged
Speaker 2: the apparently was behaving, you know, behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: Put this up there on the screen. Okay, let me
Speaker 3: give you another example.
Speaker 2: The guy who works for Read Hoffman this is just
Speaker 2: days ago. At the Sun Valley Conference for major investors,
Speaker 2: Peter Teel apparently sarcastily thanked Read Hoffman for funding lawsuits
Speaker 2: against Donald Trump because they had turned him into a
Speaker 2: quote a martyr, increasing his chances of reelection from the state.
Speaker 3: Reaid.
Speaker 2: Hoffman then shoots back, quote, yeah, I wish I had
Speaker 2: made him an actual martyr. So that was a joke
Speaker 2: just day apparently according to him, it was a joke
Speaker 2: just literally days before all of this happened. Now, we
Speaker 2: actually have the memo now that we can show you
Speaker 2: from Dimitri Melhorne that he wrote to these journalists. Let's
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen and I'll read
Speaker 2: from it.
Speaker 3: He says.
Speaker 2: One possibility is it's some crazy anti Trumper, as I said,
Speaker 2: blah blah, woul assassinate. The other possibility, horrific and alien,
Speaker 2: is that Trump must step down as he's fit because
Speaker 2: this was state so he goes, So which is it?
Speaker 2: To be clear, it might have been real? Both pro
Speaker 2: Trump and anti Trump coalitions include violent, insane people, As
Speaker 2: he says, a burning person shot at Steve's plice. Trump
Speaker 2: supporters have killed police to start a race war, committed
Speaker 2: mass murder in a synagogue, et cetera, violence happens. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, I am prone to bias, but this
Speaker 2: is a classic Putin play, and given the facts, seem
Speaker 2: more plausible. Look at the actual stot shot. Look at
Speaker 2: the staging. Look at how ready Trump is to rally
Speaker 2: this pampered baby shit his pants when an eagle lunged
Speaker 2: at his food. Look at how quickly Trump protects himself
Speaker 2: at the expense of others, but showed few of those
Speaker 2: lifelong instincts in this moment. And consider how often Putin
Speaker 2: and his allies run this play. I know it feels
Speaker 2: yucky to discuss such a possibility, but in this case
Speaker 2: the odds are so high and the steaks are so consequential,
Speaker 2: we must ask the question. I have skimmed a few
Speaker 2: headlines just now, all caps. Not one newspaper or opinion
Speaker 2: leader in America is willing to openly consider the possibility
Speaker 2: that Trump and Putin staged this on purpose. Ask the question, people,
Speaker 2: if it proves wrong, we should respond appropriately to a
Speaker 2: non stage act of political violence is outlined above. But
Speaker 2: your credibility in our entire system of truth and justice
Speaker 2: depend on being certain in the answer so that is
Speaker 2: that's unhinged. Shall we say, shall we call it what
Speaker 2: it is? That's fucking crazy. I mean, he's basically somehow
Speaker 2: Putin is now involved in this, and he basically says
Speaker 2: it is the most likely the Okham's razor, the most
Speaker 2: likely explanation for what happened here. Now keep in mind again,
Speaker 2: this is a seven thirty four PM. This is more
Speaker 2: than an hour after the attempted assassination. And by this
Speaker 2: time we and others already have video from people who
Speaker 2: are on the scene who are like, hey, I saw
Speaker 2: a guy crawling up there with a gun. I saw
Speaker 2: all this happening. That was behind the scenes. He saw
Speaker 2: that the foreign president by pure happenstance, turns his head
Speaker 2: at that moment, gets freaking shot in the ear, and
Speaker 2: a man is killed who is behind him. And you
Speaker 2: think that that was stage. Keep in mind this too.
Speaker 2: If it was stage, why is a guy going to
Speaker 2: allow a shooter to basically graze his head within the
Speaker 2: margin of error where a single you know, flap of
Speaker 2: a wing of a butterfly moves a win in a
Speaker 2: different direction and we get a pink misshot on live television.
Speaker 2: You think that is going to be more like, is
Speaker 2: that's something you're gonna trust, you know, in your hands.
Speaker 2: If this was allegedly stage, that's where it's like, what
Speaker 2: are we doing here? This is psychotic, This is insane.
Speaker 2: But what's more insane is that this is the mindset
Speaker 2: of a person who controls billions of dollars in American politics.
Speaker 2: This is the mindset of the most elite rings of
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party and the conspiratorial thinking that goes through them.
Speaker 3: Now put this up there on the screen too.
Speaker 2: Eventually, you know, he apologizes, He says, last night I
Speaker 2: sent an email and I regret I drafted it and
Speaker 2: sent it without consulting my team. I have apologized to
Speaker 2: them directly. I also wanted to apologize publicly without reservation,
Speaker 2: for allowing my words to distract from last night's central fact,
Speaker 2: political violence took yet another innocent American life. We mist
Speaker 2: unite in condemnation of such violence, and every instance, sweat reservation,
Speaker 2: any other topic is a distraction. Unfortunately, I only talked
Speaker 2: with Reid after I sent that email. I agree entirely
Speaker 2: with this thoughtful post. This morning, I joined all America
Speaker 2: in demanding we lose no more innocent lives to political violence,
Speaker 2: so he claims he didn't clear it with read Hoffman
Speaker 2: at the very least. So this is a guy who
Speaker 2: Readoffman trusts a lot. This is a guy who journalists
Speaker 2: trusts enough to get me getting emails from him that
Speaker 2: are something like this. He's lucky that he was. This
Speaker 2: is probably the first one that's ever leaked, because even
Speaker 2: they were like, hey, this shit is crazy, all right,
Speaker 2: but look, this is what we're dealing with, folks. These
Speaker 2: are the people who are proping Biden up. These are
Speaker 2: the people who are keeping Biden in the race. This
Speaker 2: is the mindset which has been running this country now
Speaker 2: for a long time. This is a mindset that runs
Speaker 2: right through elite media. And the fact that even somebody
Speaker 2: would ever put down on paper who is in a
Speaker 2: position of power, send it out to people and not
Speaker 2: expect to get ridiculed. That's one of the craziest things
Speaker 2: that I've ever seen. And I'm glad that they burned
Speaker 2: him and they put this out because he deserves every
Speaker 2: ounce of condemnation that he is getting. All Right, So
Speaker 2: elite media news, this is breaking just this morning. Just
Speaker 2: had to put it here in the show because it's delicious.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: Report from CNN's Oliver Darcy, Mourning Joe has been pulled
Speaker 2: from the air Monday because of the Trump shooting. MSNBC
Speaker 2: will not air Morning Joe, it's quote celebrated politics Roundtable,
Speaker 2: opting to instead air continued breaking news coverage of the
Speaker 2: asseempted assassination. They confirmed this decision to preempt its influential
Speaker 2: and top rated morning show Sunday evening. After CNN reached
Speaker 2: out to them, The network said that the show will
Speaker 2: resume on Tuesday.
Speaker 3: The decision by.
Speaker 2: MSNBC to leave one of its most recognizable programs on
Speaker 2: the sidelines amid a seismic politics news driven new cycle
Speaker 2: with the RNC underway is going to raise eyebrows. Now
Speaker 2: listen to this because this is the delicious part. A
Speaker 2: person familiar with the matter told CNN that the decision
Speaker 2: was made to avoid a scenario in which one of
Speaker 2: the show's stable of two dozen plus guests might make
Speaker 2: an inappropriate comment on live television that could be used
Speaker 2: to assail the program and the network as a whole.
Speaker 2: Given the breaking news nature of the story, it made
Speaker 2: more sense to continue airing rolling breaking coverage and fraud
Speaker 2: political moment. Given the gravity and the complexity of the story,
Speaker 2: NBC and MSNBC have been remained in rolling baking coverage
Speaker 2: as we continue. These networks continue across simulcast, alternating between
Speaker 2: NBC News and MSNBC, so there is one feed covering
Speaker 2: the assassination and the alleged attempt. Now there is a
Speaker 2: lot to be said about that, but for one of
Speaker 2: the bosses to say we don't trust our own flagship
Speaker 2: anchors not to say something crazy.
Speaker 3: Is an insane thing.
Speaker 2: To admit, because what you're really saying is that we
Speaker 2: don't want the potential criticism of our flagship anchors in
Speaker 2: the time when it matters the most. So if that's true,
Speaker 2: then why should we want them on the air at
Speaker 2: all if they can't be trusted in them. This is
Speaker 2: the thing too about news, and this is something I've
Speaker 2: learned a lot about doing this business. We do this
Speaker 2: show basically, you know, all the time, every day, etc.
Speaker 2: And we're on call twenty four hours and most of
Speaker 2: the time nothing that important is happening. Like we're bringing
Speaker 2: the people the news. It's not earth shattering, But one
Speaker 2: of the reasons that you have to do. That is
Speaker 2: because this is all about trust. This is me coming
Speaker 2: to you. I'm I've been doing this job almost five
Speaker 2: years now that some of you have been sticking with
Speaker 2: us between rising and breaking points, even watching the show
Speaker 2: almost every single day. At this point, we have a relationship, right,
Speaker 2: And so because you stuck with us now through all
Speaker 2: the ups and downs, not just the big times, but
Speaker 2: in terms of inflation or you know, anytimes you pick
Speaker 2: random or fun stories or whatever, you know the stuff
Speaker 2: that is going on.
Speaker 3: You know, and you know a little bit about me,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 2: Have trust in me, and you have trust in Crystal,
Speaker 2: Ryan and Emily and everybody else here at the show
Speaker 2: about this type of the things that we have in
Speaker 2: place to both check ourselves, to check each other, to
Speaker 2: look about what's going on here with the news, to
Speaker 2: report it to you properly. And if you hear any opinions,
Speaker 2: especially in a fraught political moment, you're going to know
Speaker 2: they're well considered, that we're coming at it from the
Speaker 2: long perspective, and you can bake that in. And in fact,
Speaker 2: I would say it's times like now. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to say you meet us the most, but it's times
Speaker 2: like now where we feel most gratified because you have
Speaker 2: the most amount of wanting to know what the hell
Speaker 2: is going on, and we feel very, very fortunate that
Speaker 2: you're willing to put your trust in us at that time,
Speaker 2: in the bad times, the good times, and also in
Speaker 2: the medium in the downtime. So whenever you take somebody
Speaker 2: off the air in a breaking news situation, at the
Speaker 2: time when news consumption is near and all. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't have the data yet, I'm willing to bet
Speaker 2: this is an all time high for just the last
Speaker 2: couple of years. If we take somebody off and you
Speaker 2: say you don't trust them to cover it, then that's
Speaker 2: actually admission you should never trust them at all. That's
Speaker 2: really what I know the most about, having done this
Speaker 2: job now for quite some time. And the sad thing
Speaker 2: now is I think they're right. Is that they're obviously
Speaker 2: right in that. Look at the way that Scarborough burned
Speaker 2: all of his credibility on Joe Biden on saying he has,
Speaker 2: you know, even more cogent than ever before attacking the
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, and then three weeks later admitting saying, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe Joe Biden doesn't need to drop out of the
Speaker 2: race after they can't cover it up anymore, and then back,
Speaker 2: you know, changing that flip flopping saying oh no, no,
Speaker 2: he should stay a Mika Brazinski is saying, actually, I'm
Speaker 2: cool with him, saying but more so, think too about
Speaker 2: what's the story I just did?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: These guys Didmitri Meilhorn. These people are crazy. They think
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump and Putin staged a shooting that came
Speaker 2: within inches of ending Trump's life for political benefit. That's
Speaker 2: what they think in the immediate aftermath. Those are the
Speaker 2: type of people who are on Morning Joe. Remember Donnie Deutscher,
Speaker 2: whoever that guy is, who claims that Trump is going
Speaker 2: to come and kill him.
Speaker 3: They're nuts.
Speaker 2: Joy Reid, you know over at MSNBC, she's locked her
Speaker 2: entire Twitter feed after the attempted assassination.
Speaker 3: Why what happened? Joy?
Speaker 2: What'd you tweet out there in the past that you're
Speaker 2: worried that people might come and look at And I
Speaker 2: just think it's stunning. I mean, Lawrence Tribe, he's a lawyer,
Speaker 2: he's somebody's been on a Morning Joe, elite democrat propped
Speaker 2: up all throughout Russigate.
Speaker 3: He literally tweeted out, you reap what you see.
Speaker 2: So after the attempted assassination on Trump, now listen, I
Speaker 2: want to say this too, because it's important. A lot
Speaker 2: of people are out there talking about unity, et cetera, like, oh,
Speaker 2: we got tone down the rhetoric, and I don't necessarily
Speaker 2: disagree with any of that, but a lot of people
Speaker 2: are also doing the same thing that democrats in the
Speaker 2: media did against Sarah Palin in the aftermath of the
Speaker 2: Gabby Gifford shooting, where they're like, oh, you said you know,
Speaker 2: Biden said something like we got to put Trump in
Speaker 2: the bulls eye. It's like, guys, that's bullshit, all right.
Speaker 2: He wasn't targeting Trump for assassination. This is just normal
Speaker 2: political rhetoric. Now should it be that way, I don't
Speaker 2: know whatever, but I've seen plenty of Republicans do that.
Speaker 2: And when Sarah Palin put out a map which had
Speaker 2: a quote bull's eye over Gabby Gifford's in targeting her
Speaker 2: for political defeat, that was not legitimate to say that
Speaker 2: she was trying to incite assassination. We are allowed to
Speaker 2: criticize each other. We believe in free speech in this country,
Speaker 2: especially here on this show, and that's not necessarily the grounds.
Speaker 2: But what we do know with the MSNBC situation here
Speaker 2: and taking Morning Joe off the air, is if they
Speaker 2: were to say something inappropriate like that, it's more that
Speaker 2: they don't have the wherewithal to even understand the moment
Speaker 2: that they are in. And I think this should be
Speaker 2: a lesson for everybody, and hopefully maybe send this to
Speaker 2: your boomer MSNBC relatives, the people who put their trust.
Speaker 3: If their bosses.
Speaker 2: Can't trust them to maintain their composure, to meet the moment,
Speaker 2: to deliver information in a timely and useful manner to
Speaker 2: their audience when it matters the most, why should you
Speaker 2: trust them to do it at any time? And take
Speaker 2: that from somebody who literally does this also for a living,
Speaker 2: I would be mortified, you know if somebody. Luckily, I
Speaker 2: own my own business here with Crystal, so nobody can
Speaker 2: make the decision to take us off the air.
Speaker 3: But that almost makes it more important.
Speaker 2: We got to service checks on each other, sales, the staff,
Speaker 2: the production team and others to make sure that something
Speaker 2: like this doesn't have This is actually an admission by
Speaker 2: the people who put them on the air every single
Speaker 2: day whenever the time is quote not that important, that
Speaker 2: they actually aren't up for the job, that they are
Speaker 2: doing a lot of damage here in terms of warping
Speaker 2: the mindset of a lot of voters and other people
Speaker 2: who do trust them for information. And I would urge
Speaker 2: all those people to reconsider that if their own bosses
Speaker 2: and the people around them don't trust them, to not
Speaker 2: quote say something inappropriate in this moment that tells you
Speaker 2: everything you need to know about what.
Speaker 3: They're doing over over there.
Speaker 2: Thank you everybody sticking with me for this emergency one
Speaker 2: man's show, waiting on the news about Christal's kids. But
Speaker 2: I think the situation will be all right, and the
Speaker 2: two of us, you know, plans withstanding, will be here
Speaker 2: at the desk tomorrow. There will be some programming notes
Speaker 2: about me later on in the week, but I'll leave
Speaker 2: that till later. I hope you guys stuck with us
Speaker 2: through the show. We really appreciate you all the premium subscribers.
Speaker 2: We'll bring everybody the news from the RNC throughout the week.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be big a couple of weeks here on
Speaker 2: breaking a big couple of months I think here on
Speaker 2: breaking points, and for everybody for the entire country, and
Speaker 2: we really appreciate you sticking with us at a moment
Speaker 2: and at a time like this, a fraud time. We appreciate you,
Speaker 2: we thank you, and we'll see you tomorrow