The Megyn Kelly Show - BREAKING： Another Trump Assassination Attempt Foiled, with Buck Sexton, Rich Lowry, Susan Crabtree, Dave Aronberg, Bill Stanton, and More

00:00:00.480 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.940 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to a special edition of The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:16.220 We are live on YouTube.com slash Megyn Kelly and also on Sirius XM Triumph Channel 111.

00:00:21.720 And here we are again, two months and two days after the first assassination attempt

00:00:30.740 on our former president's life. We have yet another, yet another. An assassin somehow

00:00:39.600 got by near the fifth hole at Trump's golf course down in Florida, the International Golf Club in

00:00:50.180 West Palm Beach shortly before 2 p.m. with an AK-47 and was apparently determined to kill

00:01:00.100 former President Donald Trump. Most importantly, the former president is safe at this hour. This we

00:01:06.940 know. He released a statement a short time ago saying, there were gunshots in my vicinity, but

00:01:12.040 before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first. I am safe and well.

00:01:17.760 Nothing will slow me down. I will never surrender. I will always love you for supporting me. Unity,

00:01:24.820 peace, make America great again. How many times is this man going to have to go through this?

00:01:29.880 How many times are we going to have to go through this?

00:01:35.840 Eric Trump said to Sean Hannity, and he nailed it. My father's running out of lives here.

00:01:40.740 How many rifles are going to be in firing range of my father? Good question.

00:01:47.980 According to reports, the incident happened around 2 p.m.

00:01:50.700 It was at Mr. Trump's golf course, as I said, in West Palm Beach. This is a private golf course.

00:01:56.600 You cannot get in. Not just anyone can come on the course. Right now, it and the area are engulfed

00:02:05.620 in law enforcement personnel, as you can imagine. Reports say the former president was between the

00:02:10.900 fifth and sixth hole when it happened. An armed suspect was spotted by the Secret Service detail

00:02:17.480 protecting President Trump. They were traveling about two holes ahead of where the former president

00:02:24.260 was golfing. This is apparently the protocol that they have set up for him. And they noticed

00:02:31.340 someone there. It was about 300 to 500 yards away from Donald Trump. As they ran over to the suspect,

00:02:38.980 he fled the scene. Local authorities tracked down the car. One person was taken into custody.

00:02:46.340 This man had an AK-47 style weapon, scope, and a GoPro camera on the scene. It appears he meant to

00:02:56.900 tape or video in some way the act of carnage he was planning. So he is alive and well right now

00:03:05.740 in the custody of the feds, which is a good thing because we will have the opportunity to learn

00:03:11.320 more about this man. And you can bet right now the Secret Service, the FBI, and others are going

00:03:17.920 through this guy's social media. I'm sure they're at his home and interrogating him while in custody

00:03:25.300 about what was behind this assassination attempt. He did not fire shots. He was shot at, according to the

00:03:34.460 officials. And I'll give you just some details as we bring in our guests, our first guests.

00:03:41.800 I'll play the soundbite first from the FBI presser. This is West Palm Beach Sheriff Rick Bradshaw

00:03:47.520 describing exactly what happened here. Watch this.

00:03:51.540 1.30 this afternoon. Call came out. Shots fired. That was called in by the Secret Service.

00:03:58.260 Fortunately, we were able to locate a witness that came to us and said, hey, I saw the guy running out

00:04:04.380 of the bushes. He jumped into a black Nissan, and I took a picture of the vehicle and the tank,

00:04:11.420 which was great. We were able to get a hit on that vehicle on I-95 as it was headed into Martin

00:04:17.920 County. And they spotted the vehicle and pulled it over and detained the guy. After that, we took

00:04:25.280 the victim, I'm sorry, the witness that witnessed the incident, took, flew him up there, and he

00:04:32.800 identified as the person that he saw running out of the bushes and jumped into the car. Now, in the

00:04:38.240 bushes where this guy was is an AK-47 style rifle with a scope, two backpacks which were hung on the

00:04:46.940 fist that had a ceramic tile in him, and a GoPro, which he was going to take pictures of.

00:04:54.680 Joining me now, Buck Sexton, former CIA agent, and Bill Stanson as well, both our former NYPD. Guys,

00:05:00.780 thank you for being here. I want to tell the audience that while we don't have an ID on the

00:05:04.640 shooter or attempted shooter at this moment, we do have a tweet from Carol Markowitz, who reports for

00:05:12.960 the New York Post and has been on the show many times with what she says is a picture of the man.

00:05:18.140 We were told by the police he's 58 years old. We saw a picture from Carol. Again, we have not yet

00:05:23.560 verified this. We have not heard law enforcement verify this, but she is down in Florida. She moved

00:05:28.240 to Florida a year or two ago. And it does show a man appearing to be about that age, a white man.

00:05:34.340 And there's not much to describe other than that, but Carol's going to join us momentarily and explain

00:05:40.960 exactly what she saw and how she has this photo. So when she pops in, I'll put you guys on standby

00:05:45.440 and we will talk to her. Let me start with you on it, Buck, as somebody who is former CIA, and we've

00:05:51.240 been talking about this for a while, what's happened to former President Trump. What do you make of what

00:05:55.560 we know so far? And why don't we have more from the authorities now, since they clearly have him in

00:06:00.720 custody. They definitely know what his name is and they know a lot more than they're disclosing to us.

00:06:05.500 Well, there's obviously a lot coming in, Megan. And I think to call this a second wake up call would

00:06:11.980 be to minimize at some level what the threat environment has become, which is just entirely

00:06:18.520 intolerable when it comes to President Trump's safety. I mean, we got the first time around

00:06:24.400 by a miracle and we were talking about that right after it happened. By some miracle,

00:06:30.220 President Trump wasn't killed by the first shooter. This time around, the law enforcement

00:06:35.640 response was better, at least in this regard. They shot before shots were able to be fired at

00:06:41.720 President Trump on the golf course. But it does seem that there's clearly not enough advanced

00:06:48.920 security work being done by Secret Service. I was very clear before when I came on after the first,

00:06:54.700 now we have to put numbers to them, right? The first assassination attempt,

00:06:57.740 the second assassination attempt. After the first assassination attempt, it was quite clear that

00:07:02.780 Secret Service failed miserably. And of course, the Secret Service director ended up being fired as

00:07:08.100 was well-deserved. And there are others who I believe have been put on essentially in paid leave.

00:07:13.540 Well, wait, though, was she was she officially fired or was she allowed to resign?

00:07:17.440 I mean, she resigned under I mean, she resigned under pressure, part of the but that's part of

00:07:21.800 the irritating, to put it mildly, things about what we're watching here. Well, you know,

00:07:27.880 the accountability or lack thereof. Go ahead. Sorry. Finish it. Nobody in D.C., as you know,

00:07:32.440 Megan, is really fired. They're all told you resign or I'm about to fire you. But she deserved to be

00:07:36.360 fired. Yes, I know. Some people deserve to be fired. This is actually a point Donald Trump was

00:07:41.900 making at the debate the other night that they don't fire anybody in this administration.

00:07:45.220 Only he fires people. Sorry. Keep going. No, it's fine. I mean, just from the security

00:07:49.220 perspective, let's just take a look at what we know what happened. First of all,

00:07:52.540 something bizarre occurred in the reporting of this. I live in South Florida. I live in Miami

00:07:56.480 Beach and I have a lot of friends, including Carol Markowitz will be with us shortly who are down here.

00:08:01.080 We have tons of contacts in law enforcement. We know, you know, when you're closer to these things,

00:08:05.640 you hear about them more quickly. Long before this hit the wires, I was getting text messages.

00:08:09.180 I think someone just took shots at Trump again. Right. And then there was this reporting after it broke

00:08:14.340 publicly. Oh, no, they weren't intending to hit President Trump. How there was this period of

00:08:20.360 time for about an hour, I think, today where that was the storyline. I want to know. I want to know

00:08:24.560 how that came up. That's just utterly bizarre. The Trump golf course is in a pretty nice part of

00:08:29.520 West Palm Beach. Not a lot of shootouts in broad daylight, you know, in the early afternoon.

00:08:33.780 With an AK-47. With an AK-47 with a scope on it. I mean, it's not, you know, so something was very

00:08:39.900 weird with that. I can't give you more other than that just seems completely bizarre in retrospect.

00:08:45.120 Look, Secret Service fired before he could be fired upon this time. But how somebody could get within

00:08:50.360 the effective range of a scoped AK-47 and be in a position to threaten the life of President Trump a

00:08:57.860 couple of months here before, less than two months before the election, after what happened here.

00:09:03.440 It's a massive challenge, I think, to the security situation, or rather, massive challenge to those

00:09:08.780 who think the security situation is in hand. And just beyond that, Megan, the politics of this are,

00:09:14.020 you can't separate them. I mean, they've been saying President Trump is a threat to democracy

00:09:18.920 and will destroy the country if he wins again. And they keep saying it, even after he took a bullet in

00:09:25.040 the ear. And now another lunatic probably decided, hey, I'm going to save the country and be a hero

00:09:30.440 because I'm a psychopath. And I'm going to try to assassinate a president. You know, we're in a very

00:09:35.520 high threat environment. And the rhetoric from the Democrats is completely irresponsible about this

00:09:39.900 stuff. And they have not changed at all, even after Trump was shot. Here's here is a discussion,

00:09:47.940 a Q&A with the local authorities when they just had a presser on why President Trump did not have

00:09:53.160 more secret service protection, a man who already almost had his life taken two months ago.

00:10:01.140 How was this able to happen? And for future reference, is there any uncertainty in the golf

00:10:06.100 course? Well, you got to understand the golf course is surrounded by shrubbery. So when somebody

00:10:11.080 gets into the shrubbery, they're pretty much out of sight. All right. And at this level that he is at

00:10:17.300 right now, he's not the city president. If he was, we would have had to hire a golf course surrounded.

00:10:22.040 But because he's not, the security is limited to the areas that the secret service

00:10:26.920 deems possible. So I would imagine that the next time he comes at a golf course,

00:10:33.140 there'll probably be a little bit more people around the perimeter.

00:10:38.900 Unbelievable, Bill. So he's, you know, he's the foreign president. So he doesn't have adequate

00:10:43.320 secret service to to meet the moment, which, you know, I guess if you're talking about like

00:10:48.300 George W Bush, that maybe that would make some sense. But he literally almost got shot in the

00:10:54.020 brain two months ago. We were talking about this and you were one of the first on air, Megan. It was

00:11:01.660 literally a couple of hours afterwards before the prop, the press, as I call them, tried to suppress

00:11:06.700 the real information. What you're seeing here is overall lethargy. I think the secret service needs

00:11:14.560 a total audit from the top down, bottom up, and they have to get squared away correctly. My understanding

00:11:21.300 when that report comes out, it's going to show glaring mistakes and just, I guess, complacency and

00:11:28.180 lethargy in how they act and react. The fact that they didn't get this guy, that he got that close

00:11:36.760 is a prime example of how desperately the secret service, while they're individually, I think they're

00:11:43.440 willing to put their lives on the line as an institution, as an agency, they really need an

00:11:48.660 overhaul. It is unbelievable to me that they wouldn't have beefed up his secret service protection to the

00:11:56.920 point where it equaled, yes, equaled that of the sitting president of the United States, speaking

00:12:01.920 of whom, no statement from him. We've gotten a statement from Kamala Harris. We've gotten one

00:12:08.020 from J.D. Vance. So far, absolutely nothing from the sitting president of the United States.

00:12:14.340 Is he there? Does he know that this has happened? We have no idea. Guys, stand by. Okay, just stand by

00:12:20.440 five minutes. Carol's here. I want to bring her on. I don't want to lose you two, but I want to hear from

00:12:25.460 her because she's got more information than anybody else does on this, at least so far.

00:12:32.260 Okay, Carol Markowitz, thank you for joining us. You've got this picture of what you say is the

00:12:39.780 shooter. Do we have a name? Because I'm now seeing one reported online. We do. His name is Ryan Ruth.

00:12:47.460 That name is the name that I have. And that is a follow-up.

00:12:50.640 R-O-U-T-H. R-O-U-T-H. Okay, so this is Carol breaking this picture of him.

00:12:58.160 Ryan Ruth, just for the listening audience, it is a man in what appears to be a peach or a pink shirt,

00:13:05.840 which looks like it's being pulled up over his head. He's got sunglasses on the top of his head.

00:13:10.900 He looks skinny. He's got some sort of blue pants or jeans worn low. And he looks like his age of

00:13:19.580 about late 50s. They said 58. Go ahead, Carol. So tell us what you know.

00:13:22.860 So I know that he somehow managed to escape from West Palm Beach from the golf course, and they got

00:13:31.640 him nearby. His social media is largely about foreign affairs. He talks a lot about recruiting

00:13:39.460 people to go fight in Ukraine. He has some anti-Israel posts about how Jews were not native

00:13:45.480 to the land. And that's basically the story with him. He doesn't have anything about Donald Trump,

00:13:51.480 nothing about Kamala Harris that I've seen. Although, of course, this is all very early,

00:13:55.560 and maybe he has multiple accounts. And we're going to find out more as the story progresses.

00:14:01.420 It's really interesting to me that this guy is 58 and not 22, right? How many times have we seen in

00:14:08.180 these mass shootings that it's a young man between the ages of 18 and 25, who we later find out

00:14:14.500 snapped in some way, had schizophrenia, had a mental break? 58 is different. I'm sure they know

00:14:20.420 by this point in local law enforcement or the FBI, whether this guy's got a history of mental health

00:14:26.380 issues. But in scouring the social media or what you know of the social media, does he sound like

00:14:31.060 a lunatic? Or does he just sound like a politically charged guy? He definitely sounds, I'm not a medical

00:14:37.800 health professional. This is completely my opinion, but he sounds off. He's recruiting people

00:14:42.040 to go to war in Ukraine. He's saying he needs Afghan soldiers to go. It's sort of all over the place.

00:14:52.860 So you got this picture from law enforcement or from somebody close to law enforcement, I assume.

00:14:58.980 And did you get any other details about what's likely to happen to this guy now or what is happening to

00:15:03.820 him? I don't have any other details other than the photo and the social media account that I posted

00:15:09.960 some information about. That's it. That's all that I have. Have they pulled it yet? Carol,

00:15:15.020 I haven't had the chance to go look at it since we got his name. It just broke. His name just came

00:15:19.880 out just as we were going on. So I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's crazy. The amount of

00:15:25.860 information that's coming at us, but we're glad. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for

00:15:30.400 tweeting out the photo. It may be the only look we get at this guy for some time. You're the best,

00:15:35.620 Carol Markowitz. What a remarkable get good for her. Um, it just goes to show you, you know,

00:15:41.840 you, you, you get, you develop your sources, you work your sources, you develop trust with your

00:15:47.880 sources and ideally your sources will trust you in a time like this. And that's exactly what just

00:15:52.720 happened to Carol. Um, the back to bill and Buck now from the presser that they had moments ago,

00:15:58.920 they said, yes, there's an agent who goes one hole ahead of the president at a time. In this case,

00:16:06.260 it was a couple of holes ahead. And this guy was able to spot the man with the rifle sticking out

00:16:13.280 of the fence, the rifle sticking out of the fence. And that suggests to me, uh, bill Stanton that he

00:16:20.340 might not have been on the course. I don't know what the course looks like, but if there's a fence and

00:16:24.600 the rifle sticking out of it, it sounds like this guy might've been on the other side of the fence.

00:16:29.300 I'm really not clear because it looks like he ran and he successfully ran. He did escape capture

00:16:34.680 from the cops initially. Yeah. I actually live out in Palm beach part time and I'm going to

00:16:42.120 supposed to leave today. I'm going to go check that area out. And to your point, he obviously wanted to

00:16:48.640 take a shot at the president. This now seems to be in vogue and understand the volatile rhetoric.

00:16:55.180 When you say, if you're a politician and you're saying that president Trump is an existential threat,

00:17:02.720 they call him Hitler. These people view themselves. Every bad guy doesn't view themselves as a bad guy.

00:17:09.160 He's looking at himself. I'm guessing as a savior. And they essentially, all these people that are

00:17:15.220 calling president Trump, Hitler, he needs to, he cannot get elected. You are in effect putting a

00:17:21.400 target on his chest. And this needs to be addressed both by the politicians and by the secret service,

00:17:28.420 by enhancing security many times over. But before I go back to Buck, can you tell me,

00:17:34.960 Bill, how does a guy in the United States get his hands on an AK 47? I mean, if that's in fact

00:17:41.580 what this guy had, that is a true weapon of war that would be illegal in all 50 states. Nowhere is

00:17:48.240 that a lawful weapon for an American citizen to have. Well, if it's a full auto, they make AK 47

00:17:55.300 semi-auto light. They make ARs that are semi-auto. You know, they make ARs that are nine millimeter.

00:18:01.920 I own one of them. So we don't know the true make and model. But if it is and true AK 47,

00:18:07.860 that can go from single to semi-auto to full auto, you know, unless he has some specific licenses

00:18:15.380 that allow him, unless he has a federal firearms license, then he's committed, you know, got it on

00:18:21.140 the black market, you know, under the table, he shouldn't have it at all. To be walking around

00:18:26.620 with an AK 47, if this is accurate, and that no one's seen him until that rifle was spotted

00:18:32.760 through the fencing, you know, that's a big glaring faux pas, in my opinion.

00:18:39.880 My God, because Buck, it's like this guy, it seems like he drove up to the hole. This is my

00:18:45.420 speculation, again, just based on they said that the gun was coming through the fence and the

00:18:49.920 Secret Service spotted it, drove up to the hole, whipped out an AK 47 and was lying in wait for the

00:18:55.380 former president of the United States to walk by. By some miracle, these Secret Service agents

00:19:00.260 actually saw the gun coming through the fence, which probably wasn't that easy to spot because

00:19:05.640 they said it was through the bushes, and chased the guy, at some point opened fire on the guy,

00:19:12.820 and yet the guy nonetheless made it away. I mean, just like, this is, it's too easy.

00:19:18.360 Here's, I think, the recognition, Megan, that is dawning upon everybody right now. Did we really

00:19:26.780 learn anything from the first assassination attempt? Have they taken security much more

00:19:32.160 seriously for President Trump in the aftermath of him taking a bullet through the ear that was an inch

00:19:37.360 away from killing him? You see this, and I know they're going to say that this is, you know, a movement

00:19:44.500 that, I think the reports are that it was off schedule, so the public wouldn't be, wouldn't

00:19:48.940 know about this, but in West Palm, this guy's on this golf course, Trump is on this golf course

00:19:53.000 all the time, and everybody who lives in this area, and Bill knows this, you know where the

00:19:57.920 president is because there's a bunch of Secret Service guys around, and it's not hard to figure

00:20:02.080 out that there's, you know, pattern and pattern analysis that work here for this bad guy to

00:20:07.740 understand when President, you know, it's a Sunday, President Trump probably going to be golfing,

00:20:11.620 and this is where he's going to be golfing, and you can even see that, you know, Trump Force One

00:20:15.540 is parked at the Palm Beach Airport, and you know that he's around, right? So it's not hard to figure

00:20:20.380 out where he's going to be, that they would treat this as meeting the golf course in this area as

00:20:25.660 somehow not worthy of the absolute highest level of security, as though he were having a public event,

00:20:31.440 is crazy, and I think that that's what we're going to find out happened here. It sounds like the guy

00:20:36.340 went up to the fence with an AK-47, and if he had been able to get shots off on the president,

00:20:42.140 we could be facing the same tragedy that was unthinkable two months ago could have happened

00:20:47.220 today. Look, Secret Service got four to six shots off, depending on, you know, according to the

00:20:52.340 press conference. I'm wondering if it was with a sidearm or a long gun, four to six shots not hitting

00:20:57.520 the target from the advance team. That's not particularly precise work. Curious to know what

00:21:02.840 happened there. They're also firing in an urban area. You generally want to actually hit your target,

00:21:06.820 but I do think that there was probably a sense from these Secret Service officers who were out

00:21:11.680 at the hole in advance of President Trump, you know, we're not going to wait and call this in

00:21:16.060 and call it back in, and you know, there's a guy with a gun trying to kill the president,

00:21:19.560 we're going to fire. That is progress compared to what we saw in Pennsylvania. It's limited progress,

00:21:24.660 but it's progress to be sure. Now I think you're going to see more and more people asking,

00:21:30.500 how can the president feel safe doing anything at this point? If he can't golf on a Sunday in what

00:21:36.340 is effectively his backyard on a course that he owns after he was, you know, we already got the

00:21:41.840 warning, right? We already got the wake up call the first time around. Did we heed that? Who's in

00:21:46.880 charge of the resources at DHS for the Secret Service detail? Have they dramatically ramped up?

00:21:52.920 How could this be a dramatically ramped up? Megan, one of the problems from the first assassination

00:21:57.360 attempt was that it told every lunatic across the world, but certainly across America,

00:22:02.860 that it's not that hard to get a shot off on President Trump. In fact, it's not hard

00:22:07.040 at all. And now you have other people who are thinking, gee, I could probably do the same thing.

00:22:13.160 And that's what happened with this individual. Not to mention that we now have a second guy who has

00:22:18.080 very limited, it seems, social media presence online, not going to be talked about that much. I mean,

00:22:23.000 maybe we'll find out a lot more information. I know it's early in that whole part of the process.

00:22:27.360 But we certainly didn't find out very much at all about the first shooter, other than, you know,

00:22:31.160 he was able to get multiple aimed shots off at President Trump. So this is another failure of

00:22:35.960 security, to be sure. I mean, the guy got a loaded gun with a scope on it at the golf course when

00:22:40.940 President Trump is there and had to be fired upon in order to stop him from taking shots at the

00:22:44.980 president. You know, there's this term just real quick. I don't I mean, Bill, you're very patient

00:22:49.160 with me. I'm sorry. I'm very fired up about this. But there's this term stochastic terrorism

00:22:54.640 that the left often uses, Democrats often use, which is borrowed from mathematics. And it's

00:22:59.660 effectively statistically likely, but uncertain, right? As in, it's going to happen. You don't

00:23:05.820 know who's going to do it. You don't know when it's going to happen. But if you have enough in

00:23:10.120 the air, if you have enough numbers, so to speak, it's going to they say this whenever something bad

00:23:15.420 happens to somebody that they can pin on Donald Trump. They'll say, oh, a person somewhere did a

00:23:19.560 hate crime. It's stochastic terrorism from Trump. Megan, they've been telling half the country that

00:23:23.900 President Trump is going to end the republic. And I don't mean they as in crazy people in internet

00:23:28.240 chat rooms. CBS News, CNN, The New York Times, they are saying President Trump is, Bill said it,

00:23:36.580 Hitler, a fascist going to end the country. If they really believe that, how is that not directly

00:23:43.320 encouraging exactly what we are seeing again? No one's taken a shot at a president in 40 years

00:23:50.260 since Reagan. Now we've had two in two months. I think, sorry, but, you know, I think we're all

00:23:57.360 recognizing what's going on here. Yeah, that's perfect with that. But we're recognizing that this

00:24:01.740 is not going to stop. For the listening audience, when Buck did the tune number, it caused the

00:24:08.000 balloons to go on. Balloons went off. Sorry about that, everybody. His YouTube feed, his Zoom feed,

00:24:12.280 that happens sometimes, the weirdness of technology. I do want to underscore something

00:24:16.860 about this man's name. Carol reported it with her source, who we are presuming is someone in law

00:24:22.020 enforcement. That's the only person who would have had that shot of his body with his arms going up.

00:24:27.680 And it's all over online now. But to be clear, we have not yet had official law enforcement

00:24:33.300 officers or sources come out and confirm that that is the picture or the name, as we reported

00:24:39.600 a moment ago. So we'll see. They'll, they will, they'll come and they'll tell us who it is. If it

00:24:45.140 is that man, as reported, he does have bizarre tweets. There's one complaining that Trump would

00:24:50.740 never go and do anything for the injured people at his first assassination attempt and urging Kamala

00:24:58.820 Harris to go. I'm not going to get into the specifics until we know whether this is him

00:25:02.400 and read specific tweets word for word. But you know, the irony of course, is that Trump got hit

00:25:08.020 this week for, for letting it slip that he had given a million dollars to the family of the fallen

00:25:15.380 firefighter who got shot at his first, at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when he, they, they took a shot

00:25:20.760 at Trump. It's okay. So I haven't looked into that. I don't know whether that's true, but my point is

00:25:26.320 simply Trump did do something for the family. Trump is always said to be some sort of a demon

00:25:32.020 by people who don't know or understand the man. He's controversial. That's true. But at least half

00:25:39.780 of that is because of the way the media chooses to cover him so irresponsibly, right? Suggesting for an

00:25:46.260 example that he's this far right extremist on abortion, which he's the most moderate Republican

00:25:51.780 president on abortion. I think in U S history, yes, he appointed these three judges. Look, find me a

00:25:57.680 Republican who appointed a judge who is not pro-life to the U S Supreme court. It didn't happen. My point

00:26:02.480 is simply, they're always irresponsible when it comes to Trump rhetoric and it makes its way into the

00:26:07.400 bloodstream of the populace. And that's not to say that anybody who said one specific thing is

00:26:12.540 directly responsible for this nut case, whether he's clinically nuts or not is irrelevant for the

00:26:18.640 purposes of this discussion. Um, but of course it makes its way into this guy's bloodstream and

00:26:24.180 social media feed and so on. And the next thing we know, as Buck just said, two, not one, but two

00:26:29.740 in two months, Bill, I want to, I want to bring it back down to you, to you for one second, because

00:26:34.820 one of the things, you know, law enforcement is going to be looking at right now is whether he

00:26:38.640 was working with anyone, whether he had any sort of an accomplice, you know, how did they even begin

00:26:44.660 to start figuring that out? Well, they're going to do a full scrub of his telephonic, you know,

00:26:53.080 texts and phone calls. They'll have, they're probably already in his social media, his cell phone.

00:26:59.960 They're going to do that. What my first inclination, my knee jerk reaction here is what the far left is

00:27:06.860 doing is they're making people become self-radicalized, just like the terrorists are doing, you know,

00:27:13.400 out in the Middle East where they hope to self-radicalize acts of terrorism. That's what

00:27:18.900 we kind of sort of see going on here. Buck would know a lot more of that than I, where they, you

00:27:24.580 give enough, as you put into the bloodstream of these people, some of them that obviously have

00:27:29.980 mental illness and they take it upon themselves to save the Republic because we will lose the Republic

00:27:36.680 if this person ever gets reelected as president. That's what's being put out in the zeitgeist.

00:27:42.280 And they are taking all that hate and rhetoric from the cyber world and they're transposing it

00:27:47.700 into the real one. They get their hands on a weapon. And unfortunately, based on history,

00:27:52.680 it's not going to stop with two. And that's what's really scary.

00:27:56.720 Let me just add to what Bill's saying, just real quick, Bill, I think you're making a really key

00:27:59.540 point. But the people that are being radicalized, they're being radicalized by watching CBS Evening

00:28:04.020 News or CNN or reading the New York Times. That's the right. This isn't Anwar al-Awlaki videos

00:28:10.400 that you have to go into some special chat room and know the password and get asked Quranic verses

00:28:15.760 so that they know you're not a Fed, right? This is the most mainstream of mainstream. Trump is a

00:28:21.120 threat to the Republic. Trump is an autocrat. Trump needs to be stopped. That's what they're saying,

00:28:26.740 right? I mean, this is the problem. It's that it's not coming from the fringe at all.

00:28:30.520 And how long did it pause after assassination attempt number one buck about one week? It got

00:28:37.560 him through his convention. That was it. It resumed immediately thereafter.

00:28:42.740 Yeah, well, this is this is the narrative they have sold to Democrats. And I think it's the only

00:28:47.140 way that they can create this this delusion of a moral high ground as they shove aside old man

00:28:52.760 Biden without actually having Kamala Harris win a primary vote, a single primary vote,

00:28:57.940 and then have her lie about every position she's taken for the last, oh, I don't know,

00:29:02.800 two decades and present herself as some kind of an enigma that we can figure out

00:29:07.040 the reality of who she is after the election. It's because Donald Trump, all these phrases,

00:29:13.020 existential threat, you know, end of the Republic, undermining our institutions, an autocrat,

00:29:18.380 a fascist. We've all seen this. And these are on the covers of magazines from supposedly intellectual

00:29:23.620 and and serious publications. They're neither intellectual nor serious, but that's at least

00:29:29.220 the reputation among among Democrats. And and I don't think that it's it's a coincidence at all

00:29:35.740 that that they all of a sudden are changing, you know, that change their tune for a few days.

00:29:41.360 They go back to this. And I think this has kind of been the strategy, quite honestly,

00:29:44.160 is that they're going to continue to demonize him and they're going to continue to push

00:29:48.120 that he is awful because otherwise they'd have to turn around and look the Democrats in the eye

00:29:54.560 and say, we've been lying to you, not just for four years, but really from the beginning of the

00:29:57.780 Trump presidency. I think it's reckless, Megan. And I think that there should be a backlash against

00:30:03.520 this kind of stuff. I would never go on the air. You would never go on the air. Bill would never go

00:30:07.400 on the air and say, you know, Kamala Harris wins and the Republic is over and she's a fascist who's

00:30:13.160 going to destroy all of America. But that is absolutely mainstream to the Democrat side of

00:30:18.800 things. Nothing is too far. They've brought criminal prosecutions against him. They say

00:30:23.180 that he's a rapist. They say that he's a traitor. They say that he's a Russian asset. They've really

00:30:27.320 run out of epithets for Donald Trump at this point. And they wonder that there are lunatics who are going

00:30:32.440 to try to act on this. I mean, the problem the Democrats face is they've created a construct where

00:30:37.580 people who believe what the New York Times is saying believe that force against Trump is moral.

00:30:45.100 This is what's happening. This is what you're this is now twice in two months. These aren't just people

00:30:49.860 that have some random bone to pick with the president. They think they are acting to stop

00:30:54.100 because they're a little crazy, but they're watching the New York Times. They're reading

00:30:58.040 the reading their times watching CNN and they're acting on it. And this is this is a rare event.

00:31:03.820 We've talked about this. No one's been shot since Reagan in 40 years. Trump has now been shot and

00:31:08.420 shot at again twice in two months right before the election that we're supposed to think that

00:31:12.620 nothing is particular about this situation. OK, oh, but here. But all right, look, I've got to play

00:31:17.680 this for you. Here's where the media is going to go with this. Look at this woman, Alex Witt on MSNBC,

00:31:25.800 who is an anchor. Look at her reaction and spin after after she knew this is after we learned about

00:31:34.100 today's assassination attempt. Watch us. Do you expect to hear anything from the Trump campaign

00:31:39.160 about toning down the rhetoric, toning down the violence? Or would that be atypical

00:31:43.880 of the former president? Well, Alex, remember back to the assassination attempt on President Trump's life

00:31:51.340 and how, you know, there was talk of a new tone. And then the the Republican convention was by

00:31:57.020 Trumpian standards muted. And it did seem like he was, you know, just trying to take it down a few

00:32:04.880 notches. But then by the end of his convention speech, you know, we were kind of back to where

00:32:10.460 we started. That was Elise Jordan of Time magazine as the guest. Unbelievable. So what this is about

00:32:20.500 is Trump's unwillingness to tone down his. The most controversial thing Trump has said in the past

00:32:27.760 several weeks is that he hates Taylor Swift. That does not get you a bullet or create cable news

00:32:34.940 segments about how you you need to lower the rhetoric. Right. But calling someone Hitler that

00:32:41.260 might that might warrant that kind of a discussion. But we didn't see that. In fact, they're the ones

00:32:45.400 doing that. That's exactly the kind of magazine that was doing that. Right. We saw that on the

00:32:49.960 New Republic that Trump was Hitler. And so really, even in response to this, once again, the response

00:32:57.340 bill is maybe Trump really needs to tone down his rhetoric. Yeah, it's essentially victim shaming.

00:33:05.360 It's like you're blaming the target, not the perpetrators, not the people that are calling

00:33:11.160 him Hitler, telling the country that if he gets elected, we lose our country. Not, you know, like

00:33:16.780 they're self radicalizing these people through their words. But they're saying, you know, President

00:33:21.940 Trump, stop speaking up for yourself. Stop running for president. Just lay down and let Kamala Harris

00:33:28.780 win. And that's insane. To me, that's the sin. They'll perpetuate this. They'll put a tweet out.

00:33:36.280 There is no room for violence. The same way Kamala said, you know, don't come across the border.

00:33:43.240 I mean, you can almost imagine. Just FYI, NBC News is now also reporting the name of the

00:33:49.180 attempted shooter is Ryan Wesley Ruth, R-O-U-T-H. More and more pictures of him are coming out

00:33:56.200 online. I mean, I'll just describe for you that he he's got very spiky blonde hair that looks like

00:34:02.660 it's overly gelled or has a lot of product in it. He's rather stylishly dressed. And some of these

00:34:09.180 photos that are appearing in social media, he does not look anything like some sort of vagabond.

00:34:14.440 We don't know his story. I'm sure we'll know much more though. How much more, right? That's one

00:34:19.160 of the questions, Buck, like how much, because we don't, we know precious little about the first

00:34:23.360 shooter from Butler, Pennsylvania. And I don't know how much we're going to learn about this guy either,

00:34:28.060 since the new approach seems to be not full accountability, but keeps everything under wraps.

00:34:33.660 We never got an explanation for the, oh, well, it's unsafe to stand on a slanted roof. And that's

00:34:39.500 why we weren't up there. We've just been lied to at every turn about the first one. And why should

00:34:44.140 we expect anything different about the second? No. And in fact, I think it's likelier this time

00:34:50.140 that they will, or rather they will even more easily bury this story and put it in the memory

00:34:58.600 hole and move past this as fast as they, first of all, the president didn't, thank God, didn't

00:35:03.920 actually take a bullet this time, wasn't covered in blood. Right. So, so the, the bar in essence

00:35:09.480 on this is such that they'll just say, yeah, well, you know, secret service, they fired at this guy,

00:35:15.440 they did their job, you know, nothing really to see here, folks, because I mean, ultimately this

00:35:19.740 plays into exactly what we're talking about. You're saying it, Bill's saying it, I'm saying it,

00:35:24.680 which is that the Democrat party should be absolutely ashamed of how they have positioned

00:35:31.080 Donald Trump, who is the duly, you know, the duly elected former president, and obviously the

00:35:37.840 Republican candidate in this 2024 election cycle. You know, I can tell you, Megan, it was always

00:35:45.200 interesting, you know, to sit down and, and read both the interrogation, the interrogation transcripts

00:35:51.020 in particular of some of the worst Al Qaeda terrorists, because, you know, they had this

00:35:56.160 rationalization for their action, but a lot of it would be things that people would say, well,

00:36:00.560 that's crazy, or that doesn't make sense, or that's unfair. Imagine you were to sit down with

00:36:04.880 this individual, who, by the way, I'm sure we'll never hear from publicly, they'll just,

00:36:08.680 you know, this guy will end up taking a plea in 12 months, and, you know, you'll never hear from

00:36:13.240 or see him again. Imagine you sat, you sat down with him and said, why did you do this? Why did

00:36:18.760 you do this? It would be interesting, and I think it would be very instructive to the environment that

00:36:24.460 the Democrats have created, because he would say, I've been told, and he could list all the

00:36:29.720 different, he could say that there was an insurrection, the worst attack, Megan, the worst

00:36:35.840 attack since the Civil War, therefore worse than 9-11. This has been said at the, at the debate,

00:36:43.600 right? The worst, so, so, so this individual, Donald Trump, according to Democrats, is responsible for

00:36:49.180 an attack that's worse than the jihadist massacre of, of innocents that killed almost 3,000 people in

00:36:55.080 one day and started a global war on terror. He's worse than that. Federal prosecutors apparently

00:37:00.820 have agreed with that, because they're trying to push this, this crazy case that Donald Trump said

00:37:05.940 things that they don't like, and therefore the insurrection is his fault, right? You could line

00:37:10.580 up, if you sat down and, and you were the individual who wants to explain why he would think,

00:37:16.180 why he would act the way that he has here with this attempted assassination, he would be able to point

00:37:21.820 to the most powerful and trusted Democrats in office, in media, in corporate America, and say,

00:37:29.180 I agree with them, I just decided to do something about it. That is the mentality that has been,

00:37:35.840 that, that is being fostered here by the way Democrats, otherwise someone explain to me, I mean,

00:37:40.620 a threat to democracy, the worst attack since Pearl Harbor, if I could stop somebody who was trying to

00:37:46.800 commit another Pearl Harbor, right? I mean, you start to go down this rabbit hole, they just say

00:37:52.080 it because it's useful political rhetoric. That's how they'll explain it, right? That's how the CNN is.

00:37:57.100 You know, we, we just made a reference to it just earlier this week at the presidential debate.

00:38:02.660 One of the things that we reacted to was how personal she got the ad hominem attacks against

00:38:09.680 Donald Trump. It wasn't normal rhetoric from a debate stage. She got very personally nasty with

00:38:16.400 him. Yes, always like praised by the left as, oh, she just knew how to press his buttons. You know,

00:38:21.740 she just knew exactly which trigger would set him off without any thought for, is this responsible talk

00:38:28.560 from the woman who's asking us to make her leader of the free world? You understand that this man

00:38:33.860 already had his life almost taken by an assassin? Like that, my point is simply, I'm going to play

00:38:39.240 the soundbite. If Trump had been speaking this way about Kamala Harris, and God forbid she had two

00:38:46.340 attacks on her life, every single mainstream media outlet would be in full meltdown right now,

00:38:54.840 full meltdown over him and his words. But she can insult as long as she wants, as grossly as she wants.

00:39:03.140 No one will say anything about her. You can have the Hitler-esque magazine covers. You can have,

00:39:08.100 we'll get to what the Lincoln Project just did. You can have every representative on the Democratic

00:39:12.000 side come out and say the worst possible things about him. And they'll just say, well, no,

00:39:17.940 it's absolutely irresponsible. Here's Kamala Harris, just as a refresher from Tuesday night at the

00:39:23.200 debate. Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people. So let's be clear about that. And clearly he is

00:39:30.160 having a very difficult time processing that. During the course of his rallies,

00:39:33.840 he talks about fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter. And what you will also notice is that

00:39:38.600 people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. World leaders are laughing

00:39:44.300 at Donald Trump. I have talked with military leaders, some of whom worked with you, and they

00:39:50.160 say you're a disgrace. It is very well known that Donald Trump is weak and wrong on national security

00:39:57.480 and foreign policy consistently over the course of his career. Attempted to use race to divide the

00:40:03.900 American people. These dictators and autocrats are rooting for you to be president again because

00:40:09.720 they're so clear. They can manipulate you with flattery and favors.

00:40:17.600 I mean, I'm sorry, Bill, but you know, if the shoe were on the other foot, that stuff would be a

00:40:21.800 nonstop loop on every single cable channel. You hit it right on the head. And if the flip,

00:40:28.900 if the script was flipped, I guarantee you, you would find some DA looking to bring charges of being

00:40:35.620 complicit in this crime. They would look to charge President Trump if they made an incite on Kamala

00:40:42.380 second time, they would look to indict him on something. Yeah, to charge him with incitement.

00:40:46.940 Exactly. And this is where things are getting really, really scary. And to bring up a point that

00:40:52.880 you brought up before about the Secret Service, no one loses their job. We saw that at the IRS.

00:40:59.900 We saw with the feds that were texting each other how they have a backup plan. They just got like

00:41:05.120 1.5 million as severance. You know, until our civil servants are held accountable and being able to

00:41:11.800 be fired, we're going to see them dropping the ball time and time again. And I apologize. I'm a

00:41:17.180 former civil servant and I've seen it and I still see it. Yeah, that's exactly right. No one's gotten

00:41:23.600 fired. I do want to say this. They didn't even raise at that debate, Buck, the assassination attempt.

00:41:31.220 They didn't raise anything about Joe Biden's mental acuity and they didn't raise one question

00:41:37.340 about Trump almost losing his life to this at the hands of this this man two months ago. But they let

00:41:45.360 her get up there and talk about Donald Trump as a threat to democracy. He's the threat to democracy.

00:41:51.700 So once again, it it's a complete inability to digest that Trump could actually be the victim.

00:41:59.660 He not in the left sense of that term, but in this case, an actual shooting victim. And in both cases,

00:42:07.100 an actual victim of an attempted assassination. It this one will be memory hole, just like the first

00:42:13.540 one. Absolutely. And if anything, I think they'll feel even less gross if they think that they're

00:42:23.720 journalists, which they're not in just moving past this as fast as they can, because we're so close

00:42:29.180 to the election that they view this as as a necessary. There were one of the one of the challenges

00:42:34.940 are really one of the unfortunate truths that we've learned about journalists. And I mean, the biggest

00:42:40.460 journalistic entities that are legacy media is they made a decision with Donald Trump that the old

00:42:47.160 ethics and the old guidelines for how to do your job with integrity and decency are gone because decency

00:42:56.460 and truth are anti-Trump. And explicitly, the Washington Post and other places said that. I mean,

00:43:02.380 whether it was on a group editorial or just from the day to day of their coverage, they decided that all

00:43:08.640 the old rules have to go when it comes to their coverage of Trump, they have to be openly anti-Trump,

00:43:14.560 even though they had played this game of, oh, we're neutral for a long time. We all knew there

00:43:17.740 were Democrats. But the point is, now they have the same thing with overheated political rhetoric,

00:43:22.700 with dangerous, with violent political rhetoric. I remember when they tried to blame Sarah Palin

00:43:29.060 for the shooting of Gabby Giffords, because Sarah Palin had had like targets on a congressional map or

00:43:36.020 something like that, as in we're targeting this district, right? And they tried to do this whole

00:43:40.740 thing, and she ended up suing the New York Times for that. But there really has been a one-way street

00:43:45.800 for a while now of this kind of, I mean, let's just do a quick review, this level of extremely

00:43:52.720 serious, and in this case, very, you know, again, close to coming to fruition, even close to the first

00:43:59.400 time around assassination attempts. They tried to kill a Democrat, a avowed Bernie Sanders supporter.

00:44:06.800 By the way, I don't blame Bernie Sanders for this, but I'm just saying he was an avowed Bernie Sanders

00:44:10.120 supporter who was screaming, this is for health care. I think that's noteworthy. While he was shooting at

00:44:15.980 conservative members of Congress in 2018 on a baseball field in Alexandria, that's never talked about when we

00:44:22.340 look at political rhetoric and, you know, when you have, and I'm sorry, I mean, those people on MSNBC,

00:44:27.320 they are both dishonest and very stupid. I know one of them, not smart people, that they're talking

00:44:33.660 about politically overheated rhetoric as though this comes from the right. It's as though they've

00:44:38.540 been asleep for quite a while now. I know they'll always point to January 6th, and one of the big

00:44:43.060 problems that Trump supporters have had with the maniacal focus on January 6th is we had an election

00:44:48.580 in 2020 under duress. BLM rioted for months. They rioted on my block, Megan. I mean, it sounded like,

00:44:54.800 you know, like I was in the background of a Vietnam movie or something with all the police

00:44:59.260 helicopters and the sirens and everything going on as they were trashing my street and businesses

00:45:04.340 had to board up their windows for that 2020 election in anticipation of a Trump win because

00:45:10.340 the Democrats were going to lose their minds. So the one riot they can point to that's Trump

00:45:14.560 affiliated is the only riot that somehow is bad. Now, two assassination attempts against President

00:45:19.600 Trump, a mass assassination attempt that shot Steve Scalise, almost killed Senator Rand Paul,

00:45:24.900 could have killed a dozen members of Congress if the guy hadn't been taken out by a Capitol Hill

00:45:29.060 police officer. We're seeing a trend here. Oh, and also the attempted assassination of Brett Kavanaugh

00:45:34.560 by some lunatic. Democrats have taken rhetoric to a place where people are increasingly going to be

00:45:41.640 violent and think that they are moral in doing so. And that is a very dangerous place for the country.

00:45:46.880 And the lawfare that they're doing against President Trump ties directly into this as well

00:45:50.960 because the court system is being used as a tool of political violence now,

00:45:55.820 locking people up because they like Trump, including maybe Trump himself.

00:45:59.940 And you know what else on the lawfare front, Buck, as it falls apart, as it should, right,

00:46:04.960 even in these corrupt courts, as, you know, the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in or a higher authority

00:46:09.820 weighs in, like down in the Fannie Willis case, it's going up an appeal. She's going to get DQ'd.

00:46:13.900 People get angry, right? People get frustrated because they've been told by Democrats and by

00:46:19.660 the media that these cases are a slam dunk, that the Mar-a-Lago case is a lock. It's a lock. And

00:46:25.680 this is a corrupt judge who is appointed by Trump. And she's trying to manipulate the system.

00:46:30.680 And then when it doesn't go the way they want it to go, it inflames passions further. Not saying any of

00:46:36.060 this caused this guy to do this today. But I'm sick and tired of the leftists doing this,

00:46:41.560 blaming people like Tucker for any mass shooting we see. And then when the shoe was on the other

00:46:47.580 foot, it's, that's Trump's fault too. That's also the fault of Donald. He's the one who needs to

00:46:53.320 control his rhetoric. Just sick and tired of it. You guys, thank you both. Thank you both so much

00:46:58.140 for being here. Thanks, Megan. Feel good to see you. Buck Saxton. See you guys. See, you know what?

00:47:02.740 See you again soon. That's how I feel. See on the next one. That that's where this feels like it's

00:47:08.080 going. Um, do you guys remember at that Tuesday night debate, Donald Trump saying this?

00:47:17.720 This is the one that weaponized, not me. She weaponized. I probably took a bullet to the head

00:47:30.440 because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy. I'm a threat to democracy.

00:47:37.160 They're the threat to democracy with a fake Russia, Russia, Russia investigation that went nowhere.

00:47:43.260 We have a lot to get to Lindsay, a lot to get to. And they moved right on. Wanted to ask about climate

00:47:50.920 change. Wanted to talk to him about J six. Wanted to talk to him about the fact that he said to a

00:47:58.360 podcaster, I lost by a whisker. Did not want to hear about the assassination attempt. Did not want

00:48:05.060 to hear about how they are the threat to democracy. That was of no interest to ABC news. You think it is

00:48:13.020 today? I mean, I just wonder whether David Muir is sitting there thinking, man, from a self-serving

00:48:19.060 perspective, it sure would be great to have Trump on camera this week talking about threats to

00:48:26.820 democracy and what the assassination meant to him, what it says about political rhetoric in the United

00:48:34.040 States. What is his perspective? Do you think they wouldn't have asked that question of Kamala Harris

00:48:39.160 if she had been the one who, God forbid, took a bullet? Think again. There's a reason they didn't

00:48:45.420 go back over that with Donald Trump. Okay. Old news. Sure. It happened, you know, two months ago,

00:48:50.380 but it's one of those moments that everybody in the world would have stopped to listen to.

00:48:55.940 What has it taught you, if anything, about political rhetoric in the United States? What,

00:49:02.480 why wouldn't you ask that? Okay. Maybe it went down the rabbit hole with why did you cover up

00:49:07.320 Joe Biden's mental problems? Kamala Harris. Joining me now is Charles Marino. He's former

00:49:12.260 Secret Service. He was an agent there and author of Terrorists on the Border and in Our Country

00:49:16.780 and John Spears for Special Forces Sniper and Sniper Trainer for Law Enforcement and Military and author

00:49:24.000 of Warlord of the Unraveling. Guys, welcome back to the show. We had you on two months ago to talk

00:49:29.200 about the first assassination attempt, and here we are yet again. I'll start with you on it,

00:49:34.300 Charles. This is a former Secret Service guy. What do you make of the news today?

00:49:39.120 Well, we got very lucky that the two agents in the golf cart, two holes ahead of the former

00:49:46.020 president, spotted that muzzle coming through the fence line right along the golf cart path.

00:49:52.500 There's going to be a lot of questions here regarding how this individual was able to get so close,

00:49:57.640 and it comes down to one simple question, and that is, is the Secret Service providing the necessary

00:50:02.920 resources and protocols to match the threat level against the former president? And I don't think

00:50:09.020 they're there yet. They are still stuck in this world of he's a former president, here's what typically

00:50:15.860 former presidents get with respect to protection. And they're not taking into account the uniqueness

00:50:21.840 of him being a former president and now Republican nominee and the increased political rhetoric coming

00:50:29.260 from the left that is in no doubt, in my mind and experience, leading to this increased threat level

00:50:37.420 against the former president. So the Secret Service- Why? Explain that. Why do you think that?

00:50:42.720 Well, because you never know who you're speaking to. You never know who you're going to radicalize.

00:50:47.600 And what you have is you have these nutcases that are going to come out of the woodwork.

00:50:51.600 They're going to interpret what you're saying as indicating that they must take action to mitigate

00:50:57.640 this threat, being former President Donald Trump as a threat to democracy, which is not true,

00:51:04.640 which should not be said. And again, you're radicalizing a lot of different people, whether

00:51:10.080 it's the shooter we saw in Butler or now this individual today in Palm Springs. You're bringing

00:51:15.640 these people out of the woodwork that are just, one, they want notoriety for themselves. Two,

00:51:20.940 they feel like they're being tasked based on this rhetoric from the left to undertake these operations

00:51:27.320 in an attempted assassination. And it's not good. It's not good for the country. It's certainly

00:51:34.880 dangerous and irresponsible when it comes to the safety of the former president. And I think you were

00:51:41.680 all right, based on your previous discussions, that had this been occurring the other way,

00:51:47.480 most certainly we'd be hearing about it from the mainstream media, saying that the former

00:51:52.560 president and his campaign were responsible for these actions of these lunatics.

00:51:57.980 So, I mean, to me, it's just, it was just for the record, it was Palm Beach, Florida. I know you

00:52:02.900 said Palm Springs. I know you know it's Palm Beach. Oh, Palm Beach. Sorry.

00:52:05.840 What we see after every single one of these mass shootings is the Democrats running to find a

00:52:10.560 Republican to blame or a conservative to blame. And typically, we in the space that I broadcast in

00:52:17.220 will be quick to say, this is ridiculous. Stop doing that. You can't take a madman and his crazy

00:52:23.940 deteriorating mind and ascribe something somebody said on cable as the reason behind this madman's

00:52:31.020 decision to kill. It's a crazy person's decision. But I have to tell you, Charles, even I now,

00:52:36.760 looking at this, how can you not pause to say there's something happening here that's stirring

00:52:43.320 up the crazies at a minimum? And we do need to pay attention here. I mean, it's fine. We tried not to

00:52:50.200 go down that road the last time. It's staring us in the face. And it would be irresponsible at this

00:52:56.940 point to not at least entertain the notion that the over-the-top rhetoric about this man in particular

00:53:03.400 has gotten to the point of true danger on it. John, what do you think?

00:53:09.960 We have passed stochastic terrorism and we have now entered deterministic terrorism.

00:53:18.320 So I'll explain. In the early 2000s, the left developed the term stochastic terrorism.

00:53:28.460 Stochasm is the mathematical and epidemiological condition where there is no known threshold

00:53:36.960 from acts to which there is an end effect. The other way of saying stochastic is to say

00:53:45.000 non-deterministic. I'll explain and it'll all come together. We use those terms most frequently in

00:53:52.820 radiation biology when we're talking about what level of radiation exposure produces an injury like

00:54:00.620 a kind of cancer. So to get radiation-induced cataracts from exposure to radiation, there is a set

00:54:11.280 threshold below which you won't get radiation cataracts above which you will absolutely get

00:54:18.340 radiation cataracts. For thyroid cancer, it's stochastic or non-deterministic. You really don't

00:54:26.820 know what radiation exposure or how many exposures could lead to you getting thyroid cancer. So in the

00:54:33.380 early 2000s, the left aimed against conservative talk radio and people like yourself to say all these

00:54:42.800 crazy right-wing people are saying all these things in the media and it's going to encourage some crazy

00:54:48.320 right-winger to commit some act of violence or terrorism against somebody in the left. Well, 20 years

00:54:55.820 later, we know what the threshold is. The left has crossed that threshold deterministically and we now

00:55:06.180 have two episodes back to back where rhetoric from the left has ignited someone on the left to try and

00:55:16.500 assassinate the leader of the conservative movement. So you'll be the leader in this, Megan.

00:55:24.060 For a fact, we don't have causation. This is speculation. Out of frustration at the man

00:55:29.540 continuing to get shot at. I mean, the fact that this guy had an AK-47, that's what they're saying,

00:55:36.940 at least now, within 300 yards of the president. I mean, I'm not a gun expert, John, you are, but

00:55:42.220 you tell me that that could easily take out the former president. If these Secret Service agents

00:55:46.700 hadn't seen that rifle coming through the fence, he'd be dead. What they're saying right now, and this

00:55:52.460 should be, this will be solved easily with one picture, is they're saying an AK-style weapon

00:55:58.680 with a scope. It is very difficult, takes a lot of modification and aftermarket parts to put any

00:56:07.520 kind of optic, a scope on an AK-47. What this is initially hinting to me that it's by AK-style,

00:56:16.680 that it's actually a weapon called an SVD, a Dragunov, a Soviet-style sniper rifle, which is

00:56:26.820 the AK-style weapon that you can put a scope on. So if that does, in fact, end up being the case,

00:56:34.980 what that tells us is something far more complex about these shooters' preparation to carry out this

00:56:44.920 act against President Trump. Oh, interesting. Why? Go on. I mean, what would he have had to do?

00:56:51.140 Could any normal citizen get their hands on those things? Certainly, it's easily done. They're

00:56:57.740 completely legal, semi-automatic weapons, but it's the difference between working at these distances,

00:57:06.960 someone planning in advance enough to say, I need a scope, a magnified optical sighting system

00:57:16.120 to be able to engage my target. And it's going to say a lot about the person's planning and preparation

00:57:24.080 and knowledge. And it's, you know, the last shooter in Butler County likely planned this for a long time,

00:57:32.080 but used the tools at hand, an AR-style rifle, you know, which is widely available. If this pans out

00:57:40.700 that the shooter actually had a Dragunov, an AK-style weapon that is an actual sniper weapon,

00:57:48.060 it's going to tell us a lot about their preparation, their intention, and maybe even about potential

00:57:56.060 support that the suspect received in preparation for this act.

00:58:03.520 Charles, right now, and, you know, the days to come will bring the full story. It looks,

00:58:08.520 this guy looks like a nut if you see some of the social media accounts, postings that are breaking.

00:58:14.840 He's very focused on Ukraine, very focused on the war in Ukraine, offering to pay people something

00:58:20.320 like $1,200 to go fight for Ukraine. But here's one that sounds also confusing. This is from January

00:58:29.200 8th, 2024. Again, cautioning the audience, assuming this is the guy's account. It's an unusual name,

00:58:35.560 Ryan Ruth, R-O-U-T-H. And oftentimes the media runs with the name. The name's been confirmed by law

00:58:41.540 enforcement now, but is this exactly him? They haven't exactly said this account is linked to him.

00:58:46.180 Okay. So there's a little wiggle room in here, but he posted on that date at Nikki Haley,

00:58:51.980 please join Vivek Ramaswamy as a team of president and vice president. We must do this now to create a

00:58:58.640 winning ticket now that we can, now that we can all get behind. Please do not be selfish and arrogant

00:59:02.980 partner now to change the course of this election, break norms and give us an option. Now, I mean,

00:59:08.700 just that's nuts because of course, Nikki Haley is a hawk on Ukraine and Vivek Ramaswamy is exactly the

00:59:17.100 opposite. And this was, um, one month after the Republican primary debate with yours truly at which

00:59:25.420 that was really clear, really clear. So I'm just saying this doesn't seem like ordered thinking by

00:59:32.040 somebody and there are posts on the others. I mean, there's some antisemitic posts. I mean,

00:59:37.940 my lay person's opinion so far is having seen a lot of these, the guy had a screw loose and I don't

00:59:44.700 know what to make of that. Like, I think that's part of the reason the media moved on from the

00:59:48.480 first Trump assassination because they were like, ah, he's a nutcase and we can't find one clear

00:59:55.160 ideology says the FBI. So we've got to just chalk it up to free country secret service needs some

01:00:01.820 reforms. And if this is the case with this guy, they're going to do the same thing. Is there any

01:00:07.140 merit to that? Well, there's merit to the fact that they've definitely moved on and written off

01:00:14.080 the mental health aspect, uh, of the Butler, Pennsylvania shooter. But what I can tell you is

01:00:18.980 these are some of the most dangerous people. And here's why when you're, when you have significant

01:00:23.940 mental health issues, but you're still able to formulate a plan of attack that makes you a very,

01:00:29.860 very dangerous person, uh, that becomes the biggest concern for the U S secret service.

01:00:35.500 And that's what we had here. There is no doubt, just like we did in Butler that we are going to

01:00:41.000 find at this incident in Palm beach, that there was pre planning that went into this attack. There

01:00:48.300 was some type of surveillance that was being conducted. Uh, there was some type of site

01:00:53.520 familiarity. Why did he choose that specific location, that specific fence line? He knew

01:01:00.420 the proximity to the street, uh, that aids in, in not only getting to the target, uh, quickly,

01:01:07.460 but also fleeing the area quickly to get back to a vehicle. So we're dealing with people that

01:01:13.540 are conducting operations well in advance to the act that they're carrying out. That's a concern.

01:01:19.360 And for the secret service, the issue becomes, how are they able to get better at detecting and

01:01:25.660 disrupting in the planning stages? Now there's no doubt that this individual, uh, from today,

01:01:32.280 this suspect is going to be of record with somebody. He's either come to the attention of the FBI,

01:01:38.960 local law enforcement, or even the secret service before there will be some name familiarity based on

01:01:45.640 the type of postings. If those are, if those are confirmed, Megan, um, that he has risen, uh, to

01:01:52.780 the level of a federal agency, especially when you're talking about trying to facilitate, uh,

01:01:59.020 getting human beings, uh, to a war zone, uh, to fight like the Ukraine. So I expect to hear more,

01:02:06.220 uh, about previous encounters of this individual with law enforcement in the United States, uh, as well as

01:02:13.180 what the federal agencies have to say about their encounters with him. You, before you came on,

01:02:19.440 um, Charles, we talked about the fact that the West Palm beach law enforcement came at the press

01:02:25.340 conference and said, you know, he's a former president. If you were the current president,

01:02:29.460 he'd have more secret service. And in a vacuum, you can understand that comment, but our former

01:02:36.080 president, who's now the Republican nominee for president and could be president again in a matter of

01:02:41.280 five months almost had his head blown off 60 days ago, 62 to be exact. And there was, I'm not blaming

01:02:51.100 it on this guy. This guy was honest about, I mean, he does the guy, the sheriff, West Palm beach is not

01:02:55.760 in charge of Donald Trump secret service, but he's calling out a reality and admitting what the

01:03:01.200 situation was. I don't understand. Tell me how secret service could do anything other than go full

01:03:06.420 boar on Donald Trump's protection after assassination attempt. Number one. Yeah, it should

01:03:12.520 have been, uh, implemented even prior to Butler, Pennsylvania. Remember we've got a foreign adversary

01:03:18.240 in Iran who would like nothing more, uh, than to assassinate the former president based on his role

01:03:24.960 in killing, uh, Soleimani, uh, earlier in his administration. So, um, not only do you have the

01:03:31.540 foreign threat, but you also have the domestic threat environment. I mean, how many times do we

01:03:36.280 have to listen to the FBI director testify before Congress to say that the threat environment is the

01:03:41.620 highest that he's ever seen on record, uh, even higher than pre nine 11, you know, 23 years after

01:03:48.040 those horrific attacks and look at where we are as a country in terms of threat level. Uh, plus we've got

01:03:54.660 the open Southwest borders, 180 different countries coming across our borders from special interest

01:04:00.680 locations. Who's to say that one of those individuals hasn't been tasked by a con like a, by a country

01:04:07.160 like Iran to come in here and carry out an attack against the former president. So there's just too

01:04:12.800 many unknown unknowns right now in the system, which has the threat level off the charts and the secret

01:04:19.000 service needs to get away from assigning resources based on title. Um, when, when, when the secret

01:04:26.640 service takes, when the secret service takes on protective responsibilities for an individual,

01:04:32.480 it doesn't say, look, when you become a former president, this is all you're going to get.

01:04:37.020 And if it doesn't work out tough luck, no, they own the totality of the problem. They own the totality

01:04:44.680 of the threats that come not with the title, but with the specific individual. And we have a lot of

01:04:51.300 uniqueness in former president Trump. I mean, he's the Republican nominee. Uh, he is highly sought

01:04:59.040 after target by the left, uh, with vitriol. That is a major causation, uh, to the increased threat

01:05:06.960 level against him. And, and the secret service needs to be dynamic in the way that they're providing

01:05:13.260 resources at a level that addresses the threat adequately. Okay. So that leads me to John,

01:05:20.500 what actually happened today, because what we saw was this attempted assassin. First of all,

01:05:26.820 we have the picture of his two backpacks posted on the fence, right on the perimeter of the golf

01:05:33.040 course. We believe this is the exact area. This is from law enforcement from which he would planned

01:05:37.860 on taking the shot. You can see the gun left behind, uh, and also a GoPro. So apparently he wanted

01:05:44.060 to film it. That's the assumption. He wanted some glory on his, on his mission. But the,

01:05:50.260 but the thing that is equally stunning, John, is that secret service found him and chased him and

01:05:58.140 he got away. Initially, he got into his car and it was thanks to an alert eyewitness, a citizen who saw

01:06:05.600 the guy. I mean, he didn't, I presume know what had just happened. So I'm gotten into his black Nissan,

01:06:10.280 saw him driveway and the citizen, God bless him, took a picture of the car and the license plate

01:06:15.340 and told secret service. And then they got him and then they arrested him. And thankfully nobody was

01:06:20.300 harmed. But I, I, I realized over here in my safe desk, I have 20, 20 vision, right? I've never fired

01:06:28.220 a gun at anybody, but doesn't it seem like the kind of thing where he should not have gotten away

01:06:34.980 and we should not have had to, uh, had to depend on this quick resolve of the citizen eyewitness.

01:06:44.180 It is a boots on the ground issue, an issue of resources and manpower. When last we sadly came

01:06:51.560 together, Charles and I both discussed that it was obvious that the agents seen with president Trump

01:06:58.540 in Butler County were not secret service. And of course that was true. The reason they looked like

01:07:03.960 people pantomiming what secret service agents would do is because we now know, in fact, they were

01:07:10.360 DHSI agents who were detailed from other field offices who received some zoom training on dignitary

01:07:17.820 protection. So clearly the president, president Trump has been assigned more protection, but still up,

01:07:26.380 not up to the level that he deserves given the proven threats going against him. So remember in

01:07:33.060 2017 with the congressional baseball shooting where six people, including Congressman Steve

01:07:40.040 Scalise was wounded, that was 2017. It wasn't until 2021 that the FBI actually called that act domestic

01:07:52.080 terrorism. Up until that point, the FBI had maintained that the shooter's motivation was death by cop.

01:08:01.980 Four years later, they admitted it was domestic terrorism. The reason I'm bringing that up is

01:08:08.280 at this point, House Homeland Security Committee and the House Oversight Committee should be involved

01:08:18.460 to make sure that government is doing its job to protect president Trump. But I think until that

01:08:25.520 happens, there is a very viable stopgap measure that the Trump campaign should put into place

01:08:33.340 immediately. They should put the call out nationwide to our sheriffs and call them to send their tactical

01:08:46.060 teams to support the detail who is taking care of President Trump's public appearances.

01:08:55.520 And sheriffs nationwide will answer that call now. It is no different than what happens after a major

01:09:03.340 storm hits a city in the U.S. Power goes out, power cooperatives around the country send power linemen to

01:09:12.760 restore vital services for public safety and the preservation of life. In much the same way, instead of still

01:09:22.040 relying on local limited resources to augment the secret service to protect President Trump, the Trump

01:09:30.640 campaign should make a nationwide call to all sheriff's offices to supply sheriff's SWAT teams to augment on the

01:09:41.520 ground security detail. Because if we're waiting for DHS or House Oversight or House Homeland Security to be able to have an

01:09:53.380 effect, we're going to have a dead presidential candidate.

01:09:56.820 Oh, my God. I mean, I think is, Charles, Dan Bongino, he worked for the same agency you did. He was on personal

01:10:05.480 protective detail for President Obama. He testified before Congress in the wake of the first assassination

01:10:10.700 attempt. And listen to what he said.

01:10:14.460 When something else happens, and I hope it doesn't, I pray to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that I'm wrong, that you

01:10:22.940 play this and go, look, that guy was crazy. You think this is the last incident, you're out of your mind. We have seen these

01:10:28.560 incidents over and over. We saw the Georgia grenade incident with President Bush. They overtook the magnetometers. The

01:10:35.360 Secret Service leadership in charge now with the exact same people.

01:10:39.820 Fair point.

01:10:44.240 Fair point. And I've known Dan almost 30 years now. So it doesn't surprise me that he called this right. And look, when

01:10:52.660 something is made to look easy, more people want to do it. And that's the problem is Butler PA let a lot of people into

01:11:01.520 the secret that it that it was going to appear to be easy to take out the former president. And that's a scary, scary place to be

01:11:09.220 for the secret service. And they know this. And and so this is that that's right. And and look, I got to tell you, it this

01:11:18.780 definitely keeps me up at night, because there's a lot of people that are studying the way these things are done. Now two

01:11:25.920 separate incidents to study, see what went wrong, what went right. And, you know, we're going to have some people out there that

01:11:34.140 want to do the former president harm that are going to be studying these two case studies of how to attempt to

01:11:41.580 assassinate the former president. And so, you know, we always worry about copycats after these shootings, the mass

01:11:47.620 shootings. We always worry about copycats. And why wouldn't the same rule apply here? Keep going. Sorry, Charles.

01:11:52.140 That's right. No, that's that's exactly right. The copycats are going to going to come out. And the

01:11:57.280 secret service also needs to work with the FBI and others to get better at starting to monitor all this

01:12:04.640 chatter, because there is a significant increase in chatter amongst people that want to get out and act

01:12:12.080 out against the former president in one way or another.

01:12:14.920 The other question I have for you, though, is is explain to me, Charles, as a former secret service

01:12:19.480 guy, how I mean, I feel like if they said, Megan Kelly, you're in charge of protecting Donald Trump

01:12:25.320 today, I'd say, OK, what's he doing? He's golfing. OK, well, we're going to need to make sure that the

01:12:32.040 entire golf course is secure, both on the course and right immediately over that little fence, which is

01:12:39.060 right by the fifth hole where someone could easily drive away super quick. I just maybe I'm nuts,

01:12:44.580 but I feel like I could have anticipated that. Is it just a lack of manpower, a lack of

01:12:51.160 imagination? You know, we heard reports now that it was a it was a young Pittsburgh female agent who

01:12:58.520 didn't plan correctly for what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania. I don't know whether they've made any

01:13:05.100 I don't know whether that woman's still employed there. I think she is. She's in Pittsburgh.

01:13:09.100 Somebody else who might be responsible for Mar-a-Lago, like because the planning piece of it

01:13:14.340 is equally important to the guys on the ground who actually have to pull the guns and take out the

01:13:19.480 bad guy. When we see when we see the agents react the way they had to, those two elements that were in

01:13:28.560 that golf cart going ahead of the former president, and you see that the detail that's assigned to the

01:13:34.460 former president that they have to react. That means something went significantly wrong, as we saw in

01:13:41.020 Butler and as we saw today with the overall security plan. And once again, just like the conversations

01:13:47.820 we were having after Butler, we're also going to be talking about today's incident and asking what was

01:13:53.940 up with the perimeters? Why wasn't that street closed along the fifth hole, the fifth putting green

01:14:02.360 where he was? So why did it remain open? And again, you don't need to keep these streets closed the

01:14:08.780 entirety of his visit there. But as he's playing the holes that are closest to these streets and

01:14:14.280 these roadways, you can have requests that the local police do spontaneous shutdowns of these

01:14:20.300 traffic. I've carried out protection on hundreds of golf courses with the president, the vice president,

01:14:26.860 all the way down to foreign dignitaries. And you've got to put the security plan in place that makes the

01:14:33.360 most sense to the threat level assigned to the protectee. So if they're not assigning the proper

01:14:39.200 threat level to the former president after what happened in Butler, then they're in much worse

01:14:44.080 shape than what I thought. But I think they know it. And I think they know it. And for some reason,

01:14:50.380 they're having a hard time getting there with the overall security plans that are being implemented to

01:14:57.120 keep him safe. And yes, is it going to be a problem for some of the people in Palm Beach when streets

01:15:04.820 get closed down? Yes. But look, this is what happens. Go ahead, John. The last time we were together

01:15:13.400 discussing the tragedy in Butler County, one of the main issues was talking about was their conspiracy at

01:15:19.900 some level. And my point continues to be that it's not a conspiracy at the ground level between the

01:15:25.540 people on the ground or withholding Secret Service snipers from returning fire. I guarantee nothing like

01:15:32.340 that happened. If there is conspiracy, and there is, it is at the level of DHS to deny President Donald

01:15:40.980 Trump the proper resources. So again, stochastic terrorism no longer applies. This is deterministic

01:15:52.820 terrorism. The threshold has been reached and left behind. The hateful rhetoric of the left from the

01:16:02.900 corporate media and including our own government against Donald Trump has factually inspired assassination

01:16:13.620 attempts. And I'm certain that's what's going to come about with this second shooter. Knowing these

01:16:20.680 things, the time for scaled and half-stepped measures to increase President Trump's security, that time

01:16:30.460 needs to be over now. Full measures must be taken. And if they're not forthcoming from the level of DHS,

01:16:42.300 I've made the best recommendation I know how that is supported by the Constitution

01:16:47.900 to call on U.S. sheriffs and law enforcement agencies to provide adequate, trained, technical

01:16:58.480 operator response to help protect Donald Trump. Now. Well, here's the other question, John. Here's the other

01:17:06.560 question, John, because you've got Eric Prince of Blackwater. You know, he knows a thing or two about

01:17:11.440 security situations and military tactics. And he he tweeted out the following at Governor Ron DeSantis.

01:17:20.560 He's tagging the governor. Please assume direct control of the investigation into this attempted

01:17:25.800 assassination of Donald J. Trump. Tell the feds to wait in line until Florida resources have done a

01:17:30.640 thorough and transparent look into all the evidence. The feds have dropped the ball thoroughly on Butler,

01:17:35.620 PA. Time for Florida to save the day, especially since this attempt happened only 300 meters from the

01:17:41.960 state forensics lab. I think that I think the crime scene was scrubbed. The crime scene where the shooter

01:17:53.000 took his shots at President Trump was scrubbed. The body of the shooter who was turned over to the local

01:18:02.700 corner, which is normal, the body was sent for cremation. When in the history of law enforcement,

01:18:13.280 where there has been a national incident of this characteristic, has anything like that ever

01:18:20.500 happened? How can those acts alone not cause a pang of confidence in every law abiding citizen that there is in

01:18:32.360 fact, some level of conspiracy going on at the federal level? It is a shame. It should never have

01:18:41.100 happened. Oh, boy. I mean, that's a big charge. But there is reason to doubt their competence at the

01:18:48.720 least, Charles. And I don't is Eric Prince onto something that this should not be just turned over

01:18:53.240 the feds, which, by the way, I believe it already has been. Yeah. Well, look, a lot of great points

01:18:59.480 here, starting with, is DHS giving the Secret Service everything that they need to protect the former

01:19:05.320 president? Again, in Ali Mayorkas, the secretary, we're also talking about the same person that repeatedly

01:19:11.240 denied protection for RFK Jr., not because he didn't meet the criteria, not because the threat level wasn't

01:19:17.980 there, because he just didn't want to give it to him. So we know that he's already politicized, the secretary,

01:19:24.420 that is, has politicized the Secret Service in conducting their mission in the way that they

01:19:30.400 need. And there is no doubt. I've been calling, look, 22 years after the creation of the Department

01:19:36.540 of Homeland Security, there is no way that the Bush administration got it right on day one in how they

01:19:42.400 built that department. And it's time to take a look. And that's up to and including removing the Secret

01:19:48.340 Service from the Department of Homeland Security and putting them someplace back in Treasury, for example,

01:19:53.720 where they're going to get the attention, the resources and the budgeting that they need

01:19:57.640 to do the mission the way that it needs to be done. You never heard about these issues with the

01:20:02.440 Secret Service until they went into the Department of Homeland Security. And all of a sudden, they start

01:20:07.420 having all of these issues. They don't have the right amount of manpower. The budgeting has been slow

01:20:12.320 to catch up and the list goes on and on. So that needs to be looked at. But, you know, the Secret Service

01:20:17.540 has also hurt themselves in a lot of different ways. I was happy to see that they sent the Secret

01:20:23.700 Service representative to the press conference today. That was different than what they chose

01:20:28.460 to do in Butler. And I was critical of that. I thought that was a huge strategic error. You've

01:20:33.620 got to instill confidence and transparency to the American people on this. And with five ongoing

01:20:39.020 investigations still underway with respect to what happened in Butler, the confidence has not been

01:20:44.860 restored and rightfully so. So let's see. The congressional report should be coming out any day now.

01:20:52.320 And I understand that, according to Senator Blumenthal, a lot of people are going to be

01:20:57.760 shocked by just how badly the misses were in the lead up to Butler, Pennsylvania. So what are we going

01:21:03.540 to learn about today? Oh, my gosh, it's overwhelming. It's deeply alarming. I mean, poor Trump. All you can

01:21:12.320 think is poor Trump and the poor Trump family that has to keep going through this. I mean, there's a wife

01:21:17.180 here. There are children here. I know the children are absolutely flabbergasted. They're angry. They're

01:21:22.780 angry that this keeps happening to their father. Who wouldn't be? This is not OK in the United States

01:21:29.780 of America. This is third world banana republic shit. And we sorry, guys, I just it's so infuriating.

01:21:37.900 It is. You two are a credit to us all. And it's wonderful to have you. Thank you for your expertise

01:21:42.120 tonight. Thank you, Megan. Thank you, Megan. Isn't it? I mean, I'm sure you're feeling it, too. You can't

01:21:50.020 believe it. You like when they first said that there was some sort of shootout down in Florida, like it was

01:21:57.960 between two civilians and it was just near the Trump golf course. It's like, oh, OK, well, that can happen.

01:22:04.040 The media gets things wrong all the time. So maybe didn't involve Trump. And then you hear you hear

01:22:10.680 AK-47 style rifle. And it's like, OK, I think we all know what this was. And here we are again.

01:22:19.220 And how many more times will we be in this exact spot if something doesn't change? Joining me now

01:22:25.120 is Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review. And Rich, like most of our guests line up right now,

01:22:30.200 we were together the last time. Like how many how many times are you and I going to get together

01:22:36.460 about breaking news that President Trump was almost assassinated? But yet here we are.

01:22:42.480 Yeah, it's unbelievable. I was I was talking to some folks last night at an event. We're talking

01:22:46.500 about the campaign and someone saying it's like a TV show. And I was kind of joking. Well, if the

01:22:50.320 writers are in the TV show trying to do the next twist, they're probably gonna say we can't do an

01:22:53.900 attempted assassination again. That was yesterday. And here it is. I mean, the only thing like it in

01:22:59.180 American history, Gerald Ford, two very serious attempts within, I think, about 17 days in the

01:23:06.080 70s. One of them came within five inches, which used to be a high standard for closeness. Donald

01:23:10.900 Trump obviously exceeded that in the first assassination attempt. But after that, you have

01:23:15.860 to go to Lincoln. I mean, they're just they're very serious, continuous threats against his life.

01:23:20.660 And we was asked about this once. He said there's nothing like getting used to it. And that's the way

01:23:24.960 Donald Trump might feel now. But but he shouldn't. There's no way, given the seriousness of the first

01:23:30.860 one, that there anyone should be within any miles of him a potential threat. And the idea that someone

01:23:37.120 could just hang out at a golf course and be within 400 yards of the former president with with a rifle

01:23:43.560 is just shocking and totally unacceptable. And once again, we have ordinary Americans stepping up and

01:23:50.760 pointing out these threats. They're saying it the first time around. It's they've been heated

01:23:55.000 initially and in a decent time. The first one never would have happened. And we've had the spectator

01:24:00.140 alive and we wouldn't have the former president nearly killed this this thing, too. We have to be

01:24:04.940 extremely grateful, as you've pointed out earlier, to this guy who tracked them and gave the license

01:24:10.760 to the cops and the description of the car of the cops. But this is just so wrong. You can you know,

01:24:17.320 we could be inches away from a tragedy that will change American history, obviously be, you know,

01:24:23.140 a man would be killed and his family would be devastated forevermore. And it would derange

01:24:28.620 American politics. You know, we still talk. We talked about this the first time around. We talk

01:24:32.780 about these assassinations decades and decades later and still litigating them and arguing about them.

01:24:37.200 So this cannot happen. It cannot happen. And so finally, now they'll get the message. But

01:24:42.880 what's the excuse for not getting it the first time around? Yeah, they already had a warning as

01:24:48.700 if they needed one, that there are dangerous lunatics in this country and they're really

01:24:52.620 focused on Donald Trump. They already had the warning. They got their mulligan. A man was killed

01:24:58.420 during their first mulligan and Donald Trump got shot in the head. Thank God, just an ear. So he was

01:25:04.420 fine. But here we are again, two months later. I mean, the amount of negligence that would be required

01:25:11.260 in order for this to happen again. It's just stunning. They they got complacent again. Maybe

01:25:16.120 you could even understand. Oh, 10 years later, they got complacent about protecting Trump 10 years

01:25:20.640 post-presidency at the golf course. Two months later, when every day we've got another warning

01:25:25.560 about how the Iranians want to kill him. I mean, like it's inexcusable. So I want to I want to shift

01:25:31.100 though, because there's a lot of politics to talk to you about in around this. Rich, we have yet

01:25:36.220 hear anything from the sitting president of the United States. My team will check me on this. But

01:25:41.080 as of half an hour ago, we hadn't the sitting president of the United States. Joe Biden has said

01:25:44.600 nothing, nothing. Vice President Kamala Harris issued a statement that reads as follows.

01:25:53.100 I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Donald Trump

01:25:57.040 and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.

01:26:03.640 America. Yeah, that is perfectly on brand. Yeah, it's just it's just boilerplate. And it's

01:26:10.860 outrageous. We haven't heard from President Biden. And this will be I fear by noon tomorrow. This this

01:26:17.140 will be old news, right? The first one that nearly killed him a millimeter or two was absorbed and kind

01:26:23.920 of forgotten within, you know, two weeks or so. And this will go away even faster because he wasn't hit.

01:26:29.660 You know, that's the standard now. If he's nearly hit in the head, OK, maybe it's news. But if the guy

01:26:34.260 was just yards, hundreds of yards away, if it weren't for an alert Secret Service agent seeing

01:26:39.120 the muzzle poking through a chain link fence and, you know, this bystander pointing, pointing him out,

01:26:45.940 you know, that that's just not that doesn't it's not up to the standards of the first attempt at

01:26:50.700 assassination. So I just fear it just it won't be a big deal. And can you imagine if people pointed this

01:26:55.500 out on Twitter, Barack Obama was nearly had a very serious assassination, except twice within two

01:27:01.660 months, once getting hit, you know, or Kamala Harris, everyone's hair would be on fire. And it's

01:27:07.800 just it's not going to happen this time. They're going to ignore it. You know, they'll cover it a

01:27:12.860 little bit here and in the morning. And I think it goes away. Now, the one the one caveat I would say

01:27:17.300 to that is they can't black box the motivation. Right. Whether they're hiding it or whether we just

01:27:23.140 can't know, like they did with the first guy immediately got neutralized too late, you know,

01:27:27.460 but got neutralized very quickly, this guy to have. So we will learn more about him,

01:27:32.160 his background and his motive. Yeah, I mean, I like whatever the tweet show,

01:27:38.180 he showed up at the golf course ready to shoot Donald Trump. So I think we're we're pretty clear

01:27:42.460 he was not a Donald Trump supporter. This is the kind of conversation we had to have after the first

01:27:47.020 shooter took shots at Donald Trump. I should say that J.D. Vance has issued a statement as well.

01:27:55.040 I am awash in texts from my producer. So let's stand by and I will get it for you.

01:27:59.960 But but all we've heard from, for example, former President Barack Obama, who's tweeting out

01:28:05.120 about other stuff now. I mean, he's like, yeah, casually tweeting about nonsense. Was he retweeted?

01:28:11.000 He retweeted that benign, anodyne Kamala Harris tweet. That's it. So we have nothing from Joe

01:28:16.960 Biden and we have a retweet from Barack Obama. And now here we have J.D. Vance saying,

01:28:23.980 I'm glad President Trump is safe. I spoke to him before the news was public and he was amazingly

01:28:27.680 in good spirits. Still much we don't know, but I'll be hugging my kids extra tight tonight and

01:28:32.280 saying a prayer of gratitude. Rich, stand by just just a couple of minutes, please. Dave Ehrenberg,

01:28:36.600 who is the Palm Beach County D.A., is with us now. He's a frequent guest of the program. And you saw

01:28:42.660 him if you watch that presser of the law enforcement officials. He's here with us now and able to speak

01:28:47.120 about this. Dave, are you with me? Megan. Hi. So good to see you. Thank you for making time. I know

01:28:54.920 you're very busy. We really appreciate it. State attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida. What can you

01:28:59.600 tell us that we need to know? Well, it's amazing how fast the media got the details of this matter.

01:29:06.040 I think you've got the information. You know who it is. It was a guy who, while former president was

01:29:12.400 golfing at his golf course, put a AK-47 style rifle. He was through the bushes to the fence area. And

01:29:21.360 you can get a look to see who's golfing there. But Secret Service was on top of it. They saw the gun

01:29:27.780 and they fired. And he had pointed the gun at Secret Service. And that's where we at the state

01:29:34.360 level were going to file state charges. You could file based on those facts for aggravated assault

01:29:41.240 with a firearm, which especially if you pointed at a Secret Service member would be a second degree

01:29:47.760 felony punishable about 15 years in prison. And at the press conference today, I said that we were

01:29:54.400 probably going to move first because the feds at that point had not announced that they were going

01:30:00.820 to file the charges. They were still working on it. And we didn't want him to just be released. And so

01:30:06.360 we were going to file the charges, or at least we were working on the warrants and to do pretrial

01:30:11.740 detention. But then afterwards, the federal officials came in and they said they will be

01:30:17.140 taking over the case. They will be filing the charges. So this is now entirely a federal matter,

01:30:21.740 not a state matter. I'll bet. I'm sure they want jurisdiction over this one. Do we know anything

01:30:27.740 about the guy? Has he spoken and has he been appointed counsel? We don't know. There are videos

01:30:34.700 of him on the internet. You see he was obsessed with Ukraine. He is someone who apparently lives in

01:30:41.240 Hawaii. He was the last time I checked. But he's not someone that I was familiar with. He's not a

01:30:46.140 frequent flyer with our office. I was not familiar with him. So I don't have any other information about

01:30:51.100 the guy. But yeah, it's gotten more serious now because the feds are involved. They are going to

01:30:58.120 be filing the charges. They're going to keep him in pretrial detention. And the state, we're going to

01:31:04.980 hold off on our warrants and our pretrial detention. We're going to defer to the feds.

01:31:11.240 Will he be appointed counsel, Dave, if he doesn't bring in one of his own?

01:31:16.680 If he can't afford a lawyer, yes, he'll be appointed counsel. It depends whether he can

01:31:20.280 afford it. Of course, he lives in Hawaii. Generally, it's not a state where you're indigent,

01:31:25.840 especially you wonder how he was able to fly from Hawaii to South Florida. Usually it takes a lot of

01:31:31.560 scratch to fly from Hawaii to South Florida. So there are a lot of open questions. He will be

01:31:37.620 afforded a lawyer only if he can't pay for one. Do we know if he had a job? Was this a working man?

01:31:45.400 No, I don't know that. I don't know that much about him other than he just has a lot of

01:31:50.780 obsession on Ukraine and just had a lot of bizarre comments on social media. And I just don't know

01:31:58.940 beyond that. There was some back and forth among smart people who are informed and connected to

01:32:06.100 the Secret Service online about who shot first. Do we know? Do we know for a fact who shot first?

01:32:13.880 According to reports, it was Secret Service who shot. Unless there's something out there that I'm

01:32:19.920 not aware of, I'm not aware that he actually fired his weapon. It looks like Secret Service saw that he had-

01:32:23.940 So that's your latest. Well, yeah, that's what I know. Unless you have some other information.

01:32:30.500 No, no, I just, it was speculation. So I was trying to figure out whether there was something

01:32:34.000 more we needed to know. Can you just explain, is there, is it the case that you can drive up in

01:32:38.720 your car and there's a chain link fence right there and you can go up to it. And if you wanted

01:32:42.800 to stick a gun through it and potentially shoot somebody on the golf course, you could?

01:32:47.540 Yeah. So we have to realize the golf course, Trump International Golf Course,

01:32:51.540 it's a beautiful course, but it is not next to Mar-a-Lago. It is in West Palm Beach. It's

01:32:57.720 near a strip club and the jail. In fact, the jail overlooks the golf course. You have inmates there,

01:33:04.020 you know, sometimes making noise while you're teeing off. And it's guarded by a fence all around it.

01:33:10.320 And then there's a big hedge, a bush where you can't see in it. But could someone walk through the

01:33:15.860 bush and then in the fence point a gun? Yes. In fact, you've seen pictures of former President

01:33:22.560 Trump golfing from people who did just that. They just didn't point a gun or anything, but they

01:33:28.080 pointed a camera. So it's happened before. But the Secret Service, to their credit, was on this one.

01:33:33.020 They were able to see someone with a rifle sticking out. And, you know, that could be hard to do because

01:33:38.300 it's a large area around the golf course. And so they obviously did a really good job noticing this.

01:33:44.240 Did you talk to the cops who were involved in this guy's apprehension at all?

01:33:49.700 I did not. I spoke to the sheriff and we had that press conference. But no,

01:33:55.600 the sheriff was pretty forthcoming with what happened, how there was a good Samaritan who saw it

01:34:01.480 and then gave information to the Secret Service. And then the chase was on. The guy apparently drove

01:34:06.360 all the way to Martin County. Martin County is about 40 minutes north of Palm Beach County. So he got up

01:34:12.160 there and then was apprehended without incident. Yeah. By the sheriff's deputies up there, Martin

01:34:16.760 County, and then is on the way back here to Palm Beach County. How did they find him in Martin County?

01:34:24.660 Just regular traffic stop. They were on the lookout for that car. I don't know if they had the license

01:34:31.860 plate, but they had the description of the car and they're able to define him and pull him over.

01:34:38.120 Was he on the same? He was on 95 North, Dave? Is that where he got pulled over?

01:34:44.700 You know, I don't know exactly where he's pulled over, but he did take 95 North.

01:34:48.240 I don't know exactly where the pullover spot was.

01:34:50.940 Is that remarkable to you that he just kind of went north as opposed to pulling off on one of

01:34:54.520 the exits and, you know, lying low in some smaller neighborhood?

01:34:59.340 You know, Megan, it's my experience when you're dealing with people who are not of total sound

01:35:04.420 mind that they do crazy things like just drive north thinking they're going to get out of the

01:35:10.140 state of Florida. That's like another eight hour drive. So it's so it does. It doesn't make sense

01:35:15.880 to you or me. But, you know, we don't go around pointing AK-47s at, you know, prominent

01:35:21.720 individuals because we disagree with their politics. And in fact, his he made a statement

01:35:25.840 on Twitter that said about how the Russia's actions against Ukraine was totally evil and

01:35:32.220 this was good versus evil. But yet he couldn't decipher that trying to assassinate someone would

01:35:38.200 also be evil. I just, you know, it doesn't make any sense. How not understanding exactly what

01:35:44.920 charges he'll face. I mean, I don't know if attempted murder will be one of them since he

01:35:49.600 lay he lay in wait, but he didn't actually pull the trigger. But what do you what would you guess

01:35:54.360 he's looking at in terms of charges at the federal level? You know, it's hard to say at the federal

01:35:58.960 level. They have a whole different system. They have laws to protect presidents and former presidents.

01:36:04.780 But I can tell you at the state level, it would have been based on the facts, likely the aggravated

01:36:08.620 assault with a firearm, which when you're it's normally a third degree felony, but it goes up to a

01:36:14.720 second degree felony when the target is a member of the Secret Service. So what the feds do, I don't

01:36:20.280 know, they're they're pretty opaque. But they did talk to us during this whole thing. And when they

01:36:26.380 told us they were going to take it over, you say, OK, at the state level, you defer to them when they

01:36:31.360 want to take over a case. Well, I personally would have been more comfortable with it in Dave

01:36:37.040 Ehrenberg's hands. I'm I'm not that confident in them, but I am confident in you, Dave. Thank you for

01:36:42.720 making the time for us on a very busy day. Thank you, Megan. Appreciate the nice words.

01:36:48.080 All the best to you. Oh, wow. I mean, quite a quite a bit of information in there. So the guy went,

01:36:53.180 it appears he drove 40 minutes north. Then they finally apprehended him. I mean, kind of crazy.

01:36:57.440 And they got him in a regular traffic stop. It was doesn't sound like it was any more sophisticated

01:37:01.580 than that. I'm thinking of the Idaho quadruple murder suspect, Brian Kohlberger, and how they managed

01:37:08.060 to get him when he remember reportedly, according to Howard Bloom, was on the radar of the feds.

01:37:15.260 But then they lost him and they ran his easy pass. I think it was his easy pass through to see whether

01:37:22.060 it had hit in various locations. And they did. I don't know whether they did any of that, but

01:37:26.280 he's in custody. It does not appear that he resisted arrest when they pulled him over in that 40 minutes

01:37:31.380 after that 40 mile drive. And he did, according to the officials, fire between four and six shots

01:37:37.560 at Secret Service. Right now they're saying Secret Service did not fire back and did not initiate fire.

01:37:42.520 We'll see whether any of that changes. Rich Lowry's back with me now, editor in chief

01:37:46.960 of National Review. So you've got Democrats all over the place, Rich, amping up the rhetoric around

01:37:56.140 Donald Trump. I said to the last panel, what did it take? One week? One week for them to

01:38:00.460 get back on the Trump is a true threat to democracy. Kamala Harris saying he unleashed the worst threat

01:38:07.060 to democracy on this country since the Civil War, worse than 9-11, right? The rhetoric,

01:38:13.300 whatever you think it is, it can go up even higher when the Democrats think about Donald Trump.

01:38:19.440 And within, what, half an hour of this news hitting, and I realize these guys are absolutely

01:38:24.420 just awful. But within a half an hour of this assassination attempt hitting the news or so,

01:38:31.300 the Lincoln Project, these, I mean, truly, deeply Trump-loathing, Trump derangement syndrome guys,

01:38:38.700 release this. I think we have it.

01:38:41.340 I'll never forget that feeling, waking up that November day in 2016 and learning that Donald Trump

01:38:47.900 would be the next president of the United States. I remember the overwhelming grief. I remember the

01:38:53.320 women's marches across the country. I didn't know that on that November day that he would be responsible

01:38:58.940 for the death of more than a million Americans through the mismanagement of a pandemic. I didn't

01:39:04.120 imagine on that morning that he would incite so much hate and division in this nation that white

01:39:09.060 nationalists would proudly march in the streets, and his followers would try to overthrow my

01:39:14.040 government. I couldn't know he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would end my rights

01:39:19.000 to my own health care decisions, thus ensuring my daughters have less rights than their grandmothers

01:39:23.580 had. I didn't know what he was capable of on that day. You get it. You get the picture.

01:39:28.880 Yeah. It goes on from there. These guys are absolutely just gross. Yeah, they're grifters on top

01:39:35.040 of everything else. So look, clearly a common sense says that the level of rhetoric and heat they've

01:39:43.380 created around Donald Trump has played some role in this murderous enmity we've seen on the part of

01:39:49.340 these two would-be assassins. Although it's very difficult to connect any one thing anyone says to

01:39:55.400 these acts. The reason why I think they shouldn't say he's an existential threat to democracy is it's not

01:40:02.000 true. It's just, it's not true. If he loses, he'll complain about it. He'll say it's stolen,

01:40:08.740 but he's not president of the United States. He'll have fewer buttons to push than he did last time.

01:40:12.760 Nothing's going to happen. And if he's elected, he might complain he should have been elected by

01:40:17.020 a bigger margin, but it's not so he's going to try to overthrow the election he won. Actually,

01:40:21.000 the other side would be the one potentially trying to block his ascension to the presidency,

01:40:25.500 and they'll come up with some other Russiagate way to try to undermine his legitimacy. And there may be

01:40:31.180 unrest in the streets. And this is the thing, is even if they're not responsible directly,

01:40:36.820 you know, any one person who's saying this stuff about Donald Trump, they all tell us how important

01:40:40.980 norms are. And this is the worst norm possibly you can trespass against, right? Attempting to

01:40:48.420 assassinate a political candidate, a candidate for president of the United States of America. And the

01:40:53.500 level of outrage is like nothing. They're more outraged by the cats and dogs thing he said about

01:40:59.280 Springfield, Ohio, than they are about people trying to kill him.

01:41:05.320 Exactly right. And now, so you've got other lunatics on the left. I mean, I'll give you the,

01:41:09.640 you remember Alexander Vindman? He testified at the first Trump. Yeah. So his wife comes out

01:41:16.380 moments after this news breaks, Rachel Vindman, and tweets, no ears were harmed. Carry on with your

01:41:23.840 Sunday afternoon. And then when she got all sorts of blowback, she tweeted, sorry, you're triggered.

01:41:28.380 A bunch of laughing emojis. I mean, no, I'm not. I don't care a little bit. Hand heart emoji. She

01:41:35.980 couldn't care less. Yeah, we can tell. That's quite obvious. And then, all right, that's fine.

01:41:41.800 That's some no name nobody's ever heard of. But would you listen to NBC Nightly News, where on a Sunday,

01:41:48.920 they brought in Lester Holt to handle the special coverage. And this was his framing of today's news.

01:41:55.660 Today's apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign

01:42:01.420 trail itself. Mr. Trump, his running mate, J.D. Vance, continue to make baseless claims

01:42:06.460 about Haitian immigrants in Ohio. This weekend, there were new bomb threats in that town.

01:42:12.300 Our Maggie Vespa is in Columbus, Ohio, with more.

01:42:15.140 Oh, my God, Rich. It comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric from Trump and Vance.

01:42:24.500 We just saw this happen on MSNBC. Now it happens on NBC with Lester Holt.

01:42:30.800 Yeah, it's blaming the victim. And I was actually just an hour or two talking to a Republican

01:42:36.200 operative. He's like, Rich, I wouldn't be surprised if in the next 24 hours, someone on MSNBC

01:42:40.820 blames Trump. And then I checked by Twitter. I was driving in the car when I talked to him.

01:42:45.340 And when I when I got to a spot where I could check Twitter, there it was. It already happened

01:42:49.420 on MSNBC. So it's just it's just perverse. And we find if you want to say that's not it.

01:42:57.520 That's not it. Lindsay Davis, you know, obviously still her hands are still dirty from Tuesday night's

01:43:04.920 debacle of a debate. She brought in to cover ABC's nightly news in the wake of her huge debate

01:43:12.700 victory, which I guarantee you is how ABC sees last Tuesday. And listen to her coverage of what

01:43:18.120 just happened. Details just coming in from West Palm Beach, the Secret Service treating this as a

01:43:23.160 threat against the former president. Agents have detained a suspect and have recovered a weapon.

01:43:28.320 This comes two months after the former president survived an assassination attempt in Butler,

01:43:32.460 Pennsylvania. Pierre Thomas and Mary Alice Parks lead tonight's coverage.

01:43:36.640 Also tonight, Springfield, Ohio on edge. Local schools are being threatened with violence and

01:43:41.520 a college shuts down activities after threats were made following the baseless rumors that

01:43:45.920 Haitian immigrants have been eating pets. OK, got to move on to the pet story, you know,

01:43:52.720 as our number two. That's going to that's going to we'll do two minutes on Trump. And by the way,

01:43:56.520 they're treating this as a threat, treating it. Oh, the guy, a guy with an AK 47 style rifle,

01:44:02.640 300 feet away, pointing it. Yeah, it's a threat. And then he fired it for Secret Service. Yeah,

01:44:07.040 you can go ahead and remove the qualifying language. Yeah. So I'm sure it pained them to not not have the

01:44:12.940 Springfield thing that the top story. And that's the other thing, you know, going back to racial

01:44:17.000 Vindman, an innocent man was killed. Right. It wasn't just that a presidential candidate was

01:44:23.540 grazed in the ear and, you know, a couple of millimeters away from having his brain blown out

01:44:29.000 on live television. Someone was killed. Right. So just to have an offhand attitude about that,

01:44:35.680 it's it's appalling. And look, if they want to say that Trump and J.D. Vance are responsible

01:44:41.160 for some psychopath making threats against government authorities in Springfield, Ohio,

01:44:47.040 then they have to blame their own side for this to be consistent about which is it? It's a rhetoric,

01:44:52.520 heated rhetoric, caused violence or doesn't it? Right. But you see in those segments,

01:44:56.540 they'll have entirely different attitudes within minutes about the effect of rhetoric. And she,

01:45:02.360 you know, if the rules were all fair, as we discussed the night after the debate,

01:45:05.860 she would have at least asked Kamala Harris, well, you know what? The man standing five feet from you

01:45:09.940 was almost killed. And some people think, you know, your rhetoric, your side's rhetoric is

01:45:13.940 responsible. What do you make of that? Right. But it wouldn't occur to her to ask that. And when

01:45:18.040 Trump brought up the assassination attempt, of course, it just dropped like a lead balloon and

01:45:22.900 everyone moved on. They moved on. They had no interest in discussing it. Just this week,

01:45:29.060 just this week, Melania Trump, who's coming out with a book and is doing minimal promo on it,

01:45:33.980 released a video statement in which she said the following, Rich, listen to this.

01:45:38.380 The attempt to end my husband's life was a horrible, distressing experience. Now,

01:45:46.880 the silence around it feels heavy. I can't help but wonder, why didn't law enforcement officials

01:45:55.040 arrest the shooter before the speech? There is definitely more to this story,

01:46:00.920 very fair question. She's the wife of the attempted victim. And let me just give you

01:46:13.600 one example of the media's reaction to the former first lady saying that, which is, it's extraordinary.

01:46:21.260 It's valid. She's, look at this. Here's Don Lemon, who posts a video of her saying the same thing.

01:46:27.420 And he's, for the listening audience, rubbing his head, shaking his head no, putting his hand on his

01:46:33.860 cheek and his chin, rolling his eyes, smirking, throwing his hand up in the air like, what an idiot.

01:46:41.980 We're going to recut this with her actual sound so you can hear it. But he later deleted the tweet

01:46:51.540 because he got so much blowback from fair-minded people saying, what the hell do you think you're

01:46:57.860 doing? She's entitled to have fear and concern around this issue. And, but that's how clueless

01:47:04.740 and heartless they are, Rich, that he felt fine making fun of the first lady, former first lady

01:47:10.800 on this. And what happens within days? I mean, it could be counted in hours. It's so close.

01:47:16.300 It happens again. Yeah. So, and I don't read her statement necessarily implying a conspiracy.

01:47:23.080 There certainly is more to learn about this. My instinct always is to go to ineptitude and

01:47:29.580 incompetence before conspiracies. I think a lot of these people wouldn't be capable of carrying out

01:47:33.920 a conspiracy even if they wanted to. But I have to say, Megan, I've not met one person in Republican

01:47:38.780 circles from, you know, donors to grassroots activists who thinks the Secret Service is in the

01:47:45.460 up and up, that, that, that the first assassin, I can't believe we're saying it, but the first

01:47:49.620 assassination attempt, because it was so glaring. It was so awful. It's the exact thing that undermines

01:47:55.820 faith in our institutions, which they say they want, we should all want, but you can't have faith.

01:48:01.400 One, when, when, you know, the, the, the, initially the director of the Secret Service tries to stay

01:48:06.700 and says she's going to reform this, this institution when she was responsible for the failure.

01:48:11.880 And then when just, uh, serially just more and more stories come out, each of which make it seem

01:48:17.440 worse than it was, uh, at the beginning. Again, I think it's ineptitude, criminal ineptitude, but

01:48:23.380 people, of course, they're going to have questions. If it happened on the other side, they'd have

01:48:27.780 questions too. I mean, Rachel Maddow would be doing nothing except for floating conspiracy theories

01:48:32.800 if Kamala Harris had been present and the Secret Service had been so lax in protecting her.

01:48:37.180 You're absolutely, absolutely right. I, we did re-cue it with Melania's sound. Let's just watch it.

01:48:43.200 The attempt to end my husband's life was a horrible, distressing experience.

01:48:48.440 Eyes closed, shaking his head.

01:48:50.000 Now, the silence around it feels heavy. I can't help but wonder,

01:48:57.080 why didn't law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech?

01:49:01.080 Shaking head, no. Throwing his hands up.

01:49:02.640 There is definitely more to this story, and we need to uncover the truth.

01:49:07.660 Shaking his head.

01:49:13.420 It ends with his head in his palm.

01:49:16.640 Yeah, wondering why they didn't arrest this guy sooner. The guy they identified, what, 90 minutes

01:49:20.600 earlier as a threat that they lost track of, that ordinary people there at the event were pointing

01:49:25.400 out? Of course you should wonder. And the idea that that, that, that's something you have,

01:49:31.020 that sentiment you have contempt for is crazy.

01:49:34.460 The inhumanity of the press corps, when it has anything to do with Donald Trump or his wife

01:49:39.380 or his kids, they couldn't care less. We, how many tweets and posts did we see after assassination

01:49:45.640 attempt? Number one, this is insane that we're having to talk like this, as you say.

01:49:49.460 Who said they're sorry he missed, that he, they wish he had better aim. People like Keith

01:49:55.540 Olbermann, but beyond Keith Olbermann. I mean, it's just gotten to the level. You heard the,

01:49:59.560 maybe we can pull this, you guys, the Joy Reid segment with Ellie Mistal, literally the two most

01:50:06.600 racist people on television. Truly, you, you, you couldn't find two more racist people on television.

01:50:12.120 It happened, uh, I think on Friday where he said the reason his disgusting deplorable fans don't

01:50:19.560 abandon him is because they're equally disgusting. That's what, so it's, it goes beyond Donald Trump.

01:50:25.680 It's everyone, it's all Republicans. And that's why they have no empathy for Melania, the kids or

01:50:31.180 anyone who tonight are probably feeling really scared about what's next. Yeah. So once you've

01:50:38.140 accepted the idea that he is the equivalent of an American Adolf Hitler, uh, then, then the

01:50:45.060 implication is one, all his supporters are equally morally blameworthy. They're the, the equivalent of

01:50:51.340 brown shirts and violence is acceptable or understandable at least to try to stop them. Right. So, but the

01:50:58.420 premise is, is flawed, um, and, and wrong and perverse, but then you work out the logic and you, you get,

01:51:04.360 you get this, this, this cruelty and heartlessness. I don't know what the solution to this is. I mean,

01:51:12.040 other than independent media, I just like the, the fact that NBC and Lester Holt chose to style the

01:51:21.780 story in the way they did on the night of the attempted assassination speaks volumes, not to

01:51:27.060 mention the trouble that ABC is in following that debate. I, I don't think there's any saving them.

01:51:32.960 I think they reaffirm that to us every day. And I think it's sad. I think it's, it is part of the

01:51:38.680 problem because they've become the open messengers for this crap, cutting off Trump when he did try

01:51:43.660 to talk about his assassination attempt, not raising the assassination attempt and what it means for

01:51:48.600 this country and about rhetoric. And in the first instance, not to mention, not asking about Joe

01:51:53.680 Biden's mental deficiencies, but when we could go on for an hour about what, how they fell down in the

01:51:57.700 job. They're part of it. They're actively working now, rich to get her elected and to, and to coalesce

01:52:05.340 around the narrative about how dangerous he is. And having worked inside that organization, NBC news,

01:52:10.700 I can tell you that's exactly what they believe. Yeah. They're all basically at the end of the day,

01:52:16.200 the same people, democratic elites and media elites. They go to the same party. They go to the same places

01:52:20.560 in the Hamptons. They share, share the same assumptions. They have the same attitudes,

01:52:24.200 especially about social and cultural issues. They are the same people. And it's just a fundamentally

01:52:28.560 corrupt institution. Maybe decades ago, I used to think maybe if we bird dog them enough and call

01:52:33.840 them out enough and counter their, their narratives with alternative reporting enough that they'll

01:52:39.380 improve, but that they haven't in the least, they've only gotten worse. And it's just, uh, there,

01:52:45.260 there, there's no, no sense, even hoping for something better at this point.

01:52:48.880 I just, I can't get over the fact that our president hasn't said anything. The former president

01:52:55.840 retweeted and didn't individually say anything, not even a generic statement about political violence.

01:53:04.240 Uh, you know, Michelle Obama, who was so upset about the term black jobs, she said nothing by the

01:53:10.740 way, Biden used that term too. She didn't tweet a thing, nothing. She was, she's only outraged when

01:53:14.860 Donald Trump does it. And she has absolutely no empathy in her heart for Donald Trump when he

01:53:19.140 almost gets shot and his family. How about a word from her to Melania Trump? You're not going to get

01:53:23.840 it. These are the people who want to paint themselves as our moral betters, as the nice

01:53:27.640 ones, as the kind ones. That was actually Kamala Harris's pitch, right? That was her pitch in the

01:53:34.440 debate. And when she sat down with that local, uh, Philadelphia anchor, you know, like she's the nice

01:53:39.000 one and people are ready for unity, but they can't muster any genuine statements of empathy

01:53:44.960 for the Trumps. When once again, his life was almost taken. It's just such a facade, Rich.

01:53:50.940 Yeah, totally. And, and, and, and, and if the progression goes as way, the way it has with this

01:53:55.700 one, if there's a third assassination attempt, they'll take it even less seriously, right? When,

01:53:59.220 when obviously you should take it more seriously, but the standard is apparently has to be hit by the

01:54:04.320 bullet for it to be a big news. So, and, and, you know, never would have, I thought there'd be some

01:54:10.680 rule, you know, they're, they've created Trump rules for everything where there are new standards,

01:54:15.600 but I never would have expected that assassination attempts would, would, would fall under Trump

01:54:20.020 rules where if it happens to him, it's not a big deal and it's not a big news story, but that's the

01:54:25.120 way they're, they're handling it. And again, basic decency, basic respect for our institutions and

01:54:31.260 people's faith in our politics says, you should be outraged by this such that if you're the sitting

01:54:35.220 president of the United States, even if you don't want to win, even if you hate them, you, you tweet,

01:54:39.960 or you go out and make a statement, or you give a speech in the Oval Office about how wrong this is.

01:54:44.760 And they kind of mustered that briefly the first time around, but apparently can't be bothered this

01:54:48.600 time. And maybe come up with a kind word for Donald Trump this time. Maybe say he's a dad,

01:54:55.560 he's a husband, he's a grandpa, and we really need to lower the temperature, not, not just in general,

01:55:02.900 but on our side about this man. That's what he should say, but he's nowhere to be found. We have no

01:55:10.840 idea where Joe Biden even is. He's probably asleep at seven 30. We haven't seen him publicly in really

01:55:17.740 a more than a ceremonial role. Um, recently he's been on vacation for almost all of the past 10

01:55:23.460 weeks. And I have no idea whether he's even competent to come out and do it. Um, I did,

01:55:29.080 we did find the Ella Mistal, Ellie Mistal appearance on Joey Reed. Here it is the way he

01:55:34.400 desecrated, uh, Arlington national cemetery would be career ending for normal politician,

01:55:38.660 but his, his constant lives, but even this piece about saying, well, my building was the tallest

01:55:43.200 until, you know, they brought down the world trade center. Now it's the second tall. I mean,

01:55:47.000 everything he does is despicable. The reason why it doesn't end his career is because his

01:55:51.340 supporters are just as despicable because his supporters are just as ungenerous and have just

01:55:58.180 as little compassion and empathy for others. It never hurts Trump when he takes these crass and,

01:56:04.760 and classless actions. It's because his supporters think that being crass and classless is actually

01:56:10.680 kind of cool. Yeah. And they also, he, he hates the people they hate.

01:56:17.000 It's just, yeah, this guy's talking about nothing being cool for, for obviously zero self-awareness.

01:56:24.720 And this is the key thing to, after the first assassination attempt, they said, we need to

01:56:29.600 bring down our rhetoric and, and Biden, you know, he, he seemed committed to that to himself for like

01:56:34.320 36 hours or so at least. But if you want to bring down the, the, the temperature, you got to do it

01:56:39.240 yourself. You know, policing your own side is more important than anything you say about the

01:56:43.120 other side's rhetoric, right? Cause you could be, some people actually take him seriously.

01:56:47.480 That's why he's on MSNBC. And if you actually told progressives, you know what, they're human

01:56:51.560 beings too. They're Americans too. We should have respect for them and we should be outraged.

01:56:55.720 If someone tries to commit physical violence against them, maybe, you know, makes a little

01:56:59.460 bit of a difference, but they can't bring themselves to do it.

01:57:03.640 Um, by the way, regarding that Trump saying that his tower, uh, was the smallest in New York city

01:57:09.240 after the world trade center fell. If you listen to the interview from that day, he wasn't bragging.

01:57:14.140 He was kind of stating it to give context about the world trade center history during a 10 minute

01:57:18.000 interview that day. Total misrepresentation. Yeah, of course. Uh, yet again, I mean, they're

01:57:23.120 doing it to JD Vance right now. You saw he gave an interview to Dana bash today and he, they had this

01:57:27.400 long 17 minute exchange about what's happening in Springfield, Ohio. And at the end of it, you know,

01:57:33.180 after saying he'd heard from his constituents, yes, dogs and whatever, cats, pets, whatever the whole

01:57:38.180 thing, he's saying, this is what they're telling me. She refused to accept that. Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba.

01:57:42.540 Finally, he, he said something to the effect of, look, if, if we have to create stories in order

01:57:47.200 to bring attention to what's happening, the media, he admits they made it up. Right. As opposed to,

01:57:51.920 and if you listen to the full clip, he says by drawing attention to what's happening on the ground,

01:57:57.240 it's just right. As this line goes online, you don't hate the media enough. Go ahead.

01:58:01.980 You remember alternative facts with Kellyanne. They did the same thing. She wasn't saying you,

01:58:05.520 you make up fictions and pretend they're facts. You bring other facts to bear in the debate that

01:58:10.500 are being ignored. And that's what he was saying. And I loved, I think it was in that interview where

01:58:15.840 Dana bash says, you know, the police have gone through 11 months of recordings of calls and

01:58:20.720 they've only found two Springfield residents calling to complain about Haitian migrants taking

01:58:27.180 geese from ponds. Only two calls. And I think one lesson, this whole story, people don't care about

01:58:32.260 geese. People really hate geese. All things considered, I think people would prefer Haitian

01:58:37.160 migrants to come and take the geese off the golf course. Right. So it's pets. It's the cats and

01:58:41.760 dogs. It's become the, the, the, the standard geese clearly don't, don't matter.

01:58:46.900 I mean, they, I read online, they're protected in Ohio. So you kind of should care about whatever.

01:58:52.680 By the way, there are firsthand testimonials from many people. Well, all we keep hearing is they're

01:58:56.380 not verified. I mean, what do you do? Do you call the cops? I don't know if you call the cops,

01:59:00.580 if you see ducks being beheaded or if a neighborhood cat, that's not yours goes missing.

01:59:06.100 And there, this is not just happening in Ohio, by the way, there are now reports about this

01:59:09.800 happening in other States and disgusting pictures all over the internet about what the accusation is

01:59:15.500 that migrants from these other countries are doing whatever. I mean, there's no, it's to me,

01:59:19.940 it's like if the Babylon Bee got it right, you know, Democrats deny that pets are being killed,

01:59:26.580 would like us to focus more on the women and children, right? Being killed. That's the truth.

01:59:33.380 It's like, okay, whatever. I mean, you can get your panties in a bunch about the fact that you

01:59:37.500 haven't seen a Haitian eating a cat on camera, although you might've, um, you ignore the real

01:59:45.000 issue of the little girls, the women, the men, it's the, the children who've died anyway. Okay.

01:59:50.380 Uh, this is the question I've most wanted to talk to you about since we asked you to come on. You

01:59:55.140 said you would now, what not, not security. I'm not asking you about that. Now, what does the left

02:00:02.060 do over the next week or month? Because they do have to be careful about this guy. They, they have

02:00:11.140 two, two attempts to kill him. And there's got to be some fear in the back of their heads. That's

02:00:18.820 something they say is actually going to get him killed. So do they take their foot off the gas

02:00:24.960 a little on this incendiary rhetoric, or is it, we have weeks to go. Democracy is on the ballot

02:00:32.300 and it's pedal to the metal in making him out to be just as horrid as they've already told us he is.

02:00:38.960 It's the latter. I think this will have zero effect. The first assassination attempt did have

02:00:44.360 some effect. You know, Biden gave that, uh, Oval Office address about how we, we all need to be

02:00:48.520 more civil to one another. The coverage of the Republican convention was more favorable than

02:00:53.520 the media coverage I can remember of any Republican convention. And it was because it was in the

02:00:57.200 aftermath of this, this event where everyone agreed pretty much that, that Trump handled it in a,

02:01:03.060 an amazing and courageous way by immediately standing up and rallying his supporters with that

02:01:08.360 fist pump, you know, Mark Zuckerberg even called it bad-ass. I don't think this will have any effect

02:01:13.780 like that. This, this will be a relative ripple again, as a major story may be gone, uh, tomorrow

02:01:19.200 and they will continue, uh, attacking Trump the way they have, you know, they've made Kamala into

02:01:25.720 something more than I would have thought they, they could have, you know, but the media adulation

02:01:29.660 and the democratic relief that she's not Joe Biden has, has bumped her up much more than I,

02:01:34.260 that would have expected, but they still need to pull down Donald Trump. That's a huge element of

02:01:40.540 how they win this election. And there's no way that their conscious is going to be pricked such

02:01:47.100 that they, they don't use the kind of rhetoric that they think they need to, to beat them in November.

02:01:52.560 I mean, if this is any indication, then you're right. Here's Bill Kristol used to be a conservative

02:01:57.160 tweeting out. This came out at 6 30 PM, 6 31 PM. I mean, that's long after these events broke at

02:02:05.200 2 PM. He tweets, Waltz should consider canceling the debate with Vance. He posts this on Twitter.

02:02:12.200 He very clearly knows about the assassination attempt. Vance would use his time on the national

02:02:17.020 stage to slander minorities, further poison the national discourse and incite potential violence

02:02:22.880 with lies, incite potential violence with lies. Waltz could rebut Vance's falsehoods,

02:02:29.340 but why risk the further incitement? Unbelievable to the point where Donald Trump Jr. had to respond

02:02:36.680 and who could blame him tweeting hours after a left wing Ukraine obsessed nut job attempts to

02:02:42.960 assassinate my father, neocon loser Bill Kristol accuses JD Vance of inciting violence. Does it get any

02:02:50.460 more vile than this? You can't, you can't make this up. You can't, it hasn't entered his consciousness

02:02:57.000 that this happened apparently at a certain level, Josh Marshall, less prominent, but he's, he's edited

02:03:01.960 a left wing website forever. That's pretty influential online. He was tweeting just about

02:03:06.980 half an hour ago as well. Let's focus on the main story today. The cats and dogs in Springfield,

02:03:12.400 Ohio, right? So that's, that's what they, that's what they think. That's what they're going to do.

02:03:16.580 That's what they're, they're going to say. If I were Waltz, I might consider canceling debate because

02:03:20.400 I think he's gonna have a real hard time handling JD Vance. Um, but, but, uh, it, it, it shouldn't

02:03:26.620 be because JD is illegitimate and out of bounds. Well, you're, that's an astute point. That's

02:03:32.780 probably Bill Kristol foreseeing what you and I both foresee, which is JD Vance doing incredibly well

02:03:38.280 and Tim Walz not being able to hold his own and thinking, here's a great excuse to get out of it.

02:03:42.840 Let's use Donald Trump's latest near death experience to, to our political benefit to

02:03:48.420 try to get him out of what's likely to be a debacle because they think she had such a spike

02:03:52.380 the ball in the end zone moment. But I will say this, Rich, they're so obsessed with the cats and

02:03:56.460 dogs story. Keep going. I feel like great. Have, has the country discussed the problem of illegal

02:04:03.980 immigration and legal migration this much in two years? This, I don't think Lake and Riley got as

02:04:13.300 much attention as this is now getting, which if you needed to design a new story, that's good for

02:04:18.240 Donald Trump. This is what the one you'd pull. Yeah. And there's some people around the campaign

02:04:22.160 who think of it exactly that way. It's, it focuses on an issue. That's just not a strength of Kamala

02:04:27.040 Harris is for understandable reasons and never will be. And, you know, I thought JD was very effective in

02:04:31.500 a CNN, CNN interview, making the point that never penetrates, that they'll never pay attention to

02:04:36.380 or acknowledge that the real story is you had a town of 58,000 people as of the 2020 census inundated

02:04:43.680 by 15 to 20,000 Haitian migrants. They didn't vote for this. It wasn't a public debate. No one said,

02:04:49.400 let's, let's bring them in. And so they had no choice in the matter, but the Biden administration,

02:04:54.480 one, some of them are illegal. And then the Biden administration is making migrants who otherwise

02:04:58.740 would be illegal, legal, just as a technical matter through these various parole programs

02:05:03.640 and temporary protected status. And they have to go somewhere, right? And they've settled on,

02:05:07.520 on Springfield, Ohio. It's, it's the schools are obviously taxed by it. You have community,

02:05:12.800 a community health center that's spending, I know, three times what it used to on translation

02:05:17.120 services and the wait times have increased drastically. And you have a housing crisis that the city manager

02:05:23.360 was complaining about a couple of months ago. So this, this all affects the lives of real people,

02:05:29.580 whether cancer dogs are being eaten or not, even if they're not being eaten, this is still a debacle

02:05:35.380 that is on Joe Biden. So, so the extent that it focuses attention on that, it is a good thing.

02:05:41.840 Mm-hmm. Oh God, it's just, all of this is just so awful. It's so dark and I, it's so frustrating to

02:05:49.380 see them just not care, but you know, back to the old Maya Angelou, when someone shows you who they

02:05:55.080 are, leave them. We believe in you, Rich Lowry. Thank you for being here. Thank you. I hope we

02:06:00.540 don't do another one of these. Yeah, exactly. Hopefully we'll be talking about benign political

02:06:06.220 news next time. Great to see you. All right. Thanks so much. Up next, we're going to bring on

02:06:09.760 you two. We're going to bring on Susan Crabtree. You guys know that name, right? She's from Real

02:06:13.900 Clear Politics. And she owned, owned the Secret Service story after the first assassination time.

02:06:20.760 This is how we're going to have, you know, how it's like first impeachment, second impeachment,

02:06:23.460 and we have the first criminal trial. But then there were four more criminal or three more criminal

02:06:28.300 trials waiting, right? It's just crazy about the amount of stuff that they try to throw at Donald

02:06:32.920 Trump, but you can't even keep track. How many impeachments? Okay. There's two, there's four

02:06:37.380 criminal cases, but there were also three civil cases trying to get added up. And now there's been

02:06:42.660 two assassination attempts. And I mean, this is absolute madness. And you mark my words,

02:06:49.620 these Democrats are going to try to make it all Donald Trump's fault in that. Aren't you kind of

02:06:53.280 over him? He's so controversial. You know, it's like his own fault. He's so controversial. He keeps

02:06:58.160 getting shot at like, aren't you ready to move on from that? Like a new way forward as Kamala Harris

02:07:03.680 is saying, like he's controversial. It's not our rhetoric about him. It's not our messaging about him

02:07:09.800 not saying he's controversial, but saying he's Hitler that has amped up the temperature.

02:07:16.280 Anyway, Susan Crabtree is here and she's got the latest for us on today's assassination attempt of

02:07:22.760 our former president, Donald Trump. Susan, thank you so much for joining us. What have you learned?

02:07:27.260 What's, uh, what's interesting to you so far about the facts?

02:07:29.920 What's really interesting to me, Megan, and thanks for so much for having me on

02:07:34.360 is that this guy, um, we are hearing now and getting law enforcement confirmation,

02:07:40.260 even though the FBI is not confirming that his name is Ryan Ruth and they're leaving up all of

02:07:45.640 social media. He apparently used his daughter's car. He's a 58 year old, um, a man who has a very

02:07:52.620 public, public, public social media profile. And he seems very unsophisticated unless it's a false

02:07:59.580 flag. And in let, this is what I'm incredibly worried about after today, you've had two

02:08:06.040 assassination attempts. The FBI says they work. That looks like the first one, Thomas Crooks was

02:08:12.440 acting alone, that there was no foreign influence that they can see so far in their investigation,

02:08:17.700 even though they only had one briefing with the media since the day of Butler rally, the first

02:08:24.140 assassination attempt. But I am seriously concerned that this shows the Iranians, IRGC, that we know

02:08:33.240 from what Grassley released last week, are plotting a very detailed, detailed assassination

02:08:40.380 plots. They are current and granular, um, against Donald Trump. And this is showing them what kind

02:08:49.340 of vulnerabilities the secret service has. Now, the secret service got a lot of plaudits today

02:08:54.160 about their, the way they handled this. They shot first, they didn't wait to shoot. You know, you have

02:09:00.760 Thomas Crooks running across the roof and they weren't shooting at him yet. They didn't even know about

02:09:05.860 him. They didn't know he had a gun, uh, until just minutes, seconds, minutes beforehand, before when

02:09:13.860 he popped his head up, that's when they finally found out, um, that he was a real threat, not just

02:09:19.780 a suspect. But in this case, we had this detailed, detailed assassination proffer that the FBI, uh,

02:09:28.460 well, actually Grassley got ahold of it, but the FBI was incensed that Grassley put this out. Uh,

02:09:34.140 and it was a, basically the proffer is an interrogation that the FBI does with this man,

02:09:41.340 this Pakistani citizen with deep ties to Iran. Uh, he spent two weeks in Iran and he was arrested

02:09:48.780 the day before the Butler rally, uh, uh, for planning an assassination attempt against Donald Trump and

02:09:55.820 actually trying to hire hit men in New York and pay them $5,000. So. Oh my God, it's terrifying.

02:10:03.180 I mean, if you haven't read, I will say to your viewers, if you have not read what Grassley put

02:10:09.500 out, I have tweeted about it. I tweeted about it again today. It is, it's basically the interview

02:10:15.820 that the FBI conducted with this man named Asif Merchant, who they arrested on July 12th, the day

02:10:21.980 before the Butler assassination attempt. So you can see exactly the interview. He was in an Iranian

02:10:28.620 safe house talking with a man they identified as Yousef about whether they should use, whether they

02:10:34.780 should target a outdoor rally or an indoor rally, whether they should use a pistol or whether they

02:10:41.260 should use a rifle. They said they evaluated all the secret service assets that Donald Trump was using.

02:10:48.060 And we know from the secret, we know now it's been very, we're all well aware that he was being

02:10:53.820 treated as a former president, just like Barack Obama or Jimmy Carter. He was not being afforded.

02:11:00.380 It was not threat-based as the secret service claims. They always operate threat-based, but we

02:11:04.620 know now that that was not the case with Donald Trump before Butler. Uh, so they were evaluating,

02:11:10.780 this Asif Merchant was evaluating with, in a Iranian safe house, the assets that the secret

02:11:17.420 service was using pre-Butler to, to protect Trump. And they assessed that it was probably,

02:11:23.340 they probably had a 50-50 chance of being successful in their assassination attempt.

02:11:28.540 I mean, I was, it was chilling. It was downright chilling.

02:11:32.540 Do we know the percentage beef up in secret service from assassination attempt number one to today?

02:11:42.140 Yeah. Well, it's, I just was getting into this on Twitter and people are taking issue with me.

02:11:47.900 I am told that it's, it's far more than he had before. Okay. Obviously, um, he only got his counter

02:11:54.220 sniper the day of the Butler, the day before the Butler rally, when they were arresting,

02:11:58.780 the FBI was arresting the man I just mentioned. Okay. For assassination attempt. Uh, but it's far

02:12:05.100 more than what he had before. It's almost what I'm hearing. It's almost what a sitting president

02:12:12.380 gets, um, minus the military assets. Of course, he doesn't have Marine one, doesn't have Air Force

02:12:17.260 one, doesn't have the extra agents that carry the nuclear football with him, doesn't have a military

02:12:22.940 aid. But the key question I think for today is whether he had the security perimeter. Does he

02:12:30.380 have, they didn't, obviously they didn't have a security perimeter because this, this guy, Ryan

02:12:35.820 Ruth got right up to the fence and was poking his rifle through the AK 47 right through. And that's the

02:12:42.380 only thing the secret service saw that indicated that there was a threat and it was, you know, he was

02:12:48.460 on the, it was in between the five and six hole on the golf course. And thank goodness the secret

02:12:54.620 service, we had a good team around him. Uh, because that wasn't the case. Do we know Susan?

02:13:00.620 What was it secret service like proper? Yes, absolutely. The secret service. Yes. They,

02:13:05.580 the sheriff, uh, Brad Shaw, the West, the Palm beach sheriff Brad Shaw did say it was secret service.

02:13:11.740 And he said they acted in a fantastic manner today, uh, and was shooting, but did not shoot him.

02:13:17.420 Okay. One of my secret service sources in that community said, we know, well,

02:13:21.420 they didn't shoot him. Well, he was hiding in the bushes, but the key question that confirmed

02:13:27.660 that he definitely did not, he did not pull the trigger first. Cause you know, some online are

02:13:31.740 saying, be careful. Okay. Well, you know, that's what the law enforcement is saying. That's the

02:13:37.820 official word. My secret service sources hasn't, haven't, um, said anything against that so far.

02:13:43.660 They haven't, you know, they don't say, I mean, I have, is it, is it in any way a breach of protocol

02:13:48.700 for them to shoot somebody who's got an AK 47 style rifle 300 feet from the president?

02:13:54.060 And it's obviously right. They can shoot first. No, but they, they, the whole issue for Butler

02:14:00.060 that I was reporting early that people were taking issue with was there is in their culture. If they

02:14:06.060 don't see a gun, not to shoot, if they can't make out that it's an actual gun, if it's not a toy gun,

02:14:11.340 but if they, at this point they that's out the window, they're going to shoot. They're going to

02:14:17.660 shoot. If they see a gun, the, the suspect becomes a threat when you see the gun and pointed towards

02:14:24.540 the president or the former president, that's, that's what if anything do they say? What if

02:14:30.620 anything do they say about the fact that, you know, it's, we're grateful that these secret service

02:14:34.700 agents noticed the gun and saw this guy hiding. But also there are, there are questions about why

02:14:42.140 he was relatively unprotected so close to the open road. This guy just came up to the chain link fence

02:14:47.900 and shoved his gun in, in one of the links and almost took out Donald Trump. Like to me,

02:14:53.020 that does seem like a failure of imagination or planning. Well, what I want to know is does Joe Biden

02:15:00.140 get a security perimeter when he plays golf? Is it the exact same security assets does Biden have

02:15:06.300 question that Trump, did Trump get that same security asset today? Because we know they're

02:15:11.980 available because Biden's not using them. Okay. So obviously that's the big question in my mind.

02:15:19.580 And did, you know, how many assets were there? We were the counter surveillance units. They were not

02:15:26.220 there at Butler. Were they there today? Does, did Donald Trump say, well, you know, I really like

02:15:31.580 to play golf. So I need to interact with, you know, he had his, his, uh, friend and donor with him.

02:15:38.460 It's good friend, uh, Steven Whitcoff with him, you know, maybe they wanted to be able to be more

02:15:43.180 accessible to the public. I don't know. You gotta, I'm asking the Trump campaign. Is that something,

02:15:49.100 uh, there's a balance to be struck always with the candidate wants, you know, you can't put Trump now,

02:15:55.180 you know, of course they're going to reevaluate everything, um, in terms of they instituted the

02:16:00.060 bullet clue, uh, proof that glass last time on outdoor rallies. I'm wondering, you know,

02:16:05.100 if they have designed some type of Pope mobile that he has to be in now, if he wants to go out,

02:16:09.180 it's a sad situation, but there's always this balance to be struck. The secret service would

02:16:13.900 like him to stay indoors and operate like, you know, maybe like Biden did during the 2020 election.

02:16:20.940 You know, is that Trump? Yeah, it's not Trump. He wants to interact. So you have to strike a

02:16:27.180 balance. Um, but what I want to know is obviously this was a perimeter problem. We had a perimeter

02:16:32.380 problem in Butler. They put the AGR building outside the perimeter. There's questions surrounding

02:16:37.340 why that happened. In addition to why there was nobody on the roof. I'm told by my secret service

02:16:41.900 sources, um, as recently as yesterday that it, I've gone back and forth. I've talked to the Butler

02:16:48.940 law enforcement. They say one thing, the secret service sources say another that it was law

02:16:53.660 enforcement's fault that day. They did. They were in charge. The secret service charged them with

02:16:58.460 protecting that building. And they chose to go inside because it was hot. I, that is,

02:17:05.340 I believe that's the case. I've had multiple sources tell me that. And so, you know, please come forward

02:17:10.620 and show me the plan that had the secret service. Say they have a post plan where they show where

02:17:17.260 everybody's supposed to be. The one thing that I will say, it's still on the secret service because

02:17:21.660 they did not go through their checks. I'm told, you know, long ago in the secret service, um,

02:17:26.700 10 years ago, 15 years ago, you had after when everybody was ready, when there was five minutes,

02:17:33.580 they call it Bravo five minutes till Trump goes on. You do a security check, everybody in their post

02:17:39.740 that they were assigned to. Yep. And they go through the supervisor goes through everybody's

02:17:44.380 where they're supposed to be. That did not occur on at mother or the lead agent. And when we know

02:17:51.020 who she is, um, the lead agent from the Pittsburgh field office was not checking that that day and

02:17:58.460 allowed them when they protested to go inside. So I'm still worried about this. They're still leaving

02:18:05.820 these perimeters open and, you know, Trump has got to reevaluate what, how he's going to operate from

02:18:12.300 now on. I mean, he, he has to do some security. It's sad because the secret service that he has

02:18:22.700 now, I'm sure he has the best that the agency has to offer now. Uh, because you know, the gig is up,

02:18:29.900 right? You, you, you didn't, I have been told by multiple sources that Cheadle did not like Trump.

02:18:36.780 Okay. Cause everyone asked me, was it political? And I will tell you the woman forced out, but not,

02:18:42.700 not fired. Okay. Keep going, Susan. Correct. And his, her deputy, her hand selected deputy is Ronald

02:18:49.900 Rowe. So, and Mayorkas is chose him to move up to the acting position when she left. So this is the

02:18:57.820 same cabal. These are the same people that are responsible, but now he knows he's on notice that

02:19:03.660 it hits on him. Now, is he going to be able to keep the position? He's going to be elevated.

02:19:08.140 All of everything that you see him do right now is motivated by whether he keeps his job

02:19:13.480 and whether he's elevated to the top position. And I think he's really concerned about what the

02:19:20.000 Donald Trump detail think of him. Now, all of a sudden, even though I am told he was directly,

02:19:26.140 directly, and he says no at the hearings, even when the senators asked him about this question,

02:19:31.440 about my reporting, he said, no, I didn't have anything to do with denying the security assets.

02:19:36.400 I'm told that is not the case that Ron Rowe has direct, he was Mike Platte, who retired last week,

02:19:44.620 who announced his retirement last week. He was the one who signed off on it. His director of

02:19:49.100 protective operations for secret service signed up off on all the assets. So his signatures on

02:19:53.740 everything, but that, you know, Rowe definitely comes in and there's a conversation. He even testified

02:19:59.220 July 30th in front of the Senate that there is a conversation on all these assets. So he plays

02:20:05.160 a role. You cannot tell me he did not. My sources tell me. I mean, your point is so valid. They had

02:20:10.520 a perimeter. They had a catastrophic perimeter breakdown two months ago. So the perimeter should

02:20:16.420 be front of mind as Corrine Jean-Pierre likes to say. And it wasn't, once again, it was a perimeter

02:20:22.880 problem. This is what we played a bit of this earlier with Dan Bongino, when he testified before

02:20:28.080 Congress about this issue, former secret service agent. Um, I actually asked my team to go back

02:20:31.860 and cut the full two minute clip that's been circulating. Cause it's very powerful. I'd love

02:20:35.920 to get as somebody who knows the secret service better than anybody. I'd love to get your reaction

02:20:39.680 to it. Let's listen to him. Mr. Bongino, in your opinion, is the secret service in a better spot

02:20:45.320 today with director Rowe in charge? No, it's, it's worse. And sadly, I'm glad this is all being recorded

02:20:51.520 because when something else happens and I hope it doesn't, I prayed of my Lord and savior,

02:20:56.100 Jesus Christ, that I'm wrong that you play this and go, look, that guy was crazy.

02:21:00.000 You think this is the last incident you're out of your mind. We have seen these incidents over

02:21:04.520 and over. We saw the Georgia grenade incident with president Bush. They overtook the magnetometers,

02:21:09.840 the secret service leadership in charge now with the exact same people, exact same. Can you imagine

02:21:16.580 a C suite at a company that makes widgets? We find out that there's a design defect. The widget

02:21:22.020 explodes and kills 10 people. And the CTO gets a promotion to CEO. You understand that's what

02:21:28.100 happened here, correct? These are the same people. Kim Cheadle, the director, wasn't even fired.

02:21:32.920 She was allowed to resign. She'll go get some cushy jobs somewhere. And her deputy, who is one of the

02:21:38.980 guys behind these stupid waste of time, things like agents wearing red ties on the detail.

02:21:45.440 This actually happened, by the way. These people will tell you this on the road if you get the

02:21:52.160 right people. He was concerned about the tie color of the agents on the detail because it seemed to

02:21:57.800 imply he supported President Trump. Congressman Biggs wearing a red tie. You're wearing a semi-red tie.

02:22:03.220 It has nothing to do with anything. This is the kind of stuff the secret service

02:22:06.580 was actually wasting their time with while withholding CSU counter surveillance assets and

02:22:14.080 counter-sniper assets from probably the most threatened man on earth. If you can explain

02:22:18.580 it, good luck because that's not the agency I worked for. Amazing job by Dan. He was so on point

02:22:26.120 as he always is. And, you know, you hate to say, I told you so, or that he called it on something

02:22:31.080 like this. He'd much rather not have the, I told you so moment, but man, he nailed it.

02:22:36.680 Oh yeah. No, he's been saying that for weeks and I completely, completely agree. It was Ron Rowe,

02:22:43.320 my sources tell me that had that issue with the red tie. Um, so, you know,

02:22:48.120 Oh my gosh. Yeah. It was Ron Rowe and he is the acting director. It is the other thing that I am

02:22:54.600 completely concerned about right now. Um, I am, I was just working on a story about this today,

02:22:59.900 trying to finish it up because it's more technical than some of my other stories,

02:23:03.880 but the fact that they are not using drones, they're starting to, they're really rushing into it.

02:23:09.220 But if you looked at mom, the, there's an email on the day of July 30th that I put out

02:23:16.100 from a counter sniper, I kept him anonymous, a counter sniper in the secret service, uh, that

02:23:21.920 was just completely fed up because the secret service has, you know, as Dan likes to say,

02:23:28.100 the secret service motto is, um, yesterday's technology tomorrow. So they, they, they're just

02:23:34.900 not technologically advanced in any way, shape or form. And there's so much frustration

02:23:41.360 about that. And they put out this new research and development right after the Butler rally and

02:23:47.440 the counter sniper was taking issue with that. And he said, Oh, too little too late. And he replied all

02:23:53.560 to every member of the uniform division of the secret service. And someone said, you, did you mean to

02:23:59.300 reply all? And he said, absolutely. And he downloaded like, yes, absolutely. I am sick of

02:24:06.600 the CYA culture. He called it in the secret service leadership. They all need to go. He predicted

02:24:12.520 another assassination attempt within 30 days. Well, you know, he was wrong only by 30 days.

02:24:19.680 Yeah. He predicted this. This is, you know, the, this is a counter sniper person who has a lot on the

02:24:24.360 line, but people are rank and file members are just fed up by the leadership. And there has been

02:24:31.140 this slow roll on lowering the standards in the secret service for the last 10 years. Um, because

02:24:37.820 of a lot of reasons, you know, you know, that Cheadle was very big on the 30 by 30 initiative,

02:24:43.260 meaning 30% women agents by 2030. And that there's also other lowering of standards. Um, they say they

02:24:50.880 don't practice with their, um, with their rifles as much anymore. There used to be much more a

02:24:56.020 practice, um, in that, um, that they would explain missing. Yeah. They, I mean, when they found out

02:25:03.960 right last in Butler, I think the counter sniper did a really good job, but we don't even know if

02:25:08.040 there were no, but today, today, today, today, they had the guy is one guy running away. You have

02:25:12.920 two sniper, two, two secret service agents. They say between four and six rounds fired, not one hit him.

02:25:17.680 That's right. And, you know, we don't even know if there was a counter sniper at that event. And

02:25:24.540 that's a key question to me too. Was there a counter surveillance unit? They had this bubble,

02:25:29.040 you know, they have one, uh, some secret service agents going advancing on the next hole,

02:25:33.560 some behind them, they call it the bubble. Um, but they didn't have the perimeter secured.

02:25:37.920 And so, you know, what are we going to do? What, what are we do going forward with this? But I'm

02:25:42.060 concerned about the lack of drones because a drone could have spotted the sky. If somebody was

02:25:46.860 circulating the drone, did they have a drone? I doubt they did. And the resistance has been since

02:25:52.480 2016. And I would say, I'm going to have a story about this as soon as I can get it out with this

02:25:57.520 new assassination, um, second assassination attempt. It's just unbelievable to me. Um, but

02:26:04.000 they have resisting leadership has resisted this since 2016. They have had information,

02:26:10.440 very detailed information. Congress now has that detailed information about why they should have

02:26:16.280 the drone program. They've had people wanting to do it and they've denied them the ability

02:26:21.180 to participate in the drone program. They have tethered drones at permanent sites like Camp David

02:26:26.900 and the white house, but they don't use regular drones. And, and there are people up in arms. And that

02:26:33.080 was one of the issues that the counter sniper was taking the anonymous one that sent that email was

02:26:37.300 taking issue with that day. He was basically, this is too little, too late, a dollar too short,

02:26:42.980 you know, a day short. It's just ridiculous. This guy, Ron Ruth is the one who, who made all

02:26:49.480 these mistakes and was focused on the color of the ties. And once again, I didn't secure the perimeter.

02:26:54.240 I mean, he's, he's got to go to who's going to get fired. I just asked this. Trump said this the

02:26:59.920 other day during the debate. He's like, they don't fire anybody. They didn't fire the people

02:27:03.620 responsible for the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Nothing can get you fired by this

02:27:07.900 administration. The first assassination attempt did not result in Kim Cheadle being fired. She was

02:27:12.540 forced out, but she was given the dignity of resigning, which she should not have been afforded.

02:27:16.760 And now here we are again with another guy obsessed with tie color, too focused on that,

02:27:20.960 apparently to keep the president safe. I'm sorry. Hats off to the two secret service guys or however

02:27:25.520 many it was ultimately who saw the shooter in the bushes. But there was obviously a perimeter

02:27:31.240 problem. Even I can see that. Absolutely. And the two people, okay, there's a lot of dissension

02:27:37.920 going on between the Pittsburgh field office. They put four people on work from home leave and they

02:27:44.460 only put one on from the Donald Trump detail. So there's a lot of people saying, well, that's not

02:27:49.520 fair. We didn't even know. And I'm breaking this news on your show today. We didn't even know about

02:27:56.360 the Iranian threat. And the Donald Trump detail did know about the Iranian threat. The field offices

02:28:01.640 are very resentful of that. But Mike Plattie, who's the director, assistant director of operations,

02:28:08.100 protective operations, he was encouraged to retire. Encouraged to retire.

02:28:14.980 That's the direct quote. That is the direct quote. Now I'm told that people like him, he's a good guy,

02:28:20.760 but he was too much of a yes man because he did sign off on all those denials that that Roe and

02:28:26.660 Cheadle were pressuring him to do. And we can also talk about, you know, Cheadle's role role in the

02:28:33.580 cocaine cover up issue, if you would like. I mean, there's layers and layers of problems here.

02:28:42.840 It's kind of this. It's an unbelievable place. So, you know, we have too much when you have the

02:28:50.200 director of the Secret Service being selected by a sitting president. There's a problem. You had

02:28:55.940 Jill Biden very involved in Kimberly Cheadle's ability to get that Pepsi job at Pexico, for

02:29:02.120 instance. That's where she came from. She was assigned to the vice president's detail. And that's

02:29:07.080 how she got close to the Biden family and Jill Biden. And so when it came time to name someone,

02:29:11.820 they named someone who was the closest to them. I'm told that this is not, this was not a good

02:29:16.540 hire, that she did not have the right reputation. We saw. Yeah. And, and the fact is that, you know,

02:29:25.040 you have too much, too much that there was a blue ribbon commission that was, I covered in 2015 that

02:29:31.420 said the number one problem is that the Secret Service director should be appointed from the outside.

02:29:37.760 It should not be someone who came from within the ranks because there's this sort of cabal. Well,

02:29:43.260 what happened with the cocaine, I'm told, and I've written a story about this that you can

02:29:46.900 see on my, on Real Clear Politics website, if you look under my, my name, that Kimberly Cheadle

02:29:53.040 was pressuring the Forensic Services Division to destroy the cocaine. And it was, they'd only did,

02:30:01.540 that they got a partial DNA hit. They sent it to the Martin of Homeland Security. They sent it to the FBI.

02:30:07.140 They got a partial DNA hit on the bag of cocaine, no fingerprints, but they got a partial DNA,

02:30:14.000 DNA hit, meaning I had to have that explained to me, meaning that there was somebody that was a

02:30:19.800 relative that they had some fingerprints on. They had some DNA already, sorry, the DNA already,

02:30:25.740 and they had a partial match, a family member. Okay. But they were not willing to go and interview

02:30:32.980 all the people that was in the White House complex that weekend. It was a very slow weekend,

02:30:39.620 but she was trying to get that cocaine destroyed. And I will have another supplement article about

02:30:46.480 this. And she was forcing the Forensic Services Division chief named Glenn Dennis to destroy it.

02:30:52.780 And this other, this other person in the uniform division who was the one who found it, they are

02:30:57.940 the ones who found it. You know, those are the people that really protect the White House. You

02:31:01.580 see them standing around the White House, the uniform division, not the special agents. They're found

02:31:06.040 it. And so their boss said, no, no, no, I really, really don't want, we have a protocol here. It's a

02:31:13.260 seven-year protocol. We keep our evidence in that evidence vault. Okay. And he said, no,

02:31:18.620 he was, he was acting at the time, um, head of the uniform division. He was a Black guy and, you know,

02:31:25.280 Chido really loves the diversity equity and inclusion program. She was big on DEI, but he

02:31:30.780 did not get, he wasn't elevated to the position. They hired someone from the outside, a different

02:31:37.200 person, a white man to take that position ahead of him. And that raised a lot of eyebrows because

02:31:43.320 they were okay. So people know people in the secret service community know that they were

02:31:48.860 just trying to destroy that. And they did not do a good job with that investigation. They, as you

02:31:53.300 know, Megan, they have these waves reports that everybody who comes into the secrets, it's into

02:31:58.640 the White House complex on any given day, you have those records. So on the, it was the Sunday before

02:32:05.540 July 4th. So it was a very slow weekend. The president's family, president's family had gone to

02:32:12.140 Camp David and then they came back for July 4th. Okay. It was a very limited number of people in

02:32:17.380 the week in the White House complex that weekend. They could have interviewed those people. They're

02:32:21.320 the secret service. Are you telling me, one of my sources said, are you telling me that as a secret

02:32:26.360 service, we're projecting outward that we cannot find somebody within the, the, all the workers,

02:32:34.200 500 workers at the White House complex. You're just broadcasting that we're not able to

02:32:38.660 investigate that properly by saying that we didn't want to violate their civil rights. We didn't want

02:32:43.860 to violate their civil rights was the excuse that Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman, um, that I've

02:32:48.940 had a contentious relationship. He's the one who kept tweaking you when you were reporting early on

02:32:53.820 about Butler and all of your information turned out to be right. He was openly saying you're wrong,

02:32:59.840 Susan. He was tweeting openly saying you're wrong. So it was pretty extraordinary because usually

02:33:05.460 the secret service will stay quiet. Or if they know that they, that they're going to say a lie,

02:33:10.520 they'll just, they won't, they'll dodge or they'll say it, uh, you know, without their name attached to

02:33:14.820 it. He attached his name in openly trying to crap on all of your reporting. And did you ever get an

02:33:21.020 apology from him when it all turned out to be correct? I'm not sure I can say, um, I've had

02:33:27.560 discussions with him about that and, uh, told him I'm extremely unhappy about that. Um, they are working

02:33:34.280 with me better. I will say, uh, not, not great, but better, um, better, but I will say that I've

02:33:41.000 known, I put that out there. I said, okay, you want to do that. You didn't answer all of my questions.

02:33:45.280 And I took a screenshot of the six very detailed questions. I asked them the day after the

02:33:50.040 assassination, I said, you don't want to answer me. You don't want to call me. You have my number.

02:33:54.600 They, he, I had just talked to him one month before because there was, you know, we had some warning

02:33:59.960 signs about problems within the secret service just a month before, um, when we had that woman,

02:34:05.140 a woman, her name is Michelle Herzig have, unfortunately have a mental breakdown at joint

02:34:09.740 base Andrews. She was attached to Kamala Harris's, uh, detail. Yeah. Yeah. It was a female secret

02:34:14.800 service agent who had like a emotional breakdown. Correct. And she was, you know, tackling her

02:34:20.180 supervisor and, uh, you know, she had a gun when her holster, so they had to disarm her. It ended up

02:34:26.420 being a security, you know, security problem for them. They, it was, it was scary for the agents

02:34:31.060 around her that day. They tackled her, got her gun away from her. And I'm told that this woman,

02:34:37.100 again, layers and layers of problem that that woman, Michelle Herzig was actually put through,

02:34:44.200 went through training, uh, at the rally training center. And she, the people complained that she was

02:34:51.240 kind of off mentally. And Kimberly Cheadle was the head of the rally training center at the time

02:34:57.740 and pushed her through that, that I know for a fact that happened. So, I mean, we're talking

02:35:03.140 layers and layers that that woman also, she would never have been hired by the secret service because

02:35:07.680 she sued the Dallas PD for sexual harassment and it was thrown out. And then it was thrown out again

02:35:13.180 on appeal. So that wouldn't have been a red flag for the secret service, not to hire her to begin

02:35:18.440 with. So, I mean, I had been in touch with your point earlier is such a good one though. When you

02:35:23.460 said that the director of the secret service should not be hired from within, because I understand Jill

02:35:28.420 Biden was all buddy, buddy with Kim Cheadle and that close personal friendship, uh, almost got Donald

02:35:33.520 Trump killed. And it did get a poor individual, uh, man killed who had a wife who had two beautiful

02:35:41.720 daughters and that's on her. That's on her. And, and it's frankly, it's on Jill Biden for thinking

02:35:48.520 that her, her buddy was qualified just because she knew this person would run cover for her.

02:35:53.940 So you're putting, because I don't care that the first family is comfortable with Kim Cheadle when

02:35:58.960 they made this election. What I care about is us. Rich Lowry was on half an hour ago saying, you know,

02:36:04.560 can you imagine if this had been successful, like how it would have divided the country? It would

02:36:10.200 have torn us in two, especially in the wake of the first assassination attempt. I mean, there,

02:36:15.980 the volatility that would follow such an event, putting aside the severe trauma to the Trump family

02:36:22.000 would be unlike anything we've seen in modern history. And so it should not be up to the first

02:36:27.800 family. This has to be somebody that anyone could agree is qualified above board is not going to be

02:36:35.340 the little Aaron girl for the Bidens, et cetera. And if we haven't learned that lesson by now,

02:36:41.520 then shame on us. You know, I, I feel certain if Donald Trump gets in there, he will rectify this

02:36:45.800 very certain Kamala Harris. The first one actually, he, he actually did, uh, was the first one to name

02:36:54.900 the director outside of the secret service. He named, um, Tex Ailes is his name. He was a former

02:37:00.860 Marine general and yet, but the cabal got to him and they pushed him out. I mean, he went, he left

02:37:08.400 when the Homeland security secretary left, uh, I think her name was Kirsten Nelson. I think that's

02:37:13.720 right. Um, but yeah, Tex Ailes left at the same time she did, but he got pushed out by all of the

02:37:19.920 people within the secret service that think that they control things. And it's really, there's a really

02:37:24.800 a culture. And I hate to say this culture of corruption in the secret service. They, they

02:37:30.500 don't, they have uneven discipline. We've seen that since Cartagena, you know, some people get

02:37:35.100 a slap on the wrist, especially if they, that's when everybody's running around with the prostitutes.

02:37:39.720 Right. Exactly. Yeah. It was a problem, but people, there was uneven discipline and they're in their

02:37:46.360 remains today, even during polygraphs. I already reported this. Some people, if they're connected to,

02:37:52.580 you know, former members of secret service, former leadership, or if it's some like a daughter or

02:37:56.680 maybe just somebody's friend, they can redo their polygraph. And there's been whistleblowers about

02:38:02.760 this that I cited in my stories. Um, and, and Congress knows all about this, uh, that, Oh,

02:38:08.140 you can redo your polygraph if you failed it. And what does that say about the standards? No,

02:38:12.800 I'm not kidding. Not. Yeah. I mean, this is what happens to work.

02:38:15.880 They, they even, okay, this is a deep concern. I reported this in a story about Iranian spying,

02:38:22.140 whether it's helped hurting our ability, um, you know, the national security ability to

02:38:27.200 protect Trump and others, you know, everyone, there's a lot of problems with Iranian spying

02:38:32.120 in this administration, as we know, with Rob Malley, the Iranian envoy, Biden's Iranian envoy.

02:38:37.380 And so somebody, they actually put through somebody, um, an account, an applicant in

02:38:44.020 the secret service. I have firsthand sources on this who failed the terrorist questions

02:38:49.900 on their polygraph. I'm not kidding you. It's in my, it's in my story. And I also quote an Obama

02:38:56.860 administration, senior, former senior Obama administration, intelligence official who said

02:39:02.080 he didn't say which one, but he said our protective services, and he named secret service, DHS and air

02:39:09.040 marshals. Um, they are penetrated by Iranian assets, either wittingly or unwittingly. They have been

02:39:17.460 penetrated. Oh my Lord. I mean, this is, this going from bad to worse here. Listen, I, for one, I can,

02:39:25.740 I confess, I didn't know you before the real clear politics beat for you. And I have since become

02:39:31.800 such a fan, God bless you. Thank God you're on this beat. I assume this will continue.

02:39:37.360 And so let's get specific about how people can find you go to real clear politics.com. And then what

02:39:42.580 you just there, we have our list of writers and then you can click on me and then you can get all

02:39:49.420 of the right, all of the stories I've done, um, over, you know, years, but in the last two months has

02:39:54.780 been focused on secret service, uh, and this Iranian spying issue. And, uh, I just really appreciate,

02:40:01.020 I've always been a fan of yours, Megan, and I just really appreciate your, your deep concern about

02:40:05.500 this issue and, uh, how, you know, how much airtime you're giving it when people want to,

02:40:10.580 before the second assassination attempt, I was feeling like people were moving on,

02:40:14.320 even though we had this very explosive, you know, report by Grassley last week with this Iranian,

02:40:20.140 I mean, it was detailed, but I, it wasn't getting that much play. And, uh, I think unfortunately

02:40:25.940 we need to make sure that this is has about, this is not just about Donald Trump. Okay. It is about

02:40:31.960 Donald Trump this right now, but it's about continuity of government. And it's about our

02:40:37.060 democracy, our ability to participate in politics as we see fit as Americans for a comparatory. He,

02:40:44.300 I mean, that's the worst thing we could have happen to our ability as Americans. Yeah. The murdered dad

02:40:50.680 murdered in front of his family members at a rally that he had every right to feel to go to and feel

02:40:56.860 secure at. And so I really appreciate your attention. Well, keep on keeping on keep, go get

02:41:03.380 them and we'll be following and, uh, stay in touch, please. We'd love to have you back.

02:41:07.840 Thank you so much, Megan. Wow. Extraordinary information there, right? Can you believe all

02:41:14.580 that? I mean, this organization is a mess. It's just a mess. It explains so much. No wonder they're

02:41:21.660 dropping the ball. I mean, I realized that the person responsible for what almost happened to

02:41:25.240 Trump today is this man who's now in custody, but let's face it. There was a perimeter problem

02:41:30.460 today as well. And it's even more egregious because it's exactly what was happening at Butler,

02:41:35.760 a perimeter problem in essence. I mean, it's not the same exact circumstances, but that's what the

02:41:40.880 problem was that building from which the shooter shot Trump and Corey Cronvatori was outside the

02:41:48.020 perimeter. Um, we did just get this in a couple of things here. Um, okay. Let's see. Uh, we have

02:41:59.600 sound from Ryan Ruth, the suspect. It was, I don't know when this was this newsweek interview he gave

02:42:06.680 fall June of 2022. Okay. So this is just two, two years ago. For some reason he gave an interview to

02:42:13.520 newsweek. I don't know what newsweek Romania. What bizarre. I don't know the circumstances, but

02:42:19.520 this is going to be our first look at him talking and, you know, explaining some, some piece of his

02:42:26.440 worldview and the not too distant past. Let's watch more emotional for me is also is just talking to

02:42:33.240 the guys that have come here. You know, when you talk to a 20 year old guy that sold everything

02:42:39.300 he owns to come at your fight, that is heroism. You know, he's coming here to risk his life for

02:42:46.180 humanity, for the Ukrainians, you know, guys that sell everything they own to come here and support

02:42:52.640 the Ukrainians while others sit at home and, and, and do nothing. You know, it's an indictment of our

02:42:58.700 entire human society to say, Hey, you know, where do we stand? Do we, do we stand for, for good or,

02:43:07.280 or do we just not care? I mean, does the, does the world not care? That's, that's the feeling that I

02:43:13.020 wrestle with every day, every day in my interactions with everybody, you know, every one of us is

02:43:17.960 responsible for the outcome of this war. Every one of us. Hmm. It's really interesting. He's in that

02:43:24.640 clip wearing a flag sweatshirt, American flag. And, um, he's got on the right half of his head,

02:43:32.080 gray hair. And on the left half of his head, blonde hair, he was definitely very is, I mean,

02:43:37.400 he's still alive, obsessed with Ukraine. That's an issue that Trump has been ambiguous on, to be

02:43:45.460 honest. Um, others in the Republican party, including JD Vance and RFKJ who just endorsed Trump

02:43:51.260 have said, it's, you know, enough's enough's enough is enough. And it's time to pull out.

02:43:56.800 I don't know. It's, it's very hard to respond rationally to such an irrational person,

02:44:01.080 but that's him talking about Ukraine, which was obviously a very big, very big issue for him.

02:44:07.480 FYI, the New York times once interviewed this guy too in 2023. So last year about his support for

02:44:15.740 Ukraine's war against Russia. How, how did he make their radar? Why would they interview this guy?

02:44:20.080 We'll have to figure this out, including plans to conscript former Afghan troops into Kyiv's

02:44:26.480 military. Um, I mean, it's interesting. Mary Catherine Ham just tweeted on all of his media

02:44:33.320 interviews. So isolated Nutter is going to be a harder sell when the New York times was happily

02:44:38.680 quoting him as a sophisticated activist. She's not wrong. Um, semaphore interviewed him. How,

02:44:46.520 why? Uh, we're going to know all the answers to these, those questions. We will figure out.

02:44:52.200 We will, the FBI can't hide that stuff. We're going to have to figure out all of that guys. This has been

02:44:56.820 an extraordinary day. I don't, I just feel sort of unsettled, right? It's like, I'm worried he's going

02:45:05.340 to get killed. Right? Aren't you? I'm worried he's going to get killed. How can they stop it? Unless

02:45:14.600 they treat him like he is the current president and respond accordingly with secret service assets.

02:45:21.720 Trump is going to get killed. And I have nothing but concern and love and empathy for his family

02:45:29.180 having to deal with that fact right now. Trump for what it's worth is typical Trump. I read you at

02:45:37.840 the top of the show, the statement he put out again, here it is. There were gunshots in my

02:45:42.420 vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first. I am

02:45:46.360 safe and well, nothing will slow me down. I will never surrender. I will always love you for supporting

02:45:51.600 me. Sean Hannity over on Fox news reported that Trump said in a conversation to him, something to the

02:45:58.000 effect of, I was doing pretty well on my golf round and I kind of wanted to finish. He said something

02:46:03.540 that he was even and he was about to shoot a birdie. So good for him, right? Finding humor in this. And I

02:46:09.840 think probably it takes a while to sink in that it almost happened again. I am kind of thinking about

02:46:16.400 Melania right now. She didn't want him to run for president. They had a great life. People love Trump. He was

02:46:22.400 fun. The left loved him. The right loved him. He wasn't that controversial. He was a bon vivant type

02:46:28.840 in New York. And I'm sure she was loving their wonderful life with their son, Barron and her

02:46:34.460 stepchildren, Trump's children. And then he felt the need to do it. He'd always toyed with the idea of

02:46:41.760 getting political. Um, you can see that a lot of the early Donald Trump interviews where he, he

02:46:47.120 considered whether he might run for president one day. And they say that that Barack Obama white

02:46:52.080 house dinner where he was just so disgusting and nasty toward Trump. I realized the birtherism,

02:46:59.140 I get it, but you know, really low blows that infuriated Trump sitting there that night.

02:47:05.020 And they say that's when he determined he was going to do it. He was going to run and he was going to

02:47:11.180 succeed Barack Obama. And he would undo the things that he didn't like about that presidency. And boy,

02:47:16.520 did he ever, I mean, Barack Obama's pen and phone didn't prove to be very valuable once Donald Trump

02:47:25.400 got in there and look what they've done to him. Look what's been done to him ever since they ruined

02:47:32.680 his first term with the Russia, Russia, Russia nonsense. They impeached him. He had spent all his

02:47:39.240 time devoted to that, trying to keep Don jr out of the clutches of the authorities, having people like

02:47:45.460 Michael Flynn railroaded, you're not, there's no crime, but you lied to us. And so you're going to

02:47:52.040 jail. And I mean, so many people around him in the crosshairs. And then I'm not going to defend

02:47:58.920 his behavior around January 6th. They're losing the election. I, I never have, but the second

02:48:03.900 impeachment was unnecessary. They did it anyway. And Nancy Pelosi quickly ran around to all the TV

02:48:09.920 stations saying twice impeached, twice impeached. They rubbed his nose in it. And that's why they

02:48:16.300 did it twice impeached. And when they realized that because he wasn't convicted, he could still run

02:48:22.640 again. They started with a lawfare. That was the before and after moment. We've managed never to do

02:48:28.820 it in 250 years. And they crossed that line. The raid at Mar-a-Lago, the Alvin Bragg indictment, 34 felonies

02:48:37.640 over the same exact act, one piece of behavior, 34 felonies, that moron and her partner down in Atlanta,

02:48:46.160 Jack Smith thinking he's Elliot Ness. He's figuring out where all the crimes are and he's going to be the

02:48:52.820 one to hold Trump accountable, a partisan hack. And it fell apart. It fell apart because it was

02:49:00.720 baseless and good judges for Trump or bad judges for Trump. The law is the law.

02:49:09.240 The verdicts against Trump in the civil cases did not fall apart yet, unfortunately. So he's still

02:49:14.040 facing some five or $600 million in civil judgments because Tish James in New York decided to try to

02:49:21.480 close Trump Tower and Trump's business. E. Jean Carroll got the law changed for her

02:49:27.340 so she could bring a lawsuit funded by Democrat operatives against Donald Trump.

02:49:33.220 Same way Christine Blasey Ford found some Democrat operatives to bring her claims forward against

02:49:38.080 Brett Kavanaugh, who Trump was, of course, that was Trump's pick, who Trump defended and stood behind

02:49:43.420 something no other president would ever have done. He didn't fold. The same thing that makes him say

02:49:48.420 fight after getting shot in the ear is the thing that made him stand behind Brett Kavanaugh.

02:49:52.280 It's the thing that makes him tweet, I hate Taylor Swift. It's the thing that makes him bring up pets

02:49:57.700 and the dogs. He doesn't give a shit that you question his strategy. He's accomplished the

02:50:04.320 unaccomplishable, notwithstanding the odds against him. But an assassin's bullet,

02:50:12.100 if allowed access to him over and over and over again, won't miss every time. It's insane that we

02:50:22.860 now have to use two hands to talk about the number of legal cases against him and two fingers to talk

02:50:29.760 about the impeachments and two fingers to talk about the assassination attempts. Let's pray it stops

02:50:37.000 at that. We'll have full coverage for you tomorrow on the show, starting at noon East, live on Sirius XM

02:50:43.000 Triumph Channel 111. And as you know, we drop the show later as a podcast and then youtube.com

02:50:49.020 slash Megan Kelly. Thank you all so much for watching us and listening to us tonight. We'll see you then.

02:50:55.880 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

02:51:07.000 Thank you.

The Megyn Kelly Show - September 16, 2024

BREAKING： Another Trump Assassination Attempt Foiled, with Buck Sexton, Rich Lowry, Susan Crabtree, Dave Aronberg, Bill Stanton, and More ｜ Ep. 888

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