Juno News - True North journalist describes moments during Trump rally shooting

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.840 i'm gonna tell you right off the bat this is going to be a slightly less irreverent show in

00:00:13.940 fact i'd say considerably less irreverent show than you're used to given what happened over

00:00:19.180 the weekend now i'm assuming you know precisely what i'm talking about the attempted assassination

00:00:24.160 of a presidential candidate of a former president of the united states of donald trump now

00:00:29.740 i wanted to just get a sense of the atmosphere on the ground as it happened true north had

00:00:35.480 a reporter there i believe the only canadian journalist to be reporting from the scene of

00:00:42.100 this rally at first she went down there just expecting this to be a regular trump rally

00:00:46.640 in butler pennsylvania and it quickly became one of the most uh significant moments in united states

00:00:52.900 political history rachel parker is the host of rachel and the republic at true north rachel

00:00:58.000 good to be with you glad you're safe and okay i know it was quite an eventful uh weekend for you

00:01:03.260 but let me just first ask you about why you were there because i i know that you've launched this

00:01:08.780 new show and i mentioned we typically don't cover american politics why were you there and why have

00:01:13.380 you taken on this campaign yeah i mean i think that the american election is very relevant to canada i

00:01:19.580 think there's a lot of canadians who are interested in the outcome of that i think it's probably one of

00:01:23.020 the most important american elections that we've seen there's such a great chasm and divide in america

00:01:28.940 right now and i think everyone's really been watching to see what will happen there we've seen the

00:01:33.100 left in the states go after donald trump from every single angle that they can with this litany of

00:01:39.660 litigation that they've thrown at him and everything has been just really unsuccessful and it's actually

00:01:44.300 caused him to increase in the polls you know of course we can talk about the policies that he would

00:01:48.620 implement and how that would impact canada like things on immigration you know we know he's going

00:01:52.780 to tighten measures at the southern border where there is just a flood of illegal immigrants entering

00:01:57.260 the states right now those types of policies we're going to see an impact on canada as well as his plans

00:02:01.900 to import to implement tariffs you know those are all things that will directly impact canadians economy

00:02:07.580 but i think honestly this election is just something that canadians care about because we've been

00:02:12.540 watching the situation in the states and because our economies are so closely intertwined we don't even

00:02:17.100 necessarily need to come at it from all the ties that we have with america it's just an election

00:02:21.500 that is of interest to the world we've seen what has happened under joe biden we've never seen so

00:02:26.620 much war in the middle east under donald trump and it seems like things are just declining all around

00:02:31.260 the world as our superpower just to the south of us has seen such a decline under joe biden certainly

00:02:36.940 this election is something that is of such interest to the world and to canadians and so i've just had

00:02:42.380 such an interest in american politics my whole life um i was very excited when i got the okay to

00:02:46.780 cover it for true north and i decided to go down to this butler pennsylvania rally as it happens

00:02:51.500 i was looking at donald trump's schedule and i thought okay what's kind of close by while i'm

00:02:55.340 in ontario maybe there's some events that i could go to there was only two rallies scheduled on his

00:03:00.140 page when i went to look one of them was in florida and one of them was in pennsylvania so i thought

00:03:03.740 pennsylvania is probably not too far i looked it was just over four hours i thought to myself that's

00:03:07.900 very doable for a day trip there and back and so i began to make preparations to go down to that

00:03:13.020 rally i was going to talk to americans about you know what they thought about the election so far

00:03:16.540 why they're voting for donald trump which of his policies they were most interested in what they

00:03:20.620 thought about joe biden if they thought he would resign and we did all those interviews in the hours

00:03:25.180 before that assassination attempt and obviously the event let's let's stop there though and let's

00:03:30.460 actually take this chronologically because i've never been to a trump rally i've been to uh political

00:03:36.060 events i was at the republican convention in 2016 when trump was nominated so i have a sense of the

00:03:40.540 atmosphere there but but what was the atmosphere like what was it like what were the people saying

00:03:44.380 when you were talking to them before anyone knew that this would be a tremendously fateful day

00:03:49.820 i think the rally was very upbeat it was an it was an insane you know political rally i've never been

00:03:55.500 to a political event of such magnitude we just don't have those types of events here in canada we

00:03:59.900 don't have as many people show up to those events i know that pier polio is able to attract 0.99

00:04:04.220 you know an audience often in the thousands but i mean there is probably around somewhere from 15 to 20

00:04:09.180 000 people there that day there were so many people trickling in i just couldn't believe

00:04:12.860 how many people took time out of their day and drove down for this rally and everyone was very

00:04:17.180 excited to be there everyone was very excited about trump's presidency i think people were feeling and

00:04:21.420 still are feeling very confident that he's going to win on november 5th you know we heard a lot of

00:04:25.820 similar themes people are very concerned about inflation these days just like they are here in

00:04:29.740 canada a lot of people commented on the border crisis they said i'm voting for trump because of his

00:04:34.060 border policies i would like to see mass deportations of the illegal aliens that are 1.00

00:04:38.940 coming into our country under joe biden some very similar themes you know some people even talked about

00:04:43.180 abortion um and said you know we just don't like what's happening under joe biden so you know a lot

00:04:47.980 of commonalities some of the similar issues that we're seeing here in canada but very up it was it

00:04:52.700 was felt like 34 degrees celsius that day like i personally saw a couple people pass out and you know

00:04:57.580 i'm just one person in a crowd of tens of thousands if i personally see a couple people passed out you

00:05:02.300 know there was probably well over 100 people that passed out from the heat but people were so eager

00:05:06.780 to come out and to show their support and appreciation for donald trump given everything

00:05:10.940 that the left in america has thrown at this man and he's still standing and they really feel like

00:05:14.940 you know he's our voice and he's standing up for us in a way that no one has in a very very long time

00:05:19.740 in american political history he takes the stage and in the moments when the shooting happened

00:05:27.420 what was going through your mind what was apparent because when you listen to the audio from afar it

00:05:33.660 i mean i know what gunshots sound like i'm a gun owner but you can't be definitive was this a balloon

00:05:39.420 popping was it an air gun was it like how quickly and how instantly did you know and did people on the

00:05:45.020 ground know oh my goodness something is happening here my immediate instinct was that it was a shooting

00:05:50.700 and that they were bullets and i would say that was the immediate instinct of pretty much everyone in the

00:05:54.460 crowd because everyone drops to their knees and gets low you hear a couple people yelling a couple

00:05:58.860 people screaming so my initial instinct was that this is a shooting and then of course you look on

00:06:03.180 the stage and you see the secret service rushing and they've now you know they jumped on they jumped

00:06:07.420 on the president as they're supposed to they're using their bodies to act as a shield against any

00:06:11.660 incoming bullets which is of course an incredible act of bravery i mean we can divorce the discussion

00:06:15.900 about the security issues that went on that day but that is a insane act of bravery to run into

00:06:22.300 gunfire to protect someone else which is of course their job and you know then you know something

00:06:27.340 happened because you see the secret service agents they're on the stage they they're all in a pile and

00:06:32.780 no one really moves for a couple seconds and in that moment i honestly thought to myself that

00:06:38.300 i thought maybe that trump had been hit and that he was dead because i couldn't understand why the

00:06:42.380 secret service agents weren't rushing him away if if there was just not a lifeless body underneath them

00:06:48.620 and my understanding of their protocol was that if there's an emergency immediately rush him get him

00:06:52.620 to safety get him out of that crowd you don't know if there's going to be more than one shooter in

00:06:56.380 an event like that the first shooter maybe it's just a distraction so the fact that nothing really

00:07:00.780 happened in those first few seconds to me indicated that there was something seriously wrong now of

00:07:05.500 course you know you assume the worst of course yes and then yeah so then he gets up and we've all

00:07:10.700 seen actually sean put it up on the screen we've all seen this just legendary photo from

00:07:14.780 uh the associated press photojournalist evan vucci this photo that just is will go down in

00:07:22.780 world history american history of trump blood still on the side of his face raising his fist american

00:07:28.060 flag secret service it's got everything it's a beautiful photograph itself it's composed perfectly

00:07:33.260 but the symbolism there is a moment explain if you can the vibe in the crowd because you have in the

00:07:40.380 span of seconds here panic fear chaos and then cheering and celebrating and chanting

00:07:49.260 so i think everyone in the crowd and those initial moments were wondering the same thing that i was

00:07:53.180 wondering is if he had been hit in the head and then we see him rise to his feet and he sort of

00:07:58.140 reaches through his secret service agents you know there's been some discussion that lady in the front

00:08:02.300 wasn't even tall enough to cover him um but he reaches through them and he and he raises his fist and

00:08:07.100 he starts pumping it and chanting fight fight fight and and the crowd responded in kind they

00:08:11.580 began cheering and applauding and just starting to chant usa usa and in that moment you could sort

00:08:16.460 of feel the relief wash over the crowd and the excitement and just the hopefulness that he was

00:08:22.380 still there and then the president is whisked away and the tone of the crowd immediately changes again

00:08:28.140 with i would say hundreds of people in the crowd turning around and looking back at the media

00:08:32.860 booth where i was positioned and and pointing their fingers at the the major outlooks that had their

00:08:37.660 cameras positioned there and just starting to yell shame shame this is your fault and i even i even

00:08:42.780 posted one of those videos and you can just see if you're looking over the sea of thousands of people

00:08:46.620 you can see hundreds of people raise their arms in into the into the sky and start shaking it at the

00:08:52.060 media and there was such visceral anger for the media in that moment and i even went and tried to go

00:08:56.300 up to a couple people and to see you know if they were talking about how they were feeling in that moment

00:08:59.820 because i was in the media booth they said we don't want to speak to you you know we don't want to give

00:09:03.420 you any comment you don't want to hear what we have to say anyways and of course i was able to get

00:09:06.860 interviews later on in the day but in that moment it was such visceral anger directed directly towards

00:09:12.540 the american media interesting well glad you're okay i'm glad you were there to to report on this

00:09:18.300 for us and and see it for yourself but also glad that again it it had the outcome it did for for

00:09:24.380 president trump but i also don't want to gloss over the fact that there was a man who lost his

00:09:28.620 life and there were casualties in this and that's tragic and we send our thoughts and prayers to

00:09:32.940 them as well i know you'll have a full breakdown on rachel and the republic this week rachel parker

00:09:37.180 thank you for coming on thanks andrew thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the

00:09:42.060 program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

00:09:51.580 you

Juno News - July 17, 2024

True North journalist describes moments during Trump rally shooting

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