The Megyn Kelly Show - Trump Assassination Attempt Fallout, And Florida Docs Case Dropped, with Emily Jashinsky, Eliana Johnson, Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, Sean Parnell, and More

00:00:00.420 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.

00:00:11.840 People, I can't even with this news day.

00:00:16.180 This is the list of soundbites that we were going to go to air with moments ago.

00:00:22.740 Then, we got the legal bombshell out of the Florida federal court.

00:00:30.160 Just buckle up.

00:00:31.700 I don't remember a news day this jam-packed in my time as a newswoman.

00:00:38.320 I don't remember one.

00:00:40.060 Welcome to the show, everyone.

00:00:41.100 I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:41.960 On Saturday night at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, former President Donald Trump

00:00:46.620 dodged a literal bullet, which grazed his ear in an assassination attempt that he survived,

00:00:53.120 but came within inches of taking his life.

00:00:56.300 This morning, Mr. Trump dodged perhaps the biggest legal bullet left in the lawfare chamber against

00:01:03.700 him as Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case in full against him.

00:01:13.360 Oh, and by the way, the Republican National Convention kicks off today.

00:01:16.620 A more unified convention than previously planned.

00:01:19.580 Former Trump rival Nikki Haley now expected to take the stage.

00:01:22.880 DeSantis as well.

00:01:24.700 And Trump says he will name his VP pick any minute, any minute right now.

00:01:31.020 Reports by Forbes that J.D. Vance just left his, just left for, left his home in a motorcade.

00:01:39.880 Now, that's not typical of a U.S. senator, I think, but they are beefing up the security

00:01:47.720 for all potential Trump VPs.

00:01:50.700 So that doesn't necessarily tell us anything.

00:01:53.380 We're on edge waiting to hear the name.

00:01:57.200 We're going to cover it all, including shocking new reporting about the security failures leading

00:02:01.280 up to the assassination attempt and some stunning video that we have our hands on.

00:02:06.000 And I've watched this several times.

00:02:07.660 I can't believe my eyes.

00:02:09.180 But we begin with the breaking legal news out of Florida.

00:02:12.400 Joining me now, Mike Davis, founder of the Article 3 Project, live from the RNC site today

00:02:16.500 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

00:02:18.180 And Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, where Mar-a-Lago is located.

00:02:24.380 Mike and Dave have been with us covering every twist and turn of this case.

00:02:27.420 Guys, welcome on this historic day.

00:02:29.440 Dave is overseas.

00:02:30.480 On your honeymoon, Dave, you're such a trooper.

00:02:34.740 Thank you so much for phoning in.

00:02:37.340 God bless and congrats.

00:02:39.800 Thank you, Megan.

00:02:40.820 I give all thanks to Sasha, my bride, because she allowed me to do your show.

00:02:46.740 She thinks that highly of you, Megan, and of Mike.

00:02:49.060 Oh, God bless you both.

00:02:51.060 Thank you so much for being here.

00:02:52.080 And Mike, what a day.

00:02:54.580 This was the case with the most legal peril.

00:02:58.680 The three of us have discussed it many times.

00:03:00.780 And it's not a partial victory.

00:03:02.540 It's a complete victory.

00:03:05.140 And it also may have a side effect of gutting what's left, the tatters of the January 6th

00:03:12.480 case, in which Jack Smith is also a special counsel.

00:03:16.480 So explain briefly why Judge Cannon just got rid of this case, Mike.

00:03:21.360 So we had the Office of the Independent Counsel under Ken Starr, most famously, that was created

00:03:29.360 by statute, a statute passed by Congress.

00:03:32.700 It's an office created by Congress, which is required under the Constitution.

00:03:37.400 And then once Congress intentionally allowed the Office of the Independent Counsel to lapse

00:03:43.080 because people were upset about Ken Starr's investigation of then-President Clinton, the

00:03:49.560 Justice Department just tried to do an in-run around the lapse of the Office of the Independent

00:03:55.600 Counsel.

00:03:56.060 And they created by fiat, by regulation, the Office of Special Counsel.

00:04:00.940 And they created this office that essentially, it's not presidentially appointed and Senate

00:04:07.580 confirmed like the Attorney General, like a United States attorney.

00:04:11.480 And this Office of Special Counsel essentially had jurisdiction that all over the country had

00:04:19.040 a pretty near full power of every U.S. attorney in this country.

00:04:24.780 And it had essentially an unlimited budget.

00:04:27.440 And that violates two provisions of the Constitution.

00:04:30.860 The Appointments Clause, which states that the offices must be created by Congress and they

00:04:39.220 must be appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate.

00:04:42.720 And then it also violated the Appropriations Clause because with this essentially unlimited

00:04:47.140 budget, it's not that this office is not accountable to Congress, right?

00:04:51.420 So that's the problem.

00:04:52.780 And what needs to happen is if President Biden wants to bring these charges or the Attorney

00:04:58.740 General wants to bring these charges against President Trump, they need to do it through

00:05:02.540 a Senate-confirmed United States attorney.

00:05:05.520 They can do it through the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida down in

00:05:09.840 Miami.

00:05:10.260 They can bring these charges if they want to refile them, but you can't do it through this

00:05:13.720 special counsel because this special counsel is not accountable to Congress.

00:05:18.380 It's not accountable to the Attorney General.

00:05:19.960 They actually made it where the special counsel is intentionally, they made it intentionally

00:05:25.180 where this special counsel is not accountable to the Attorney General on a day-to-day basis.

00:05:30.520 And that is clearly unconstitutional.

00:05:32.380 It's basically just a separations of powers thing.

00:05:35.080 It says, the court says, look, it's the President who gets to appoint people to these positions,

00:05:43.340 special counsel or U.S. attorney, that kind of thing.

00:05:47.080 And then the Congress weighs in with the confirmation.

00:05:49.220 And only for inferior offices can Congress create, you know, a process that might look

00:05:54.720 a little different.

00:05:55.720 And there is, that didn't happen here.

00:05:57.960 So Jack Smith has not been nominated by President Biden to do anything, nor any president prior,

00:06:03.700 you know, for this appointment.

00:06:05.020 And he certainly hasn't been confirmed by the U.S. Congress.

00:06:08.400 And nobody authorized payment to him.

00:06:10.480 And the Congress controls the purse strings.

00:06:11.960 So all of this is extra legal.

00:06:14.560 It's extra constitutional, which means it's unconstitutional.

00:06:18.300 But the thing is, Dave, other courts have taken a look at this argument in the past.

00:06:23.240 And it does appear that Judge Aileen Cannon is one of the few to find this way, right?

00:06:29.920 Other courts have been like, yeah, no, it's not a problem.

00:06:32.680 She's saying, you know what?

00:06:33.940 It is a problem.

00:06:34.640 And while she may look like a bit of an outlier, she's got something very helpful in her back

00:06:39.440 pocket, and that is Clarence Thomas's concurrence in the decision finding Trump has immunity

00:06:46.020 for most of the things alleged against him, which we read to our audience when it happened

00:06:49.740 as a very important piece of what might happen in getting rid of the Mar-a-Lago case.

00:06:55.340 And sure enough, Judge Cannon saw it, raised it, and felt as he did.

00:07:00.520 Right.

00:07:01.300 Notably, no other Supreme Court justice signed on to Justice Thomas's concurring opinion.

00:07:06.660 This position that Judge Cannon has taken is an outlier, as you correctly said.

00:07:11.220 I don't know of any other judge who has ruled her way.

00:07:15.140 Many other judges have found the opposite.

00:07:17.080 In fact, former President Trump thought this was such a reach of an argument that he did

00:07:23.100 not raise it in the D.C. election interference case or in this case.

00:07:27.300 He didn't raise it originally in the Mar-a-Lago case, except then the conservatives came in from

00:07:33.780 the outside and raised it. And then Judge Cannon allowed them not only to submit a brief, but then

00:07:39.780 to make the oral argument. And I mean, I think this case is definitely headed towards the Supreme

00:07:45.300 Court. It's going to go to the 11th Circuit, then the Supreme Court. And it is an outlier of an

00:07:50.580 opinion. I'm surprised by it. You know, I understand the argument that when they say that

00:07:56.520 Jack Smith is acting too independently. But remember, the rhetoric coming from Donald Trump

00:08:02.600 and his legal team has been Jack Smith is is a pawn for Joe Biden. Joe Biden and Merrick Garland

00:08:08.620 are pulling the strings here. So which is it? Is it that Jack Smith?

00:08:11.660 Well, those are political arguments. And this this this whole thing comes down to what is in

00:08:15.680 the Constitution. And, you know, there was a good piece in The Wall Street Journal by

00:08:19.940 former judge and then A.G. Michael Mukasey about it was July 7th. And he was pointing

00:08:27.080 out, you know, the actual language of the Constitution that, you know, Trump's going to

00:08:31.100 argue what he's going to argue. His rhetoric is kind of beside the point that he's pointing

00:08:34.940 to the appointments clause. And it's Article two, Section two, Clause two, which provides the

00:08:40.340 exclusive means for appointing officers of the U.S. All must be appointed by the president

00:08:46.760 and confirmed by the Senate if they are inferior officers. Like she said, OK, I'll accept for

00:08:53.240 purposes of this decision that Jack Smith is a special counsel is an inferior officer. She's

00:08:57.440 like, but I actually have questions about whether he would qualify. Then Congress may vest the

00:09:02.740 appointment in the president, the courts or the heads of departments like potentially an attorney

00:09:08.560 general. But they didn't. That's what Mike's saying. They didn't do that. There is not a special

00:09:13.880 counsel statute saying we will allow the A.G. to create this kind of special prosecutor and go out

00:09:19.460 there and take cases. And then also she she balanced them based on the appropriations clause saying

00:09:24.200 this prohibits money from the Treasury going out to people if it hasn't been appropriated by

00:09:30.520 Congress, which this hasn't. So that's how she got here. But let's and look, it'll be appealed to

00:09:35.480 the 11th Circuit, which is more conservative. And then it'll go up to the Supreme Court. Potentially

00:09:41.200 we'll see. But here's what I really want to get to, because the decision is what it is for today.

00:09:46.240 So what are the practice? I'll ask you this one, Dave, to start to start. What are the practical

00:09:49.900 effects of this decision now on this case, the election and January 6th, that case?

00:09:57.160 Well, this case was never going to go before the election. The trial was never going to happen

00:10:01.400 before the election once Judge Cannon got on it. And I I think that Judge Cannon doesn't get the

00:10:06.840 benefit of the doubt here because she has made very controversial rulings from the beginning

00:10:11.480 on this case that led her to be taken off the matter by the 11th Circuit. So this is going to

00:10:15.880 the 11th Circuit. And then I think it goes to the Supreme Court. But I think that Jack Smith now has

00:10:20.860 the ability to try to get Judge Cannon removed from the case. And as far as she's so fat, she found

00:10:26.060 exactly as a sitting justice of the United States Supreme Court found Clarence Thomas. She's such an

00:10:30.660 outlier and so crazy in her decision that a U.S. Supreme Court justice felt the need to

00:10:35.940 outline exactly this position. When a referee makes the calls every single time for the same team,

00:10:43.720 you have reason to doubt the impartiality of that referee.

00:10:49.580 Where was that argument with Judge Mershon back in the New York State Supreme? Please,

00:10:54.620 overwhelmingly, he ruled in favor of the prosecution. He gave Trump a few, but overwhelmed. That's not how

00:11:00.120 you go. Zero chance that Judge Eileen Cannon is getting DQ'd on this case at any point. That's my

00:11:05.300 view. Mike, so does January 6th go away too? Because Jack Smith, if he's illegal in one, he's illegal in

00:11:11.120 all. Well, this decision by Judge Cannon is only binding on that case in the Southern District of

00:11:19.320 Florida. It's not binding on Judge Chuckkin in D.C. It's persuasive. And I think that Trump can point

00:11:26.340 to it and ask for a dismissal. But look, here's the bottom line. These President Biden, these Biden

00:11:33.120 Democrats, they tried to bankrupt Trump. They tried to throw him in prison for the rest of his life.

00:11:40.920 They tried to throw him off the ballot. And now one of these anti-Trump people try to kill him.

00:11:47.900 President Trump is unstoppable, right? He's going to get elected in a landslide on November 5th.

00:11:54.080 He's going to take office on January 20th. And these federal cases are going to go away on day

00:11:59.580 one, as they should. Does this mean anything, Dave, for either the Hunter Biden prosecution,

00:12:08.520 which is different because it had a special prosecutor, but that special prosecutor is a

00:12:12.740 U.S. attorney. He has been appointed and confirmed. So in my view on that case is he's still legit.

00:12:18.360 He's okay. Or the Robert Herr investigation of President Biden, which has concluded without

00:12:29.420 charges. But there is some cleanup going on there right now as congressional Republicans try to get

00:12:34.920 the audio tape or videotape of his interview of Joe Biden. But he is not a federal officer at present,

00:12:43.360 right? And wasn't when he was acting as special counsel against Joe Biden. So does this have

00:12:48.700 any effect on those two? I agree with Mike. I think this is just confined to the Southern

00:12:54.260 District of Florida. And as it works its way up to the Supreme Court, then the breadth of the ruling

00:12:58.620 could potentially affect all future special counsels. It shouldn't affect the stuff in the past. I mean,

00:13:05.420 Robert Herr, John Durham, David Weiss, Robert Mueller. We've seen special counsels over and over again.

00:13:11.020 And this is the first time that one has been tossed out because of being unconstitutional. I must add

00:13:17.780 this. It's true that the federal regulations say that the attorney general does not provide the day-to-day

00:13:24.960 supervision of Jack Smith, but the AG does ensure that Jack Smith adheres to Justice Department protocols

00:13:32.600 and the AG can review major investigatory steps. So it's not a totally independent special counsel.

00:13:39.360 It's an inferior officer. And that's why I think the 11th Circuit is likely to overturn this.

00:13:43.940 But after the immunity decision, which I totally got wrong, I thought it was going to be much more

00:13:48.380 limited. And Mike Davis got it right. Who knows where the Supreme Court is going to go on this?

00:13:53.060 And the thing is, you're right that nobody joined Thomas in his concurrence raising this issue

00:13:57.020 about Jack Smith and whether he's an appropriate special counsel.

00:14:00.200 But one of the criticisms Thomas got for pointing this out was this wasn't raised in the immunity case.

00:14:05.960 So usually the Supreme Court won't opine on something that's not immediately before it and requiring them

00:14:10.300 to opine on it. It was sort of an extra add on. One of the reasons it was an extraordinary thing to

00:14:15.060 read. But the rest of the justices haven't tipped their hand at all. The fact that they didn't join him

00:14:20.560 in the concurrence doesn't surprise me at all because it wasn't before them. But I don't know that we're

00:14:25.160 able to say how they're going to decide this. But in any event, Mike, you tell me it's irrelevant

00:14:30.860 because Trump has dodged a serious bullet, legal bullet. He dodged an actual bullet pretty much

00:14:38.100 on Saturday. And this is this is huge that the obstruction piece of this case, forget the

00:14:45.200 withholding classified documents, the obstruction piece where he didn't turn over all the documents

00:14:49.280 when demanded was the most problematic of all the legal warfare against him. And it's for right now

00:14:57.560 gone. And if he does win in November, as you just predicted, all he has to do is pull that horse

00:15:03.160 back by the bridle and say, we're not pursuing this case anymore within the DOJ. And then it's

00:15:08.760 officially done. There'll be no appeal. Any appeal in process will be ended. It's truly over.

00:15:14.980 I would say this, that President Biden should be very happy that the Supreme Court and the Fisher case

00:15:22.480 ended those political persecutions of those January 6th defendants. I think President Biden should be

00:15:28.140 very happy. The Supreme Court said that the President of the United States is immune from

00:15:32.900 criminal prosecution for his official acts. And I think President Biden should be very happy

00:15:36.700 that Judge Eileen Cannon said that the special counsel is unconstitutional under both the appropriations

00:15:44.280 clause and the appointments clause. Because guess what? President Trump's going to be back in

00:15:49.480 office on January 20th. And Joe Biden is the biggest winner of these cases.

00:15:55.600 Donald Trump weighing in, telling Brett Baer, I'm thrilled that a judge had the courage and wisdom

00:16:00.000 to do this. This has big, big implications, not just for this case, but other cases as well. The

00:16:04.380 special counsel worked with everyone to try to take me down. This is a big, big deal. It only makes

00:16:09.100 this convention more positive. This will be an amazing week. My God, I mean, I think we can all agree

00:16:15.220 it's already been an amazing week. Let me ask you, Dave, Lawrence Tribe, you know, leftist

00:16:23.160 lawyer at Harvard and professor, and he is saying DOJ must appeal right away and then said an alternative

00:16:30.920 path would be for the DOJ to abandon the special counsel regulation and just refile the case without

00:16:37.280 a special counsel in D.C. Like go through a U.S. attorney, just refile the case in D.C. Or I guess

00:16:42.640 they could refile it in Florida, too. I'm assuming he doesn't like that jurisdiction because it would

00:16:47.200 go back to Judge Aileen Cannon, who he doesn't like. But even he says that would be optically

00:16:51.940 terrible and set a terrible precedent. Do you think that will happen? Democrats are so worried

00:16:58.260 about optics because from the beginning, Jack Smith could have filed this case in D.C., but they didn't

00:17:04.380 like the optics of that. They want to do it where the crimes allegedly occurred in the Southern

00:17:09.000 District of Florida. I thought that was a good move because if he filed it in D.C. and if they

00:17:12.540 go ahead and refile this in D.C., then I do think that Trump and his legal team would have

00:17:17.420 a valid claim that there's a venue problem here because the obstruction that's being alleged

00:17:21.620 occurred at Mar-a-Lago in South Florida. The illegal retention of documents really occurred

00:17:27.340 down there. And so I think it is possible they could refile this in D.C. under Merrick Garland and

00:17:33.180 the attorney general's office. But I think then they would be buried in venue arguments for months to

00:17:39.280 come. And then, of course, you're right. If Trump becomes president again, then this whole thing goes

00:17:42.920 away. You guys, I mean, I think this is the day we can officially say he did it. He did it, Mike.

00:17:49.540 He pulled the inside straight. Yes, there was a conviction in New York. He's not going to jail

00:17:53.400 for that. I just I show me otherwise he's not. Maybe they'll get a jail sentence. It'll be suspended.

00:17:57.900 Trump's not going to serve any real time on that. Georgia's gone for now and probably will stay gone

00:18:04.320 because it's going up in appeal, whether she was improperly left on the case, Fannie Willis, because

00:18:08.620 of her affair with Nathan Wade. An absolutely self-inflicted error that she never should have done.

00:18:14.940 I'm sure she's kicking herself and so are Democrats for such a stupid move in a case. And now January 6th

00:18:21.840 has been gutted by the immunity decision and the January 6th Supreme Court decision, not to mention

00:18:25.660 potentially this alien cannon decision, which could be persuasive. And the worst case of all for

00:18:30.220 Trump, Florida just went away. He did it. Mike Davis. He's he's Teflon Don. He he dodged the real

00:18:38.100 bullet. He dodged these legal bullets. I would make one clarification. President Trump has not been

00:18:43.160 convicted in New York yet. He has been found guilty by a jury. And I actually think that this

00:18:48.380 well, until the judge convicts in sentences and they the judge has moved back the date from back to

00:18:55.640 what was September 18th. I actually think there is a reasonable chance that Judge Mershon

00:19:00.120 declares a mistrial in that New York case because of the presidential immunity decision where they

00:19:06.440 they got evidence from President Trump's top White House staffers, co-picks, and then President Trump's

00:19:13.760 deputy chief of staff for operations. They got Madeline, I forgot her last name, but they they got

00:19:18.640 evidence from those two White House officials that is subject to presidential immunity and that the

00:19:25.160 Supreme Court made it made very clear in its decision that you can't use evidence that is

00:19:29.800 subject to presidential immunity that for that legal ground alone, there should be a mistrial.

00:19:35.460 Dave, what do you make of my assessment? Like he he fought as somebody famous once said he fought the

00:19:42.380 law, but the law did not win. It's my take on the famous face. It's incredible.

00:19:47.360 It is. Remember, it's it's not there was nothing nefarious about getting Judge Cannon as his judge.

00:19:54.540 That was just bad luck for Jack Smith. Jack Smith asked for this to go to the West Palm Beach

00:19:58.660 division that limited the number of judges. And once they got Judge Cannon, this case was never

00:20:02.960 going to be heard before the election. And then as far as the other cases, yeah, Fonnie Willis,

00:20:07.220 that was a self-inflicted wound there. The case in New York did happen. I don't have to disagree with

00:20:12.180 Mike. I think Judge Mershon is going to sentence him in September. But then I thought the strong

00:20:18.280 case in D.C., the election interference case, I thought that would go before the election, too.

00:20:22.100 And then the Supreme Court stepped in and said, no, not so fast. So, yeah, he has been lucky. And

00:20:27.700 sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Good gracious. What a time. Mike, Dave, thank you,

00:20:35.080 Dave. Enjoy your honeymoon and all of our best to your beautiful bride. She's a lucky woman.

00:20:40.560 When we come back, we turn to former President Trump surviving the assassination attempt at a

00:20:46.280 rally on Saturday. We have two former Secret Service security experts joining us to get into

00:20:52.460 exactly how this happened and how we're going to get to the bottom of it. And then the incredible

00:20:59.880 media meltdown.

00:21:01.360 Our nation today at a crossroads facing a moral dilemma less than 48 hours after the attempted

00:21:11.180 assassination of former President Donald Trump. It's a story, if we're honest, that we feared we

00:21:16.080 would have to report on one day and not just us. A lot of you wrote in to us about it. Some of our

00:21:20.480 friends in more right-leaning and honest media talked about it and then got ridiculed and ripped.

00:21:26.280 What happened in tiny Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday evening threatens to undermine

00:21:30.860 everything we hold dear. There are serious questions about this tragedy that killed one,

00:21:36.760 injured others, including the former president and presumptive nominee of the Republican Party

00:21:42.440 in this presidential race, Donald Trump. An investigation into the security failures

00:21:46.680 is already underway on multiple levels, both internally at the Secret Service and now several

00:21:51.360 House and Senate committees are doing a deep dive in which there will be hearings and testimony that

00:21:56.820 is compelled of those involved. But we cannot ignore the unhinged rhetoric from politicians and yes,

00:22:02.740 some in the media around this event. We're going to look into all of that. But first,

00:22:07.840 I want to walk you through what we've learned about the attack. And thank you for joining us on our

00:22:11.720 Saturday evening live stream as things were unfolding. For those of you who missed it and would like to

00:22:16.360 watch it. It's posted on YouTube still under live. Here's what we know so far for sure. As Mr. Trump

00:22:23.700 delivered remarks, a would-be assassin managed to climb onto a rooftop that was about a football field

00:22:29.660 and a half away from him. Anywhere between 130 and 150 yards are the estimates. Separated a killer

00:22:36.440 from the former president of the United States. Mr. Trump almost died on Saturday. Almost died very

00:22:41.960 clearly. He almost got his head shot off on national television. That's what happened. Keep that in mind

00:22:49.600 as you read the media and their write-ups of this event. Eagle-eyed spectators actually noticed the

00:22:55.740 man. They noticed the civilian. He was not any sort of black outfit, bulletproof vest. He wasn't trying

00:23:01.520 to impersonate Secret Service. And they called out to law enforcement for help. You can hear the alarm in

00:23:06.840 their voices. And they're like, he's right there. He's right there looking for any law enforcement

00:23:11.060 unseen, which yes, was outside the Secret Service security perimeter, but within

00:23:15.680 eyesight of where the president was then speaking and couldn't find anybody.

00:23:23.220 However, eventually someone got the word because based on the video we're about to show you,

00:23:28.180 law enforcement did get involved moments hereafter, but dragged its feet. Watch this.

00:23:32.480 Look, they're all pointed. Yeah, someone's on top of the roof. Look, there he is right there.

00:23:41.900 Right there, you see him? He's laying down. You see him? Yeah, he's laying down.

00:23:52.260 What's happening?

00:23:52.940 Yeah, look, there he is. Because we have millions and millions of people in our country that-

00:24:06.040 Shooter's readjusting his body position. Getting comfortable in position.

00:24:10.460 Right up here, he's on the roof, he's right on. We have people that should not be here.

00:24:15.720 Right here, right on the roof.

00:24:16.600 It's much tougher than him.

00:24:18.360 They have to- Again, adjusting.

00:24:20.200 That video is horrifying. There's no other word for it. A killer lying in wait. The people down

00:24:28.180 below, these are middle-aged women, men. They all see it. If you watch the video, you'll see,

00:24:34.120 I don't know, maybe 10 who are looking at him, pointing, saying, there he is, there he is. And if

00:24:38.700 you look behind them, they are 15, 20 feet away from the back of the Trump crowd. How is that outside

00:24:46.960 the security perimeter, by the way? There appears to be little to no urgency from the people tasked

00:24:53.040 with protecting the former and possibly future president. How is it that for that amount of time

00:24:57.640 that we just saw on video, we don't know how long it went on prior to that. No one from law enforcement

00:25:04.000 swarmed the area, nevermind the rooftop. What's more, we've learned that one officer, local cop,

00:25:10.900 actually did confront the shooter. We believe it was in response to these civilians. Went up on the

00:25:17.020 roof, we're told, but retreated when the gunman pointed a rifle at him, which allowed the gunman

00:25:23.180 to then open fire, reportedly, immediately thereafter, on Mr. Trump and the crowd. It's truly

00:25:29.960 unbelievable. And yet the former president survived, perhaps only thanks to God, who I believe must have

00:25:37.000 been protecting him that day. There's no other logical explanation. A man was killed trying to

00:25:43.580 save his wife and his daughter, and it's horrific what happened to him. The leader of our country,

00:25:51.060 former and possibly next, was spared. We're going to show you a clip now. You will hear Mr. Trump

00:25:56.820 speaking. And then he slightly tilts his head to the side. And I do mean slightly. He was gesturing

00:26:04.400 toward the slides he had brought to show the illegal immigration problem off to his right.

00:26:11.020 And that is why he tilted his head ever so slightly. Shots ring out. He grabs at his right

00:26:17.120 ear. The time is 6.11 p.m., roughly six minutes into his speech. Watch. Take a look at what happened.

00:26:27.580 Look at this, an inch or two in the other direction, and we could be talking about the

00:26:32.880 unimaginable. Within seconds, his Secret Service detail would surround him. An image from the scene,

00:26:39.200 widely circulated over the weekend, shows a female agent here on screen left,

00:26:44.140 crouching down behind all the other agents who are protecting Trump. And it does appear

00:26:48.760 that she is frozen in fear. That's an assumption. We'll wait to hear her explanation about why she's

00:26:56.000 there. Were there concentric circles that you're supposed to form around the president? I don't know.

00:27:00.380 Doesn't look good. This is a woman who is trained to take a bullet for her protectee.

00:27:05.860 She appears to be the one leader who was unable to holster her weapon in separate video. According

00:27:11.140 to a published transcript from CNN, a female agent is also heard asking, what are we doing? What are we

00:27:15.700 doing? Where are we going? It is unclear whether that's the same agent as well. Listen here.

00:27:19.860 A male urgent agent is then heard instructing people to take the former president to a spare

00:27:44.820 limousine. Less than a minute after the first shots ring out, law enforcement confirms the

00:27:49.840 shooter's down, taken out by a sniper. And that brings us to the moment that will go down in

00:27:55.020 history. As the agents attempt to move him, Mr. Trump tells them to wait, wait. He doesn't know

00:28:01.380 whether there's a second shooter. By the way, neither do the Secret Service. And with blood dripping down

00:28:07.380 his face, he lifts his fist into the air, the same fist that just touched his bloody head where he took

00:28:16.260 a bullet that grazed his upper right outer ear and mouths the words fight over and over. Watch.

00:28:24.820 Trying to tell the crowd he was okay. They would be okay. We would be okay. He understood on some

00:28:44.440 internal level what they needed and what the rest of us needed. Who would have the presence of mind and

00:28:51.580 the courage to do that? I heard someone online. I can't forgive me. I can't remember where I heard

00:28:56.680 it. It was a podcast saying he reacted the way every man alive wishes and hopes and praise he would

00:29:04.960 react. God forbid they found themselves in that situation. I think that's right. Our country still

00:29:10.600 does value courage, bravery, resilience, temerity, strength. And it's one of the reasons people love

00:29:17.160 Trump. He's the embodiment of it. For our YouTube audience, if you haven't seen this, please go look

00:29:23.060 at this moment as Mr. Trump lifts his fist in the air with the American flag waving behind him.

00:29:29.920 Not for nothing, but he was shot at 6.11 p.m. A couple of people have sent this to me. 6.11 p.m.

00:29:38.300 You read Ephesians 6.11 in the Bible. It reads as follows in part. Put on the full armor of God

00:29:48.880 so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 6.11, he was shot and that's 6.11.

00:29:57.340 Listen to that. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's

00:30:03.420 schemes. I'm almost emotional reading it. It's just what happened to him and our country this weekend

00:30:10.240 is extremely grave and extremely important. And we are all so lucky it wasn't worse than it was.

00:30:21.180 We'll get into the victim of this attack and the disgusting attacks on him still. His memory,

00:30:27.560 50-year-old firefighter, father of two young girls who are grieving today along with his widow.

00:30:32.320 And they attack him for his politics, for a silly political joke he made online one time.

00:30:41.300 Where is their soul? Where are their hearts? Today, Mr. Trump is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for

00:30:47.740 the opening of the Republican National Convention. He says he's tossed out his original speech and will

00:30:53.020 call for a new effort at national unity. Tucker Carlson has apparently spoken to the president

00:30:58.340 and said he's changed. He thinks he's changed. Taking a bullet in the face will do that to you.

00:31:05.220 In a statement released on Sunday, the former president also acknowledged it was God alone

00:31:09.320 who prevented the unthinkable from happening to him. He paid tribute to the other victims and said,

00:31:14.300 in this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand united. And he went on to say,

00:31:18.820 I truly love our country. He told the New York Post he is supposed to be dead today.

00:31:23.720 As for the man who tried to kill him, here's what we've learned. 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was

00:31:29.460 identified by the FBI on Sunday. The feds say he was not known to the agency prior to the attempted

00:31:35.300 assassination. As you know, we normally do not name mass shooters on this program because they desire

00:31:40.600 infamy and we decline to help. We've made an exception given that this is a presidential

00:31:44.940 assassination. The name is already ubiquitous. The feds say there was no indication of mental health

00:31:50.600 issues, though. I've got to be honest, tough to believe. Let's wait. He had a limited social media

00:31:56.120 presence. Also interesting. His politics are unclear, but we're going to learn more about all

00:32:00.920 of that. State voting records show he was a registered Republican, but federal election

00:32:05.880 commission documents show a donor with the same name, age and address gave money to a democratic

00:32:11.240 fundraising group on January 20th, 2021, the day of President Biden's inauguration. All right,

00:32:15.340 I am. I am telling you this because the moronic left wing press has spent the past two days saying

00:32:21.380 he's a registered Republican. He's a Republican. You absolute inane idiots. Yeah, he seemed like a

00:32:28.600 big Donald Trump fan, didn't he? What are you saying? Like he he secretly was a Republican,

00:32:34.800 so we can't blame this on Democratic rhetoric. What is your point? He loved Trump. Is that what

00:32:41.900 he killed him out of love? Is that where we're going to go? I mean, like, just stop. Just stop

00:32:47.400 that. I don't understand the insanely stupid argument that is being made over that. And the

00:32:55.680 same outlets that are reporting he was a registered Republican are nine times out of 10 ignoring the

00:33:00.780 fact that he was making donations to the Democrats, at least this one. All right. So I don't know why he

00:33:06.840 registered Republican. I don't know why he donated to a Democrat group. I do know he shot Donald Trump

00:33:13.380 to just stop. Stop. CNN and The New York Times reporting that the man's father is a registered

00:33:21.100 libertarian. His mother is a registered Democrat. My mom's a registered Democrat, too. That doesn't

00:33:25.500 tell us what his politics are. Both parents are licensed professional counselors, which is sort of

00:33:30.340 interesting. According to state records, the shooter was from an affluent area. He used a gun that

00:33:34.940 had been legally purchased by his father. His father told the local press, I don't want to talk

00:33:41.580 until I know what the hell is going on. And I've spoken to law enforcement. The shooter has been

00:33:46.000 described as a loner, was apparently rejected by his high school's rifle team. Here's a former

00:33:51.740 classmate. I didn't have any interaction with him, but he was like a kid that was always alone. He was

00:34:00.160 always bullied every day. He was just an outcast. Yeah. I mean, he would sit alone at lunch. I mean,

00:34:09.820 he was just an outcast. And you know how kids are nowadays. So they're going to see someone like

00:34:14.980 that and they're going to target him because they think it's funny or whatever. So it's the best way I

00:34:19.460 can describe it. It's honestly kind of sad. Like, I don't want to say this is what provoked it, but

00:34:26.540 you never know. And you said he was a loner? Yeah. I want to say he was a loner more because he was

00:34:34.620 just, he was quiet, but like he was just bullied. Like he was bullied so much, so much. He was just

00:34:42.720 made fun of, I guess, for the way he dressed or his appearance. How did he dress? Like they were

00:34:49.060 just saying jeans. He'd wear hunting outfits sometimes. He would always wear a mask even

00:34:57.340 after COVID. He wore a mask. The shooter did belong to a local gun club, which has a 200 yard

00:35:05.000 rifle range. Remember, he fired at former President Trump from less than that. Various news outlets have

00:35:10.700 reported that he had explosive material found both in his car and at his home. And there are some

00:35:17.720 reports that law enforcement believes he may have expected to survive the shooting and unleash further

00:35:22.560 carnage. Now, as we continue to piece together what went wrong, we are faced with a choice.

00:35:28.120 Who do we want to be as a nation? Perhaps we can glean the answer from another tragic event

00:35:33.800 at another time when our nation seemed irretrievably broken. On the night Abraham Lincoln was

00:35:40.040 assassinated. He wore a wool and silk line coat. It was the same coat he had worn just a month prior

00:35:46.400 to deliver his second inaugural address. Inside are stitched the words, one country, one destiny.

00:35:55.500 Are we one or are we not? Are we worth saving or aren't we? Do we want what's best for our nation,

00:36:04.220 for our children, or don't we? Is this the country we want them to grow up in?

00:36:10.860 Let's hope for all of our sakes we can find our way back to one country, one nation, under God,

00:36:18.240 indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Can't help feeling that bit by bit, these horrific

00:36:25.400 events, as awful as they are, may eventually, not immediately, push us closer to that. Just don't

00:36:32.240 think that the reasonable, normal American citizen wants to live like this. Joining me now,

00:36:41.400 we bring you three experts to analyze the Trump assassination attempt on Saturday. Sean Parnell

00:36:46.480 is a decorated combat veteran and host of Battleground with Sean Parnell. Sean has been on the program

00:36:51.900 many times. He was within feet of Trump at the rally on Saturday and has spoken, had spoken on stage

00:36:57.820 earlier that afternoon. Charles Marino, former Secret Service agent and author of Terrorists on

00:37:03.820 the Border and in our country. And John Spears, a special forces sniper and sniper trainer for law

00:37:10.260 enforcement and military and author of Warlord of the Unraveling. Guys, welcome all of you to the show.

00:37:16.620 Thank you so much for being here. Sean, you were one of the first people I thought of on Saturday. I

00:37:20.220 knew you'd be there. Tell us what you experienced and what stands out to you now, 48 hours out.

00:37:26.280 So much, Megan. And your intro is fantastic. And you mentioned spirituality and faith and religion.

00:37:32.580 And let me tell you, I've been on the stage with President Trump five times now. And from the moment

00:37:38.480 that I walked into that rally, and people can call me crazy or whatever, but there was something

00:37:43.860 different. There was something in the air. And the reason why I know this is because on June 10,

00:37:49.740 2006 in Afghanistan, and I've not really told this story before, I was blown up and wounded pretty

00:37:55.360 seriously, fractured my skull, got blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade. And I was unconscious,

00:38:02.140 but I felt something. I didn't know if I had already died or what, but I felt like something was

00:38:07.680 beckoning me to get back in the fight, something like a spiritual presence that really felt like my

00:38:12.480 grandfather, who I lost the day before I went to Afghanistan. When I was on that stage speaking,

00:38:18.440 I felt that same damn thing. And people for 48 hours have been sending me images of the flag because

00:38:28.900 I guess the wind had blown it and kind of got it tangled, but sent me images of the flag from

00:38:34.960 different angles, just convinced that there was something going on. It was surreal, call it an omen,

00:38:40.780 say it was something spiritual. I don't know, looked like an angel. And they fixed the flag moments

00:38:48.400 before Trump came out on that stage. And again, I just talked to the president 30 minutes prior before

00:38:54.800 he walked out, but there was something in the air. I mean, again, people call me crazy or whatever,

00:39:00.580 but there was something different about that day. And you're right. President Trump,

00:39:06.600 he called for this. Oh, Hey, you know, you got my favorite immigration graphic. You know,

00:39:11.140 I go off script. I tell my people like, I hate this teleprompter stuff. And they get the graphic

00:39:15.400 up there. He looks once cause he's got these screens behind him. It was right there with him.

00:39:20.700 And he looks twice and then six shots ring out. And I could hear the bullets, just the trajectory of

00:39:28.100 the bullets. I could hear them going supersonic cracking through the air right above my wife and I,

00:39:31.980 and I saw president Trump grab his ear. A second later, the secret service was on him. And then

00:39:36.740 I heard thump, thump of the counter sniper team. Then another couple of rounds, which was almost

00:39:40.740 simultaneous. And those rounds hit people directly behind me. It was a crazy chaotic day,

00:39:48.020 but I wanted to bring up the faith component because I don't care what people say, think fully

00:39:55.380 everyone has different beliefs in this country. And we welcome that, but there was something in the

00:39:59.880 air that day and it felt different. Wow. I believe you. And you were not only so close to the

00:40:07.360 president, Sean, but you were close as I understand it to some of the, the other victims who were hit.

00:40:14.580 The, the man, uh, who died is, uh, named Corey Comparatori, age 50, husband, father of two.

00:40:23.260 And, um, his daughter, Alison posted, uh, on, I think it's Facebook today saying in part, he was

00:40:32.840 the best dad a girl could ever ask for. Uh, my sister and I never needed for anything. He could

00:40:39.140 talk and make friends with anyone, which he was doing all day yesterday and loved every minute of

00:40:42.960 it. He was a man of God, loved Jesus fiercely, and also looked after our church and our members

00:40:49.580 as family. He died a real life superhero. She says, the media is not going to tell you how quickly

00:40:54.880 he threw my mom and me to the ground. They are not going to tell you that he shielded my body

00:40:59.860 from the bullet that came at us. He loved his family. He truly loved us enough to take a real

00:41:05.520 bullet for us. And I want nothing more than to cry on him now and tell him, thank you. Oh God,

00:41:12.480 this is hard to read. This poor young woman. I don't know how old she and her sister are. They look

00:41:17.000 like they're maybe in their mid to late teens, um, firefighter already in public service and,

00:41:23.240 um, gone too soon, age 50, just for going to a political rally to support a candidate.

00:41:30.380 He jumped on his family, Sean. I want to ask you what you saw in terms of those around you

00:41:34.260 and what your instincts were in terms of protecting those around you. There's no, it's no accident.

00:41:39.200 You've been in combat. Yeah. By hundreds of times in firefights. And I'll tell you something that

00:41:46.260 we often talk about the exceptional nature of this country and the fact that we are indeed an

00:41:50.820 exceptional nation, but we're made exceptional, not because necessarily of our political leaders,

00:41:57.100 although some are inspirational and great, larger than life. Certainly Trump was that day,

00:42:01.800 but our nation is exceptional because of the people. And Corey was one of those people. And there

00:42:06.780 were so many patriots that day that stepped up to help other people. You know, the pathway to a

00:42:15.000 meaningful life is acts of service through others with nothing, no expectation of anything in

00:42:20.700 return. And the people at that rally that day stepped up Megan in a way that I'd never seen

00:42:25.840 before. And when the shots rang out, I hear the rounds crack overhead and everybody in the crowd

00:42:34.680 just kind of froze for a second. And I heard people saying they're just fireworks. And I said,

00:42:40.780 they're not fireworks. It's a sniper. Everybody get down. Everybody get down. And people looked

00:42:45.300 at me like I was crazy. I already had my wife. Been lots of been in lots of firefights in my day,

00:42:50.940 but I've never been in one with my wife. But I got her down in the prone on the ground flat.

00:42:57.240 And there was a, uh, my friend, JD Longo is the mayor of Slippery Rock Marine combat fed his wife

00:43:02.320 was pregnant. And to my right was 95 year old Mrs. Fogle, whose son is languishing in a Russian prison

00:43:09.600 has been completely ignored by the Biden administration. Everybody froze. And in that

00:43:15.040 moment, I, one thought was going through my head and that was trying to ascertain the position of

00:43:20.640 the shooter. And within seconds it was two, one of two locations, water tower or building. And then

00:43:29.440 immediately, immediately I checked myself and I said, there's no way because the secret service would

00:43:36.540 almost certainly have those places on lockdown. And the next question was, you know, you have to

00:43:40.540 ascertain the location of the shooter to figure out whether or not you can move people and how you move

00:43:45.880 people, right? How you use cover and concealment to get people out safely. Because the reality was

00:43:52.180 secret service had their mission. They were on the present, right? You had local law enforcement,

00:43:56.420 SWAT and CERT teams that were on looking for an on the shooter. Some were helping with casualty

00:44:00.680 evacuation. But the truth is they were stretched way too thin. And the real question was you had

00:44:06.120 30,000 plus people there, one exit. How the hell do you get those people out of there? And when you

00:44:12.280 get shot at for the first time, everybody has this experience at some point you sit down and you say to

00:44:19.940 yourself, like, holy shit, someone just tried to kill me. That's never met me before. They tried to wipe

00:44:29.140 out everything that I was, that I am now, everything that I ever will be. And it takes a long time to

00:44:36.980 wrap your mind around the existential enormity of that. And, you know, not everybody in the crowd,

00:44:43.500 but I'm sure there had been people in the crowd that had been shot at before, but there were likely

00:44:46.840 30,000 people in that crowd that were experiencing something like that in that moment and needed to

00:44:52.280 figure out a way to get them out of there. But, and the last thing I'll say is this, because I didn't

00:44:58.260 see Trump fully stand because the secret service was around him, but I heard the crowd erupt in

00:45:02.740 cheers. And I knew that president Trump had showed himself to the audience, but what does it say

00:45:08.560 about the strength of the people whose life was in danger? And by the way, we were operating under

00:45:13.760 the assumption. And when talking with the law enforcement, as we were helping with evacuation

00:45:16.780 and helping with the casualties and helping with wheelchairs, we were operating under the assumption

00:45:20.800 that there were two shooters because there were two big pieces of machinery behind president

00:45:24.680 Trump and a hydraulic line on the one behind him had popped and, and, and, and broken. So we thought

00:45:30.580 there might be another shooter out there, but every single person in that crowd stayed there with

00:45:35.340 them. They didn't rush. They didn't stampede. They didn't hurt anybody. And damn it like that right

00:45:40.420 there is what makes this country exceptional, not the evil shooter who tried to do something terrible

00:45:45.240 that will forever have altered the trajectory of this nation. But the people in that crowd that day

00:45:50.480 supported one another. And to me, that's a major part of this story could not have said it better

00:45:55.920 myself, Sean. That's exactly right. You know, it's the old Mr. Rogers look for the helpers and the

00:46:00.500 helpers were everywhere that day from the emergency doctor who tried to save the life of this poor man

00:46:07.160 as he was dying and then realized it was not possible to those who didn't cause a panic. If they had

00:46:14.800 caused a panic and, and, you know, run for their lives and there'd been some sort of a massive herd

00:46:19.120 trying to get out, people always get hurt and sometimes killed in those scenarios. And that

00:46:23.480 is also to Mr. Trump's credit for refusing to exit that stage until he held up his fist

00:46:28.160 to show everyone he was okay. And reminding them what the mission is here, right? To fight,

00:46:34.260 fight for what you believe. That's leadership. Megan, that's leadership. That that's what it

00:46:38.100 means to be a leader. You know, it, it, to show people to stand up in that moment where the rubber

00:46:43.080 meets the road to show them that you are there with them. And in that moment, Trump exhibited

00:46:48.480 the leadership that this country desperately needs. And within 12 hours of someone trying to kill him,

00:46:54.840 the guys out there saying, no, we need to unite. We need to come. Think about that.

00:46:59.660 That's leadership. And Trump proved it on that stage.

00:47:02.600 And by the way, uh, you know, a credit to all of those who helped those in the crowd who were older,

00:47:08.720 who were scared, who didn't know what to do. And, uh, I've got to give a shout out to,

00:47:14.020 you know, my, some of my colleagues in the press who were there, the New York times featured an

00:47:18.940 interview with a guy named Doug Mills today, their photographer. And that man did a great job

00:47:22.960 of taking the pictures that we continue to show. They are iconic photos. And he talks about how

00:47:28.140 he was scared. He's covered presidents back to Reagan and, uh, he's never been present for such

00:47:35.000 a thing. And yet he continued to press his shutter. And that's the reason we have the images we have.

00:47:40.420 And we know some of the trajectories of the bullets. I mean, it had to have been very scary

00:47:44.380 for the photogs in particular, who are within a couple of feet of the president, but did their

00:47:49.660 jobs and documented true history in the making. We're going to take a quick break and we will be

00:47:54.740 back. Sean, thank you. Chuck and John stay with us. And we're going to start the next segment,

00:47:57.820 uh, so much to digest with them on where we went so wrong.

00:48:01.940 This just breaking from Reuters. This is their reporting that the Trump campaign will announce

00:48:11.100 its pick for Donald Trump's vice presidential running mate at around 4 30 PM Eastern today

00:48:16.500 during the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, citing a source familiar with the

00:48:21.740 matter. We'll see whether that pans out, but, uh, if that's true, we only have a couple of hours

00:48:26.280 to wait for what it's worth. Uh, we know that at least Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Doug Burgum and Glenn

00:48:35.380 Youngkin are all in Milwaukee. I can't, there's a lot, there's a lot going on today. Are you feeling

00:48:42.880 it too? Um, and one of the things that's going on going to go on today, tomorrow and in the weeks

00:48:50.180 to come is an investigation into how this happened. How did this happen? Yes. We're looking into the

00:48:56.840 shooter and they're trying to get his phone unlocked right now with court permission. Um,

00:49:01.160 the FBI is trying to see what's on there. That's critical. It doesn't look like so far they found

00:49:05.700 any sort of a manifesto, something that would make it obvious. He had a very limited social media

00:49:10.920 presence. He was on one of the lesser known, uh, social media companies, and there was very little

00:49:17.220 on there and he hadn't been using it for months. Again, we reported to the, uh, at the top of the

00:49:21.640 hour, he's not known to have had mental health problems though. Again, put an asterisk on that,

00:49:26.500 right? We'll see. We'll see about that. I mean, clearly anybody who does this to innocent civilians

00:49:31.520 and tries to assassinate a president has got some mental issues. That doesn't mean they're legally insane,

00:49:36.740 uh, but we'll find out. And they're trying to unlock that phone, which will be a treasure trove of

00:49:42.100 information. And I have pretty high confidence they'll be able to do it. But at the meantime,

00:49:46.420 we need to figure out how the secret service went wrong and local law enforcement went wrong.

00:49:51.680 Obviously there was a catastrophic failure. And here with me to help in that analysis is Charles

00:49:58.040 Marino, former secret service agent and author of terrorists on the border and in our country.

00:50:02.560 And John Spears, special forces sniper and sniper trainer for law enforcement and military and author

00:50:07.920 of warlord of the unraveling guys. Thank you again for being here. So Chuck is a former secret

00:50:13.680 service guy. Let me start with you. Can I ask you a question? We were just talking with Sean about how

00:50:18.600 a lot of the crowd looks stunned. Some, um, went down immediately to protect themselves or their

00:50:24.760 family, cover their family members. President Trump one second, it took him to go down. Is that part of

00:50:31.180 the training when you have a president, you know, by the secret service, like you hear gunshots?

00:50:36.160 Cause I just don't think, I don't know if it's a human instinct as soon as you hear it

00:50:39.720 to drop down as quickly as he did. Yeah. If you actually listen closely,

00:50:44.640 Megan, you can hear the agents as they're responding to cover him, yelling at him to get

00:50:50.920 down. And the reason why they're telling him to get down is because there's armor there on that stage

00:50:57.360 behind that stars and stripes pipe and drape. So they're, they want him to immediately get behind

00:51:03.220 that and then pile their bodies on top of his to give him the protection. That's that inner ring

00:51:09.840 of the concentric rings of security that you were talking about. That's the last line of defense for

00:51:15.940 the secret service. They trained for a whole host of scenarios, including the worst case scenario that

00:51:22.320 we saw yesterday, the attempted assassination. So there's a lot of training there, but the work

00:51:28.840 of the secret service, the efforts are put in on the front end, which is why we send agents out

00:51:35.380 to do protective advance of sites prior to any protectees going there. That is to be on the

00:51:42.100 proactive side and to identify and mitigate threats like the building that the shooter ultimately got

00:51:49.120 on top of. The secret service is responsible for creating the overall security plan. So whether we're

00:51:56.580 talking about the inner, the middle or the outer ring of security, they own that they are responsible

00:52:03.680 for coordinating that they are, are responsible for working closely with state and local law

00:52:09.660 enforcement who are supporting them to make sure that the plans are implemented effectively. And that

00:52:17.240 is where we see the gap. If this outer perimeter was where the rooftop was, and we know that that's the

00:52:23.220 case, the secret service doesn't get a pass by saying, well, that was outside the perimeter and

00:52:27.240 we handed that over to local Pennsylvania state troopers or local law enforcement. They're also

00:52:31.920 responsible for that too. That's exactly right. Especially since that building is naturally going

00:52:38.380 to come up to the attention of the counter snipers. So it's going to fall within the security plan and

00:52:45.320 only being, you know, 125 yards away with a direct line of sight to the stage. That's just outside that

00:52:54.240 middle ring of security. So absolutely, you're going to have your attention drawn to it as an agent,

00:53:00.840 as you're standing on the stage where the president's going to stand and you look out and you see that

00:53:05.980 elevated threat there. So you've got to go out as an agent and make sure that in your overall security

00:53:12.360 plan, you are drawing attention to that building, to local police and making sure that you are helping

00:53:19.100 them implement a plan to post that building, to secure it, to put somebody on the roof, whatever

00:53:24.920 way you need to do it, you need to make sure nobody had access to that building. And that's where we see

00:53:29.900 the fail. Anytime you see agents having to respond the way they did within that inner circle, that means

00:53:36.820 something failed in the overall security plan and failed catastrophically, which we of course

00:53:43.640 saw with our own eyes. So what have these reports Chuck that, you know, we, we showed the video

00:53:49.680 earlier of all of the people, the civilians on the ground saying he's right there. You can tell it's

00:53:54.880 not a sharp shooter shooter. He's got, you know, tan shirt and white pants, or maybe it's the reverse.

00:53:59.780 He's keeps moving his body to readjust. Like he's getting comfortable. I mean, you can just tell

00:54:03.720 even I, as a lay person can see, this is not a security official. And these lay people themselves

00:54:08.460 were very clued into this guy did not belong up there and appeared to be a threat. Maybe they saw

00:54:12.420 the rifle. It's just, you don't hear them say that during the clip, if I recall correctly.

00:54:17.080 So what of this report that they were the ones who saw my God, the guys up there. And then I don't

00:54:23.200 know if local law enforcement heard them say that or local law enforcement was already on it. They

00:54:28.480 certainly didn't appear to be already on it. And that they went up there and this guy turned his

00:54:33.100 rifle on them and the guy went back down the ladder and then started shooting. Maybe I've

00:54:38.580 watched too much TV, but in my head, as this plays out, of course it shouldn't have been allowed in the

00:54:44.220 first place. But once you're up there as a cop and you see a guy with an AR-15, you don't go back

00:54:50.220 down the ladder. But what's right. Tell me what's real. Yeah, look, the threat should have been engaged

00:54:55.600 right there. I'm convinced the shooter was on a suicide mission as he was making his way to the

00:55:01.220 building. If he had been confronted by law enforcement, the shooting would have started

00:55:05.520 between him and the law enforcement officers. I think the fact that he made it to the roof

00:55:10.140 and was spotted by a police officer up that ladder and no action was taken is really dereliction of

00:55:16.600 duty, if true. But the reporting of a suspicious person with a weapon started much sooner. So it tells

00:55:23.220 me that amongst the investigation, we're going to find that there was a significant gap in

00:55:28.280 communication because if the president's detail had known that there was a suspect armed who could

00:55:35.600 not be found by local law enforcement within the area, then you would not bring the former president

00:55:41.180 to the stage. You would actually keep him in the armored car until the situation was resolved.

00:55:47.480 So it tells me there's a communication breakdown. But as far as the investigations that are going to come

00:55:54.460 out of this, Megan, I can tell you, it's going to expand well beyond just what happened at that

00:56:01.840 site. You're going to see people looking at the HR hiring practices of the Secret Service.

00:56:08.860 You're going to see them looking at training. You're going to look at them looking at operations

00:56:13.560 and resourcing. Was the former President Trump detailed given all the resources that they needed to

00:56:20.340 match the threat level? They're really going to be under the microscope. And there's no way to

00:56:24.300 sugarcoat it. They've got a very, very rough road ahead. And rightfully so.

00:56:29.360 All those questions we're going to get into here. And yes, I agree. I mean, just on what we've heard

00:56:34.360 so far, there are real questions about whether he was adequately staffed. And let's just be honest

00:56:38.800 about five foot five women standing in front of a six foot three man as his protector. It's absurd.

00:56:45.120 It's not a question of sexism. My God, this is a joke. You don't put a five foot five woman in front

00:56:51.320 of a six foot three man as his protector. The headshot was right there. Had there been another

00:56:55.780 shooter, it would have been easy to take him out. I mean, the circle around President Trump was

00:56:59.740 exposed to had a massive flaw in it. This is later when they were getting him into the car. And here's

00:57:04.540 the one woman who can't reholster her weapon. Again, I hate to be so critical because I can't

00:57:10.380 holster a weapon, but I am not working as Secret Service. Let me just bring in John because you're a

00:57:16.560 former sniper. And John, all credit to the sniper for taking out the shooter quickly. I'm sure this

00:57:22.760 is not an easy thing to do. But a lot of people are wondering, if you're the sniper, I guess he would

00:57:28.260 be called a counter sniper, the guy up there working on behalf of the good guys. Why wouldn't that guy

00:57:34.020 have noticed another man on a rooftop 150 yards away, not even? Does he have an obligation to do

00:57:42.400 something before and to notice this before shooting starts? We can answer all of that pretty easily

00:57:51.320 by applying rational knowledge about how these public venue operations are carried out. Right now,

00:58:00.020 what's going on is there are two prevailing narratives, not even 72 hours after the failure

00:58:06.440 at the event. And these two narratives are very destructive to the country. One is that the

00:58:15.760 factory building about 125 yards from the venue podium where President Trump was speaking, that that

00:58:24.760 building was somehow outside the security perimeter. And we can deconstruct that. That's absolutely false.

00:58:31.860 The other narrative that is still prevailing is that the reason there's some perceived delay in the

00:58:41.000 counter sniper successfully engaging the shooter is that there was some order from Secret Service at a higher

00:58:49.000 level to not shoot, or that there are policies or procedures in place that keep them from responding to a

00:58:57.860 threat unless they're a threat unless they receive permission. And both of those narratives that are still

00:59:04.200 persisting are very harmful to the country. The answers behind why those things aren't true may not

00:59:13.960 necessarily be complementary to the local law enforcement involved, but it's way less damaging than letting the

00:59:22.960 country believe that any of those things that happen were purposeful or or or purposeful negligence because

00:59:30.960 that is absolutely not what happened. Yes, because just to just to add to that, there was a report from

00:59:37.040 a woman named Susan Crabtree. She's the White House and National Political Correspondent for Real Clear

00:59:42.740 Politics. And she citing a source in the Secret Service community has reported quite a few things. And one of them

00:59:50.840 is that it it is not protocol for Secret Service to shoot until after the target has shot first. And then NBC News

01:00:04.420 came out this morning and reported as follows. The roof, this is again, citing a Secret Service, I believe,

01:00:11.880 source. They say this roof was a well-known high priority vulnerability. It had been identified a day before

01:00:18.820 during a security walkthrough. The counter sniper team, two people were on site and they said counter

01:00:27.340 snipers do not need permission to shoot prior to engaging a suspect and said protocols here were not

01:00:36.600 followed. Now, I don't know what that means, but what do you take away from that, John?

01:00:40.180 Rules for use of deadly physical force never require a threat to fire first before returning

01:00:51.440 force to end that threat. That simply does not exist. That's completely false. I don't want to speak

01:00:58.820 about specific policies or procedures of any agency, but I mean, is a general principle rules for use of

01:01:09.320 deadly physical force is that a threat is evident, that they have the intent, the means, and the

01:01:16.280 opportunity to present that kind of deadly threat. And a person who's not supposed to be where they're

01:01:25.320 observed with a weapon, and of course, as a lawyer yourself, you understand what it means to evince

01:01:33.020 a deadly intent. Uh, that requires no level of authorization at any higher level. Uh, sworn

01:01:41.180 officer. Does that mean this guy, this sniper didn't see him? Like I got to imagine your secret

01:01:47.040 service sniper. You're up there. You see this guy with an AR 15, not in any sort of law enforcement

01:01:53.560 gear. And presumably, you know, where your fellow law enforcement officers are stationed on nearby roofs

01:01:58.100 and you don't, it does, it has to mean he didn't see him, doesn't it? Unless he just misunderstood the

01:02:04.860 threat. I will provide you what is likely the explanation for the events that we saw. Um,

01:02:14.420 you know, having spent 20 years working with law enforcement, special operations, snipers, and public

01:02:20.840 venue support, uh, for SWAT, uh, I can tell you what is most likely what happened. Part of this starts

01:02:29.120 with the fact, believe it or not, that secret service is such a professional organization

01:02:35.840 that demonstrates such a high level of respect for local agencies that they work with. So it's very

01:02:43.960 uncommon for secret service to work with a local SWAT counter snipers and micromanage them or over

01:02:52.440 instruct them, right? Most likely what happened is they said, okay, that factory building, you local

01:03:02.100 sniper counter sniper team are going to occupy secure and take that building as your overwatch position as

01:03:09.960 part of the operational plan. Check. What they are unlikely to say is, Hey guys, you're going to

01:03:18.120 observe from the roof, right? You're not going to go inside the building and try and observe and control

01:03:24.960 the scene. Right. You know, you're not going to set up an area where you have dead space where you can't

01:03:31.520 visually access your area of responsibility. Right. I mean, we know it's a hot day, but you're not going to

01:03:38.020 do that. Right. I mean, secret service, uh, they're, they're the highest level of professionals,

01:03:43.920 just like about all of the federal agencies I've ever worked with. And they don't go into a local

01:03:50.260 scene and micromanage like that. So it's what we call, there's a lot of implied tasks and implied

01:03:57.860 competence working with the local agencies. So I can definitely, is that possible that there was a local

01:04:05.180 law enforcement officer in that building responsible for that building who just didn't secure the roof?

01:04:17.580 Um, I won't tell you how I know that, but I will leave it that my conjecture based on

01:04:24.660 knowledge and experiences that there was a basic lack of tactical acumen. And that is most likely what

01:04:32.880 happened, which is why you do not see a counter sniper team on that building.

01:04:40.400 Wow. Chuck, your reaction to that, that, that they just local law enforcement was supposed to cover the

01:04:48.380 building. They didn't. And secret service may have been just too deferential to local law enforcement

01:04:52.680 in their expected expertise. Yeah. So, um, to the point I made earlier, uh, that would still be

01:05:01.660 unacceptable and fall back to the secret service because as the overseer and creator of the plan,

01:05:07.740 you're responsible to make sure anything that you're requesting, especially at a special, uh,

01:05:13.020 interest location like that building, that those things are implemented. So if it's possible that a

01:05:19.300 police officer or two were assigned to that building, uh, and they didn't show up and they didn't do what

01:05:24.440 was asked and it was identified as a significant threat to the protectee, then that's still a

01:05:30.800 problem. As far as the use of force curriculum, um, it's actually broader for the secret service

01:05:37.440 while they're conducting their protective mission. There is no policy in the secret service while

01:05:43.100 conducting protection that says you have to wait to be fired upon first. Um, that's absolute nonsense.

01:05:49.860 So you have free reign to do what's needed if there's an identifiable threat. Um, so that goes

01:05:57.520 back to the communication as to whether or not permission was sought. I don't know about that.

01:06:03.180 However, there needn't be permission sought. If there was a threat, an imminent threat that was

01:06:08.440 identified, the counter snipers are clear to take that out. Chuck, do you think that the counter

01:06:15.440 sniper, you know, the one that we've continued to see on the top of the other rooftop, maybe my team

01:06:19.200 can lay in some graphics here and some videos so we can see what we're talking about. Um,

01:06:23.640 was that a secret service guy or was that a Pennsylvania guy? It was a hybrid. Um, you had,

01:06:30.800 you had two special operations teams there. You had the counter snipers that you see,

01:06:35.740 and then you have the counter assault team that you saw come to the stage heavily armored with the

01:06:42.260 helmets on. That was also a hybrid. So what you have is a secret service component. You had a two man

01:06:48.800 team on the counter assault team. You had a split two more, two man team on the counter sniper team,

01:06:54.340 and they were supplemented by either local and state, uh, law enforcement.

01:07:00.260 So we don't know the guy who actually shot the shooter. We don't know whether that was

01:07:05.800 a federal agent or a local agent. We don't.

01:07:09.400 Hmm. And we don't know why he didn't shoot him prior to the shooter beginning his shots.

01:07:18.220 We don't go ahead. John saying he's got his finger in the air. What? Yeah.

01:07:23.860 Well, it's again, helping to deconstruct these, these two, uh, terrible narratives that are out

01:07:29.800 there. You know, right now, the biggest thing that we have to fight is, is this, uh, terribly

01:07:36.520 destructive idea that there was conspiracy or that law enforcement at any level was waiting to seek

01:07:44.920 permission to engage a threat or something, uh, like that. Chuck alluded to it earlier or flatly said

01:07:52.080 it. The problem with these interagency operations almost always comes down to unreliable

01:08:01.540 intraoperative communication. So, uh, I am revealing no source known only to me. I am,

01:08:13.060 I am betraying no confidence from people, uh, on the scene who have spoken to me of which there have

01:08:19.880 been several who have been students of mine over the years who are in that factual job, uh, and we're

01:08:26.900 there. I'm betraying nothing. Uh, this morning secret service has already in a polite way introduced the

01:08:35.180 idea that there's a local law enforcement failure that contributed to this. One of the local chief law

01:08:43.160 enforcement officers already revealed these, these issues, um, that, uh, the counter snipers assigned to the

01:08:56.120 building probably saw the shooter access the roof, but weren't able to do anything about it, that they

01:09:03.720 contacted patrol on the ground. And, you know, this has already been revealed by one of the local chief

01:09:10.820 law enforcement officers is that one patrol officer was forced to heft another officer from a position to

01:09:20.200 access the roof to see the shooter. And before that officer could engage the shooter, he fell there,

01:09:27.920 there was no ladder involved. So, so that's already been revealed and out in the media. We know that's

01:09:33.420 the case. It's just what Chuck was talking about that the communication problems between these agencies

01:09:40.920 that are kind of thrown together, uh, uh, it's very difficult. So what I saw of the videos of the

01:09:49.860 counter sniper who successfully identified in very, very rapidly engaged the shooter was that he didn't

01:10:00.320 have, uh, audio communication to guide him onto the threat. You see him take his eye out of the optic

01:10:08.500 to get visual access to the scene and then get back on the optic and immediately drove that optic to the

01:10:17.820 threat. And, you know, as evidenced by the audio, the shooter, unfortunately got any shots off,

01:10:24.500 but the threat was eliminated by that counter sniper is faster, faster than any other human could have

01:10:32.340 ever done. It was, it was amazing. Keep going. Yes. The problem was with the interoperative communication

01:10:40.960 and having those counter sniper teams aware of the fact that there was a threat on the roof. And,

01:10:48.100 and the other thing that probably in many of us have been in that experience before the other thing

01:10:53.720 that likely added to a delay was the counter snipers knew that at the factory building, that that's being

01:11:01.980 occupied by good guys, by another counter sniper team. And there was most likely a delay that was due to

01:11:10.480 what we would call deconfliction, right? It takes some amount of time to visually acquire what you're

01:11:17.860 trying to find, to process it and say, Hey, who's on the roof? Is that a bad guy or is that a good guy?

01:11:26.240 And that deconfliction and that extra amount of time, uh, you know, was a human and a systems error,

01:11:35.120 you know, very much a systems error that, you know, it, when we look at failure of multi-agency

01:11:42.700 operations, uh, and critical incident failures in law enforcement, the, the inability to have good

01:11:51.600 interoperative communication between the different elements is always a leading cause that's identified

01:11:58.680 in the after action. Now, Chuck, do you agree? Am I wrong on that? No, stand by, stand by. I want to,

01:12:04.340 I want to tell you the report to which John is referring. Um, the local Pennsylvania sheriff

01:12:09.100 defended the armed officer who encountered the would-be Trump assassin on the rooftop moments

01:12:13.500 before the shooting, claiming it was the right call to retreat after the gunman pointed the weapon

01:12:18.260 at him. Butler County Sheriff Michael Sloop confirmed Monday that a local officer made contact

01:12:22.800 with crooks after being hoisted up to the roof by another officer, but fled when the sniper pointed

01:12:29.620 his AR style assault rifle at the officer. Quote, I would have done the same thing. Absolutely.

01:12:35.000 Said the sheriff quote, all I know is the officer had both hands on the roof to get up on the roof,

01:12:39.280 never made it because the shooter had turned toward the officer and rightfully and smartly the officer

01:12:44.400 let go. So was being hoisted, got a gun pointed at him, let go to save his own life. And then

01:12:52.520 the shooting proceeded, um, by the bad guy as follows, as we all saw. Why are you shaking

01:12:58.000 your head? No, John. Well, that, I mean, that's very accurate, but at the heart of all of this,

01:13:03.220 the root cause is, uh, very inadequate assets being dedicated to president Trump and the campaign.

01:13:13.820 That is the basic discussion now. So let me go with you on that, Chuck, because you mentioned it and I,

01:13:20.440 we've got to, we've got to look at the head of the secret service and this, uh, look, I have

01:13:25.380 absolutely no pardon for the female secret service officers who looked incompetent. They looked

01:13:31.480 incompetent in the video that we've all seen. Um, not necessarily on the stage. The one woman there

01:13:37.040 seemed to be doing her best to protect him just like the male agents, but she was too short.

01:13:41.200 But however, when they were bringing the president over to the vehicle, the secure vehicle to get him

01:13:45.600 away, it looked like it would look like a bunch of sorority sisters who were hung over the one with

01:13:51.420 the ponytail whipping around. She didn't know where she was going. The other one who couldn't

01:13:54.220 reholster her weapon. Um, not, not one of these women inspires any confidence. And by the way,

01:14:00.420 if they're 30 years old, it would be a lot. I mean, they seem very young and they don't seem in

01:14:05.040 control or command at all. Look at this woman. She doesn't know what she's doing. She's got it.

01:14:08.820 She gets her sunglasses back. Okay, great. Um, this woman on the left looks like the one who was

01:14:13.040 crouching earlier, though. I can't say it for a fact. Okay. But, and I want to talk about the

01:14:16.880 diversity effort, but before we go there, Chuck, the whole weekend, all I could think of was fine.

01:14:23.040 Let's have that discussion, but let's first talk about who didn't secure the scene.

01:14:26.540 The person who didn't make sure the rooftop was adequately secure is the person we need to be

01:14:33.860 talking about. And I have no idea whether that's a female or a male. Do we know any, but then anything

01:14:39.420 about who that is? We don't, you're referring to what's called, who was the site agent who did the

01:14:45.500 protective advance ahead of time and who was there to run the show of the day of? We don't know who

01:14:51.020 that person was, the level of experience, the gender. We don't know any of that. Um, I can continue

01:14:58.520 here with the DEI program. If you'd like, um, the director of the secret service, Kim Cheadle,

01:15:05.840 uh, has created a program known within the secret service as the 30 for 30. Uh, that is the director

01:15:15.160 wants to achieve 30% female agents and officers within the secret service by the year 2030.

01:15:24.680 To expand hiring, they're aiming to have 30% women recruits by 2030 and even allowed YouTube

01:15:31.660 influencer, Michelle Kare to train with ages. But I'm very conscious, uh, as, uh, as I sit in this

01:15:39.520 chair now of making sure that we need to, uh, attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are

01:15:45.160 developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, um, and particularly women.

01:15:51.060 This program has created great contention within the secret service. And some of the questions that

01:15:59.260 are going to be asked of the director is have standards for hiring, for training, for assignments

01:16:07.540 been lowered to achieve this program. It's a very straightforward question. And now the director

01:16:17.280 is in a position where she's going to have to prove that it hasn't. And I hope it hasn't,

01:16:24.520 but unfortunately I don't think speaking honestly, that's going to be the answer.

01:16:30.480 Mm-hmm. I mean, it looks obvious. It's so absurd to try to paint this as female empowerment. Is it

01:16:37.540 female empowerment to take a bunch of women who are obviously unqualified for the job and let them

01:16:42.040 publicly humiliate themselves and endanger the lives of a president and his fans? Is that female

01:16:48.300 empowerment? That's a national embarrassment for womankind. No one gets uplifted by such a decision,

01:16:54.320 whether it's on a secret service detail or a Boeing plane, diversity, equity, inclusion have no place

01:17:01.220 in jobs that relate to safety and security. And frankly, they have no place anywhere,

01:17:06.540 but certainly not in those jobs, not in an OR, not in a cockpit and not in front of the president's

01:17:12.180 protective detail. It's deeply wrong. Look, I used to live in Arlington and there was a woman in my

01:17:19.340 whatever townhouse unit who was about six foot two and strong. She was built and she was a secret

01:17:28.760 service agent. And I remember thinking like that kind of makes some sense to me. I could see that

01:17:33.760 as long as she's weapons trained and she can do all the other stuff. And then you get the occasional

01:17:37.220 female firefighter who matches that description too. But it's what less than one half of 1%.

01:17:43.560 Those are the only ones who should even be considered. And the women who look like me

01:17:49.000 or on the smaller side and could easily be run over by a five foot seven male have no business being

01:17:58.100 there, Chuck. This wasn't necessary. I've worked with females my entire career and the females that I

01:18:07.040 worked with were fantastic. They were as trained as I was, as capable as I was, both physically and

01:18:14.660 with a firearm. And there was great comfort and trust when you were serving on protection details of

01:18:21.160 which I served on many. So, you know, to divide the agency like this has not been helpful. But this is

01:18:29.820 where the director has focused since her time as director. And I think that's going to come up

01:18:36.440 because I don't think the priority of this director's attention has been placed where it

01:18:42.660 needs to be. And that is getting the most qualified people into the agency and focusing on the operations

01:18:50.140 of the agency, which is a no fail mission. You got to show up to work and get it right 100% of the

01:18:57.260 time each and every day. The Secret Service is not the type of agency that needs to be kinder,

01:19:04.960 gentler, gentler, and softer. That's not it. That's not what the Secret Service does each and

01:19:11.780 every day. What you wanted to see with former President Trump being taken off that stage,

01:19:18.260 I can appreciate the visual of the fist raised in the air. But if I'm there, his feet don't touch the

01:19:25.620 ground. He loses all say on being evacuated from that very dangerous situation. And unfortunately,

01:19:34.620 I fear when it's looked at that the answer was that they were incapable of doing so because they

01:19:41.280 had incapable people around him. He talked today to the New York Post and Byron York about the fact

01:19:49.680 that he you hear him in the tape saying, where are my shoes? Get my shoes. And he said he was hit so

01:19:54.480 hard by the Secret Service. He was hit right out of his shoes. He was wearing shoes when he began the

01:19:59.400 speech. But then they they listened to him when he said, wait, wait. Right. And I see I take your

01:20:04.920 point. And in that particular moment, they should be in charge, not him, because they knew that they

01:20:09.900 had shot the one sniper, but they didn't know that there was another sniper. How many more? The

01:20:16.620 assumption is always there's more. The assumption is it could be a diversionary attack. It could be split

01:20:22.960 tactics. It could be everything. So so the assumption is you get them up as soon as you can.

01:20:28.900 You get notified the threats down. At least the identified threat is down and you move them. You

01:20:33.980 get them out of there. Forget the shoes. Forget stopping to reassure the audience. I get it. But at

01:20:41.800 that point in time, it becomes my show and we're moving. It could it could have taken a moment where

01:20:49.080 he dodged a bullet all but dodged a bullet and turned it into a situation where he actually did

01:20:54.620 take a bullet. I mean, I see the danger. I've got to ask you about resources, because again, this is

01:21:02.220 only from this one reporter who you guys are both saying does not have her facts right about shooter

01:21:07.480 protocol, sniper protocol, that absolutely the Secret Service can shoot any threat without being shot

01:21:12.120 upon. But she also did report and it's gotten a lot of traction online that one of the reasons there

01:21:19.040 may not have been appropriate resources for President Trump there was because and she is

01:21:24.980 sourcing two sources within the Secret Service community saying the only permanent agent from Trump's

01:21:32.120 detail during the rally was special agent in charge Kern and that all others were temps. Pittsburgh,

01:21:40.100 U.S. Secret Service field office had a Jill Biden visit and designated a lot of resources to her

01:21:47.560 according to at least one of her sources. She says the advanced work only occurred one day beforehand

01:21:52.860 because of a lack of resources. Where were the resources? It was the Jill Biden visit. Let me get your

01:21:59.880 reaction to that first, Chuck. Is that that possible? Right now, the Secret Service is denying that

01:22:05.020 on the record saying that is not true. She's wrong on that as well. Yeah, I got to tell you, it's not

01:22:12.140 uncommon to have more than just one visit fall under a geographic area controlled by the same field

01:22:19.620 office. The Secret Service historically has been able to walk and chew gum regarding resources, even if

01:22:27.100 they needed to fly them in. So I don't know why that would have been the problem. I think they would have

01:22:32.820 been both adequately staffed and the capability was there from a resourcing standpoint for sure.

01:22:40.520 So I can't comment on that. I can tell you that it doesn't surprise me. It does not surprise me,

01:22:47.700 sorry, that they're both, that they are both having to be staffed significantly. One's the first lady

01:22:54.800 and one is the former president and the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party. So they're both

01:23:01.560 pretty high level. Yes. What do you make of that report, John? I, you know, I don't know whether

01:23:08.440 it's true, but she's also in there reporting that many of the, those working around President Trump

01:23:14.360 were temps were, I don't know what that really means within this context. Well, DHS Secretary

01:23:21.100 Mayorkas is providing the same level of protection to President Trump that he's providing to the border.

01:23:26.160 Um, you know, I'm not the expert that Chuck is on, on dignitary protection, but a basic principle

01:23:34.280 of body bunker as a tactic, putting yourself around the principle to shield them with your body from any

01:23:43.860 ballistic threat, a basic requirement for that technique is that the people providing the body bunker

01:23:51.940 are as big or bigger than the principle to provide them the protection. And exactly what you pointed

01:23:59.180 out, Megan, what you're seeing is just the prima facie evidence that Trump has been assigned the B team

01:24:07.020 or, or less. You know, the last time we had a situation like this, I believe Teddy Roosevelt was

01:24:15.620 president, um, running for reelection as a former president. And the same thing happened. He was

01:24:23.600 almost killed by an assassin. I don't need a, I don't need Chuck's background to know that woman was

01:24:30.340 too small to be protecting Donald Trump. That it's obvious. Uh, there's no offense. I actually don't

01:24:37.140 give a shit if she's offended or not. She's too small. She's not the right person for the job. Doesn't

01:24:40.880 mean she can't be behind the scenes doing tactical planning in an office. That's, I don't care about

01:24:45.840 that, but same with, with firefighters, you know, and then we've seen this in the New York city police

01:24:50.040 officers who, you know, we said dancing like many of these women are obese. Many of the men are obese

01:24:56.600 too, but men have a natural advantage of strength when it comes to their female counterparts. It's just,

01:25:02.700 we've crossed the Rubicon into a lack of safety for civilians. And in this case, a former president

01:25:09.660 in the name of equity. And it's disgusting. I hope this is part of the beginning of the end,

01:25:14.920 Chuck. Um, I do wonder about the Dan Bongino reporting because he is definitely in a position

01:25:20.860 to know he's got a lot of secret service context still, and he was on body protection for Obama

01:25:24.720 and he's reporting and sticking very certainly to his reporting that, um, the agency officials,

01:25:35.060 and I think this means the secret service officials denied requests for more security

01:25:40.040 from secret service supervisors on Trump's protective detail. So I, that's either DHS he's

01:25:46.060 talking about or senior secret service, but that, that secret service supervisors wanted more

01:25:51.640 protection for Trump and that it was denied. This spokesman for the secret service, Anthony

01:25:57.720 Guglielini denied that such a request and denial took place though. I will tell you as a lawyer,

01:26:04.140 I noticed some wiggle room in his answer. He says, that's an untrue assertion that a member of the

01:26:08.200 former president's team requested additional security resources. All right. So he's saying that

01:26:12.740 a member of the former president's team and that those were rebuffed. And then he says,

01:26:17.140 in fact, we added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of an increased campaign

01:26:27.320 travel tempo. I don't know whether that means agents or whether he can just say, you know,

01:26:32.780 we had to give him a few more laptops and guns, you know, what, what do you, what's going on here?

01:26:38.540 Um, yeah, very, uh, very gray statement. Uh, you know, I can tell you that the emails, uh, once they're

01:26:46.820 requested, which they will be, uh, from places like the office of protective operations, uh, are going to

01:26:53.940 show whether or not requests were made and if they were denied and what those requests were. Um, former

01:27:01.020 president Trump, as we know is a very high profile person by nature. Um, and along with that profile

01:27:08.180 comes an increased threat level. That's just the way it is. The more vocal you are, the more people

01:27:15.100 don't like you. That's just the way it is. And the secret service has to pay attention to that

01:27:20.720 and adapt. So if there were requests made and they were denied, uh, this is not going to help,

01:27:27.660 uh, with the general theme of what happened. Will these congressional investigations, uh, house

01:27:35.060 oversight, house Intel, and forgive me, I can't remember the committee in the Senate, but also

01:27:39.580 the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats. I mean, it's kind of interesting that they too have

01:27:42.820 said, we've got to investigate what went wrong here. I don't know that I trust the secret service

01:27:46.420 to investigate itself, but do you believe these congressional investigations will get to the

01:27:51.340 bottom of this Chuck? I mean, I'm, I don't know why Kim Cheadle hasn't tendered her resignation

01:27:55.320 already. Yeah. You know, there's all, there's also a request now coming out of Congress for,

01:28:01.300 uh, an independent commission, uh, to look at this similar to the Warren commission.

01:28:06.360 So, uh, I think there's going to be a lot of developments here. I think that type of request

01:28:11.120 would be very hard for Democrats to push away. I think this needs to be a bipartisan issue. Uh,

01:28:20.020 and I think this is a good way for agencies like the FBI and others to say, let us do our work.

01:28:26.860 We'll present you with our findings. Uh, and then you can take those into consideration,

01:28:32.360 but as far as the secret service doing an investigation of itself right now, uh, I think

01:28:39.160 it doesn't matter. I think the only way, uh, the secret service is reviewed, uh, is by independent

01:28:46.400 agencies, uh, or outside agencies. Well, and Chuck, let me follow it up with their kind of underground

01:28:53.760 at the moment. You know, we've had a couple of pressers now from the Jersey, sorry, I keep saying

01:28:59.120 New Jersey, it's Pennsylvania state officials, the sheriff and so on secret service. Wasn't there

01:29:04.000 secret service held a presser to tell us what they're doing at the RNC PS. The headline is

01:29:09.060 they're not increasing security. They feel it's already adequately covered. They haven't spoken.

01:29:12.840 I mean, I I'm not sure this is the kind of thing where it's like you got caught having an affair when

01:29:16.980 you were up for a cabinet position, just go underground and say nothing. It's not one of those events.

01:29:21.200 So what do you make of their utter silence right now? Oh, I've said from the start, I think it's a

01:29:27.560 strategic error. I think you've got to come out and you've got to face the music. Um, you've got the

01:29:33.380 line that there is an ongoing investigation. Uh, but I think the media and the American public just

01:29:40.000 want to be reassured, uh, that former president Trump is being protected the way he needs to be

01:29:46.540 protected. Um, I think you can talk about that maybe not in totality, but I think you can come

01:29:53.200 out and reassure the American public that yes, everything that's, that needs to be done is being

01:29:59.120 done. Uh, acknowledge that there was a failure in the overall security plan. There's no running away

01:30:05.580 from that. I think you get that over with. You take the hit from a PR standpoint. You say there's

01:30:11.900 ongoing investigations. You can't comment to more on too much more on that. And then you reassure the

01:30:18.060 American public that everything's been fixed. Uh, and he's going to have the highest level of

01:30:22.520 protection along with everybody else that the secret service protects. I don't know why they're

01:30:27.560 burying their heads in the sand. Trump today, just today is calling for RFKJ to receive secret

01:30:34.900 service protection too. And if Joe Biden denies that now, I mean, he's just absolutely heartless.

01:30:39.440 He's going to have to provide it. This is just too hot, a political culture at the moment. You

01:30:44.420 guys have been wonderful. Thank you for educating us both and giving us so much of your time. Chuck,

01:30:48.800 John, all the best to you. Thank you, Megan. A pleasure. I'm Megan Kelly, host of the Megan

01:30:53.740 Kelly show on Sirius XM. It's your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations with the most

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01:31:55.020 After a historic news weekend here in America, the media has proven itself to be

01:31:59.240 incompetent yet again. That's one word for it. Corrupt. Biased is another. Aren't two others.

01:32:05.840 A stunning headline from the front page of the Denver Post declared,

01:32:10.420 gunman dies in attack. What in the actual F? When we first saw this headline circulating,

01:32:16.940 we thought it was a joke, but it's real. That's how they're describing an attempted presidential

01:32:21.300 assassination. And the New York Times at first went with Trump hurt, but safe after a shooting.

01:32:26.800 You know, like he was just, you know, it was a drive by, like he was in on the South side of

01:32:30.320 Chicago. No, there was no mention of an assassination attempt. Then there's Forbes for the W who in a

01:32:37.340 now deleted article asked reader Sunday, will surviving gunfire be Donald Trump's next appeal

01:32:42.120 to black voters? It was from a DEI writer. That's their beat. Everything must be seen

01:32:46.760 through the DEI perspective. Here to discuss it all and more, two of our favorites best known on this

01:32:53.040 show as the EJ's Eliana Johnson, editor in chief of the Washington free beacon and co-host of the

01:32:57.500 podcast ink stained wretches with Emily just chinsky as well. She's DC correspondent for

01:33:03.240 unheard ladies. Welcome back to the show. Eliana, I know you've got your time is short. Um, the media,

01:33:08.500 I pointed out the heroic behavior of, for example, the New York times photographer who

01:33:13.280 continued to press the shutter despite grave danger all around him and got us these iconic photos,

01:33:18.240 but the print journalists who actually have to write copy different story. It's amazing. Um,

01:33:24.200 you know, we, I spent part of the weekend writing an editorial about this, trying to process this

01:33:29.000 and thinking about the role of the press, which in past shootings, whether it was, um,

01:33:36.220 the 2021 shooting at a spa in Georgia, the media jumped to tell us this was symptomatic of right-wing

01:33:43.400 anti-Asian hate or Sarah Palin's use of a crosshairs imagery on a map, um, that was attributed where

01:33:51.100 they said when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot, that Palin was responsible for this.

01:33:56.260 Um, you know, I have no doubt that if it was an assassination attempt on Biden, that we'd be hearing

01:34:02.380 how the rights rhetoric was responsible for this, but instead, or we're not getting that in the news

01:34:09.420 coverage. And the other interesting thing about this is I think there's no institution in American

01:34:14.240 life that's done more to empower Trump or help his rise and now resurrection, uh, than the media,

01:34:21.400 um, in the belief that he's the weakest Republican standard bearer. And Trump, um, showed in his

01:34:28.180 response to this, how, how foolish that that is because he really did show grace under fire.

01:34:33.620 Can you believe the fact that MSNBC took Joe Scarborough off the air this morning? His show

01:34:42.400 did not air reportedly because they're so worried that he or one of his panelists will say something

01:34:48.280 incendiary about Trump who's still recovering from this attempted assassination. The network,

01:34:54.520 once that hit push back saying, Oh no, we're just enrolling breaking news coverage. Well, why what's

01:34:59.220 wrong with him? He can't do rolling, but you have lots of reporters who can go on his show.

01:35:02.000 They don't trust him because they know he's hashtag part of the problem. Eliana.

01:35:08.200 It is look credit to the management of M of NBC and MSNBC that, um, had a moment of sanity here

01:35:16.860 because they're right. Um, I think it's true that either one of the two hosts of that show,

01:35:22.600 Joe Scarborough or Mika Brzezinski, or one of their many, many guests, uh, would have said something

01:35:27.980 that would have tarnished the reputation of NBC or MSNBC, um, and, and their flagship show.

01:35:35.700 But it is incredible that they have to pull that show from the air because they can't trust what

01:35:40.160 the people are going to say to talk about major political news, which is their job.

01:35:44.120 Right. Newsflash. I think you better have a talk with Jen Psaki too, who was on meet the press over

01:35:49.120 the weekend talking about how scared she is about the journalists here and how we really need,

01:35:55.480 you know, president Biden to be a healer. Okay. President Biden is also hashtag part of the

01:36:00.140 problem. And yes, it's fine to worry about journalists in general, but in this particular

01:36:03.720 instance, the person in danger is Donald Trump, Jen Psaki, not random journalists. It's just absurd

01:36:10.740 the way they approach these stories. So Eliana, as we go into this news cycle this week with the RNC,

01:36:17.240 and we have a more unified type candidate. That's the way Trump is thinking. Do you think the media

01:36:24.380 will respond accordingly by softening its coverage of him? I think the coverage will be a bit softer,

01:36:30.220 but it's also turned softer on Biden, um, where you see there is no more talk of pushing Biden off

01:36:37.400 the ticket. But I do think it's going to be difficult for them to go into this convention and be vicious

01:36:41.700 and nasty, which is what every bone in their body is, uh, is telling them they want to do. Look,

01:36:47.240 everything right now is coming up Trump, um, starting with his response and the photographs

01:36:54.200 captured of that attempt, which are historic, um, and ending with this morning with the dismissal of

01:36:59.820 the document case, the decision by judge Eileen Cannon down there. Um, and so things continue to

01:37:06.380 move in his direction. And I do think the, the media coverage will be less, uh, vicious and nasty

01:37:10.780 because of it. We'll continue to have losers like Keith Olbermann. I'll tell you in the next block

01:37:15.640 what he's saying. Eliana, thank you. Emily, thank you for sticking around. There's so much to cover.

01:37:21.500 Very grateful to have you. And I'm sorry that it took us two hours to get to the audience any other

01:37:25.840 day. You'd be the whole show as you always are, but my God, you understand today. Very extraordinary

01:37:30.560 afternoon. Well, and it was such fascinating content, listening to people with knowledge of what

01:37:34.760 happens inside the secret service and people who law enforcement passed with protecting the

01:37:39.060 president. So it was, uh, riveting to even just listen to. Thank you. And it's interesting because

01:37:44.220 that guy, John too, well, while he was very careful about not disclosing exactly what his knowledge

01:37:48.720 was based on, he's very well connected, uh, to all the players in this case. So we were grateful to

01:37:53.240 have him as well. Um, so here's how I see the news today. All right. You've got, okay. You've got

01:38:02.200 president Trump surviving an assassination attempt and creating one of the most iconic photos and

01:38:07.060 moments of all time, leading even some Democrats to say, I got to vote for that guy. I there's no,

01:38:13.000 that is a super human kind of strength that we all witnessed there. You can have that guy,

01:38:18.100 or you can have the guy who falls up the stairs trying to get on the air force one who can't keep

01:38:24.160 his words together, who can't spit sentences out, who has to go to bed at eight, who can only work

01:38:29.920 four to six hours a day. I mean, truly like the contrast could not be more stark. And then he

01:38:36.060 comes into today with the RNC about to, you know, get going. It's going to be a celebration of Donald

01:38:41.520 Trump and finds out that the most problematic of the four legal cases against him is done.

01:38:46.860 It's dead at least for now and probably forever. Um, and that that could also affect Jack Smith's role

01:38:54.800 in what's left of the January 6th case, which was already on life support today, just a matter of

01:39:00.760 moments. He's going to be announcing his vice presidential pick, which will imbue the campaign

01:39:04.940 with another round of enthusiasm, not from the media, not from the left, but from Republicans,

01:39:09.940 no matter who it is. Some will be a little disappointed. Some will be excited, but net net,

01:39:13.740 these things tend to have a positive uplifting effect. And against all that, what you have on the

01:39:19.120 democratic side is president Biden before the Trump shooting, holding a conference call with

01:39:26.020 angry house Democrats who are saying, get out. We, we can't win with you. And reportedly so inept

01:39:32.900 on this call that I'm going to repeat what Jake Sherman of punch bowl news reported during the call

01:39:40.360 with the progressive caucus. The president said, said out loud that his staff had passed him a note to

01:39:46.680 quote, stay positive. You are sounding defensive. I didn't read the note allowed to participants on

01:39:53.720 the call. I'm sorry. And then last night from the oval, he got out there and tried to strike this

01:40:01.480 conciliatory tone. Let's go for unity and continued to screw up his words. Instead of saying, we'll decide

01:40:09.320 our differences at the ballot box repeatedly said at the battle box and the transcription person at the

01:40:15.240 one. There's just, and here's the end of my synopsis. Now there's reporting via Axios that some of the

01:40:22.740 top senior leadership among the dams who were most rabid about getting Biden out have resigned themselves

01:40:29.480 to the reality in their view that Donald Trump just won this election, that he's going to get a second

01:40:34.740 term and that there's really no point in expending any more further political capital in trying to get

01:40:40.220 Biden out because the conclusion here in their view is foregone. I mean, it's, they know what it's

01:40:47.140 going to be. So what do you make of this chain of events and where it leaves us? It's just, it's

01:40:52.120 such a knot to untangle, but it's really the most remarkable state of affairs. I think in modern

01:40:58.300 American political history, it's crazier than 2016, the night that Donald Trump actually won the election.

01:41:03.960 I think right now we're in a moment that's actually even crazier than that, because as you just laid out,

01:41:08.060 Megan, the sitting president of the United States had a cognitive breakdown in front of the entire

01:41:12.340 country. The last two weeks have been spent with donors actually revoking, saying they are not

01:41:18.140 giving more money to the democratic party. You have high profile Hollywood stars, democratic lawmakers

01:41:24.620 saying that they can no longer support the sitting president of the United States, not because of

01:41:29.160 policy differences, but because he is too old. He's not capable of handling his duties. And then on top of

01:41:35.620 that, you have this historic moment, as you just laid out, Megan, of the former president of the United

01:41:40.220 States getting shot in the head, just grazing his ear, obviously, but being millimeters away from

01:41:47.380 death on national television at a campaign event. And all of this is playing out as that former president

01:41:54.160 goes into the pomp and the circumstance of the nominating convention. And so just psychologically,

01:42:00.620 Megan, I'm trying to imagine what it's like to be Donald Trump right now. You survive by millimeters.

01:42:05.520 In front of the entire world, a bullet actually hits your ear. Those iconic photographs are snapped.

01:42:12.980 And then you head into Milwaukee with a huge legal weight just about off your shoulders. A vice

01:42:19.180 presidential announcement to make. And Donald Trump obviously revels in this type of pomp and

01:42:24.120 circumstance. And then you're being coronated as the Republican nominee. I mean, you have to imagine

01:42:29.520 that the trauma almost has him, you know, going back and forth, oscillating between the trauma of

01:42:37.480 that and the stress that it can put on your life, but also kind of walking on air with all of this

01:42:42.920 politically, personally laid out in front of him this week. I've been thinking about that picture

01:42:47.920 we just showed with the fist up in the air, this iconic picture with the flag overhead and the Secret

01:42:52.420 Service trying to get him off stage, the blood on his face. And I think Donald Trump's whole life in a way

01:42:57.180 prepared him for this moment. You know, he is incredibly strong. He is a fighter in the fighter flight

01:43:03.760 contest. Fight always wins with Donald Trump. And it's, of course, made him controversial. I mean, I have

01:43:10.700 been on the receiving end of some of that myself, and it can be somewhat alarming for those who find

01:43:15.520 themselves on the wrong side of him. But net net, it's what made him president. It's what made him,

01:43:21.240 you know, incredibly rich and successful. It's what made him not roll over and, you know, get into

01:43:27.060 the fetal position when he got indicted four times. It's what made him an effective president. It's what

01:43:32.200 made him stand behind Brett Kavanaugh when no other sitting president would have stood by that guy being

01:43:37.380 accused of being a serial rapist by these loons who we didn't necessarily know were all loons at the

01:43:42.220 time. Donald Trump didn't care. He stood by his nominee and he got him onto the bench.

01:43:46.180 All of it. And it's what made him able in that moment to raise the fist. Not only that, but he's a

01:43:54.020 natural born performer. He he hosted the number one show on television for a decade. He's really talented

01:44:01.360 in front of the camera, has a natural showman's instinct for what works. I've told the audience

01:44:05.880 before, he always sits down in an interview and says the lighting's like this. What about this? There's a

01:44:09.640 shadow here. Move that. He understands almost like a reality show would that there's a camera on him at all

01:44:15.280 times and that it matters how he behaves. And on top of that, Emily, you've got his connection with

01:44:21.300 the UFC. And before that, the WWE, you know, he loves going to these events where it's raucous and

01:44:29.080 it's rowdy and it's rough and going into the ring, you know, pretending he's in the fights himself,

01:44:36.360 the showmanship of that and what people like to see in a in a battle, you know, a physical battle

01:44:42.800 where people could actually, you know, throw blows and all that. So we sort of got a lifetime of being

01:44:48.400 around conflict and understanding how to own the moment. I just think all of this fed into

01:44:55.220 this extraordinary thing we saw where actually under fire, he was able to maintain his composure,

01:45:05.260 his strength, his messaging to the people, raise his fist in defiance and say, fight.

01:45:14.080 The WWE point is fascinating. And on top of that, I just want to add what a lot of people have already

01:45:20.000 heard on the audio that was being picked up by the presidential mic that was still on after Donald

01:45:24.760 Trump and the bullets were flying by him, flying towards his ear and all of that. You heard him say,

01:45:30.180 let me get my shoes. And many people have pointed that out at this point. But I think it was a very,

01:45:34.460 very conscious effort on Trump's behalf to understand he had cameras enrolling right in

01:45:41.940 front of him. He turned to the crowd very intentionally. He didn't just mouth fight

01:45:45.460 into the Secret Service people's face, into their heads as they were covering him. He intentionally

01:45:50.840 sort of, you can see this, maneuvers himself so that he's looking out at the crowd and saying,

01:45:55.840 fight. He wanted to have those shoes on. He told Byron York after Byron said, it looked like you

01:46:00.340 wanted to keep speaking. He said, yeah, I did. That Byron had picked up on something accurate.

01:46:05.280 And that's no surprise. And that's when you mentioned the WWE UFC point, that really,

01:46:11.500 I think the images of somebody with blood streaked across their face and a fist up in the air,

01:46:16.820 the parallel is, it's almost eerie, Megan. But it was very much Donald Trump knowing that he had

01:46:23.220 cameras on him, that there were video cameras, and that there were actual cameras. And it's reality

01:46:29.360 television. And the last point I would make is that he's extended the reality television onto

01:46:34.880 truth social as well. He's been reacting, like we see people who are in the public eye do,

01:46:42.420 not presidents so much, but he's been reacting, dictating through reporting, we know. He's been

01:46:46.560 dictating his truth social posts about all of this. He posted one not long after the shooting,

01:46:51.520 a couple of the next day, just kind of bringing people into his mindset, like he typically does.

01:46:56.860 Sometimes it gets him in trouble. Sometimes it works really well for him. But in this case,

01:47:00.600 I think it's been working well for him because it's, it's inviting people into the moment with

01:47:04.600 him. It matters. You know, we, I've heard Charles CW Cook, who I love over at national review,

01:47:11.120 not a Trump fan say many times fairly that in some ways, Donald Trump might not be the most

01:47:16.700 effective spokesman for America. In some ways he can't go in depth on our historical importance

01:47:23.560 and our founding fathers and all. I mean, I, if he can, I've never seen it. So I, I understand the

01:47:28.200 point, but he gets the visual and the strength of our country and how that should be portrayed in

01:47:35.700 our commander in chief better than anyone. And that matters too, especially because the other choice

01:47:45.420 couldn't be weaker, both physically and cognitively. And just in his presentation,

01:47:54.280 you know, you have the chance to send this guy bloodied up with a fist in the air to go stand

01:48:00.920 up to she and Putin if necessary, or you've got the other guy who, I mean, truly is only working a

01:48:08.540 smattering of hours needs to go night, night by eight and is at the point now where his own staff

01:48:14.800 is referring to his big boy press conferences, because this one, he's actually going to take

01:48:19.300 questions off prompter. That's just one is provocative and one is scary to our adversaries.

01:48:26.880 It's the choice could not be more clear. I can't wait to see the polls to see how this event has

01:48:35.880 affected people who were on the fence, right? That small group that we all say, well, they're

01:48:40.260 not going to go, you're not going to vote for Trump now. By now they know Trump, you know, he's got a

01:48:44.720 ceiling or, or does he? Yeah. And Biden is clearly trying to get himself in front of camera. And I

01:48:52.280 think that's his only choice given that his sort of dominant, um, characteristic right now as people

01:48:58.940 perceive him is weakness is royalty. He wants to project this image of leadership that he's on top of

01:49:05.100 the situation. We saw those photographs actually from the situation room released after he was

01:49:09.700 briefed with vice president Harris. And that's what he's trying to do. And I think that's really his

01:49:14.100 only choice at the same time though, he can't get through an oval office address without saying

01:49:18.480 battle box, um, without saying former Trump instead of former president Trump. So it might not be serving

01:49:24.640 him well because it continues to emphasize the split screen. I don't know if you've seen this meme

01:49:29.340 that's pinging around Megan, but it has Joe Biden versus stairs. It's a picture of Joe Biden falling

01:49:34.060 down. And then next to it is a picture that says Donald Trump versus bullet of a picture of him

01:49:38.940 standing up with his fist in the air. Uh, that stuff that's pinging around Tik TOK and the

01:49:44.060 meme sphere and pop culture world is going to be really powerful. I suspect, uh, like you do that

01:49:49.580 it's going to show up in the numbers and Joe Biden doesn't have any other choice. There's nothing he can

01:49:56.820 do to mitigate that going forward. And the RNC has been in this sort of Trumpian way, uh, prepared

01:50:03.800 for the moment that Donald Trump now is going to take advantage of it's in Milwaukee. Uh, again,

01:50:09.140 I'm, I'm from not far from Milwaukee. This is intentionally chosen, brilliant, brilliantly

01:50:13.540 chosen for Republicans. We can't take for granted how smart of a choice it was to hold this convention

01:50:18.580 in Milwaukee. He has the teamsters president speaking. He has the mayor of East Palestine,

01:50:23.480 Ohio speaking. Uh, and they also remember even in Butler, Pennsylvania, they were at a farm show.

01:50:30.260 That's where he did this rally. I mean, it's, it's really fascinating how the Republican messaging

01:50:36.760 is now draped in ways that we've come accustomed to with these trappings of Trumpism, uh, that are now

01:50:44.540 they've set the stage for something really powerful, quite literally set the stage.

01:50:48.580 Mm-hmm. The, uh, just a dip into vice presidential news. I hate to spend too much time on it because

01:50:54.520 by the time our podcast hits, people will know who it actually is. But, um, right now CNBC reporting,

01:51:00.420 it's not Rubio. And there was an earlier report that no one knew that the, all the last like finalists

01:51:07.900 were saying as of up until today that not, not one had heard whether they were the choice or not.

01:51:17.180 I don't know if that's true, but if so, I think it's like you, Megan, I think that can only mean

01:51:21.380 one thing. It's, it's you, it's Trump Kelly 24. I got enough problems. I don't need to add that to

01:51:28.600 the list. Um, here, uh, you mentioned Biden last night and I do need to play some of that because

01:51:34.420 he attempted to, you know, be the sober leader from the oval office. There were first reports that

01:51:41.600 he was going to put this on tape that he couldn't even do a two minute address from the oval office

01:51:45.740 live. And, um, then we heard, no, no, he's going to do it live. And I've, I got to tell you, like,

01:51:51.180 I have my doubts on whether he had originally planned on doing it live, whatever he did it live.

01:51:56.740 He did screw up his words. And here was the message right now. He got a lot of praise for

01:52:01.380 this message, but I've got a different take on it. Watch. I want to speak to you tonight about the

01:52:06.620 need for us to lower the temperature in our politics tonight. I want to speak to what we do know.

01:52:13.280 A former president was shot, an American citizen killed while simply exercising his freedom to

01:52:20.360 support the candidate of his choosing. Violence has never been the answer. Whether it's with

01:52:25.720 members of Congress of both parties being targeted and shot, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on

01:52:31.240 January 6th, or brutal attack on the spouse of former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi,

01:52:36.520 or information and intimidation on election officials, or the kidnapping plot against

01:52:43.600 the sitting governor, or an attempted assassination on Donald Trump. And in America, we resolve our

01:52:50.160 difference at the battle box. Now that's how we do it at the battle box, not with bullets.

01:52:57.120 The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of

01:53:01.880 would be assassin. Okay. First of all, the need to both sides, the attempted assassination of a former

01:53:12.000 president is abhorrent. This is in a category of its own and does not deserve to be mentioned in the

01:53:21.000 same breath as what happened in Nancy Pelosi's husband out in San Francisco with some deranged

01:53:27.460 druggie or the plot against Gretchen Whitmer, which we know involved an unhealthy amount of

01:53:34.880 his federal agents trying to lure people into threatening Gretchen Whitmer, um, or January 6th.

01:53:42.780 If you're going to go January 6th, why don't you mention BLM and all the riots they held, right? Like

01:53:48.220 the presidential attempted assassination is in a league of its own. And he knows that. So the attempt to

01:53:54.620 both sides, it is repulsive. And not only that, Emily, but the nerve for him to say, we're going

01:54:03.680 to, we really need to lower the temperature as it's his DOJ that is prosecuting Donald Trump in not one,

01:54:13.440 but two federal cases. One of which just got dismissed this morning. No, thanks to him. He didn't

01:54:18.560 say, and therefore I am withdrawing the law fair against Donald Trump. And after the past

01:54:24.420 just few days, since his non-compass mentis performance at that debate, when he started

01:54:30.260 to go in a downward spiral and panic, the rhetoric he's been using against Trump has gotten more

01:54:35.860 severe pointed and problematic than ever. Here's just some of what we've heard from Joe Biden recently.

01:54:43.860 Donald Trump is Donald Trump is a convicted criminal.

01:54:47.160 Donald Trump was found liable for sexual assault. Here's what the judge wrote, quote,

01:54:53.880 Mr. Trump raped her.

01:54:57.160 No, I mean, Mr. Judge is lying, not mine.

01:55:00.280 Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations

01:55:06.820 of our republic. But there's no question. The Republican Party today is dominated, driven and

01:55:13.480 intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans. And that is a threat to this country.

01:55:21.900 And then, of course, saying we need to put him in a bullseye. Like,

01:55:25.500 spare me to lower the temperature talk until you do it yourself.

01:55:28.560 And, you know, it's not just Joe Biden either. And at a moment of political violence against

01:55:36.320 the right, the right thing to do, the morally correct thing to do is give that its moment.

01:55:42.020 We know that's what the left would be demanding if the parties were reversed here. And I think

01:55:45.540 actually that's correct. I think it is correct. It's not to say that there isn't a culpability for

01:55:50.280 extreme rhetoric, quote, on both sides. I think we all know that our political rhetoric is at a high

01:55:57.100 level right now. We're all well aware of that. But when it happens against the right, against a

01:56:02.580 former president, against the nominee for the Republican Party, maybe pause. I mean, I thought

01:56:08.500 that was shockingly tasteless to invoke acts of violence against the political left or attempted

01:56:13.360 acts of violence against the political left at a moment where a man was slain, slaughtered in the

01:56:18.800 bleachers, his blood bleachers, his blood is smeared over the bleachers because he went to a Trump rally

01:56:24.800 in rural Pennsylvania to even think, to even think as Wolf Blitzer and Margaret Brennan,

01:56:32.160 both mainstream media figures, in addition to the president who made those invocations in his

01:56:37.680 Oval Office speech, shockingly tasteless. If it were reversed, the media would be calling their own

01:56:43.180 out for it. They'd be calling Joe Biden out for it. And frankly, they would be right. They would be

01:56:47.940 right to do that. They're not playing by their own rules. But that's not something we can come to

01:56:52.680 expect from them. It's just a matter of how Biden handles this going forward because his campaign is

01:56:58.900 predicated on the idea that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. And now a lot of people on

01:57:03.580 the left are saying, take the temperature down. Well, can you make the argument that he's a threat

01:57:09.160 to democracy while also making the argument the temperature needs to go down? Maybe. We certainly

01:57:13.860 haven't seen them attempt it yet so far. I'm really looking forward to Margaret Brennan condemning

01:57:18.780 the New Republic for merging Trump's face into Hitler's and the Washington Post for doing the

01:57:23.540 same. Jeff Bezos was out there condemning this attempted assassination on President Trump.

01:57:28.740 You know, it was so sad this shouldn't happen in our country. It was your publication that did the

01:57:33.660 same thing. Trump on one side with a profile right next to Adolf Hitler with their heads merging and

01:57:39.600 said, yes, it really is okay to compare Donald Trump to Hitler. Spare me your empty platitudes

01:57:45.920 in the wake of the man almost being murdered on national television. Who do they think they're

01:57:51.160 kidding? And Margaret Brennan of CBS, who I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but like traditionally

01:57:57.480 has been not the worst offender on this. Like of all the liberal media, she's usually not that bad,

01:58:04.600 was the worst. I really think she was absolutely the worst in how she reacted to this. Not only did

01:58:11.080 she have an actual Republican shooting victim, Steve Scalise sitting there, but she insisted

01:58:17.520 that he specifically instruct members of his party to rein in the rhetoric and not blame.

01:58:24.960 Like, first of all, Steve Scalise does not control all Republicans magically. And that's the wrong

01:58:30.240 question to be asking him. And then had this exchange with Robert Costa on their Saturday night

01:58:36.000 coverage. Watch this, Sat 16. And it should be noted, many of Trump's supporters on social media

01:58:41.680 tonight extremely angry. This is still a politically charged moment as much as it is a crime investigation

01:58:48.360 in a security moment. Many people already in this country very angry at the other side,

01:58:53.580 not just on a partisan red versus blue level, but we cover it all the time here at CBS News.

01:58:58.480 There's a visceral nature to the emotions that pour out on the campaign trail.

01:59:02.060 And to that point, Bob Costa, I was just texting with Robert O'Brien, the former national security

01:59:07.180 advisor to Donald Trump, who sent out a statement saying we've got to take the political temperature

01:59:13.560 down. He and Mike Lee, the senator, issued this jointly. We've got to take the political

01:59:19.360 temperature down as evidenced by what happened in Pennsylvania today. So two key Republican Trump

01:59:25.340 supporters calling for the rhetoric, the political violence, the threats of it to be lowered.

01:59:32.060 That is in stark contrast to the head of the Trump campaign, one of the top Trump campaign

01:59:38.280 officials you were reading statements from earlier. We are also looking at social media posts

01:59:44.280 from other Republicans who are quite angry.

01:59:48.120 Well, we're entering, though, a period of extreme political charge with the Republican National

01:59:52.440 Convention.

01:59:54.440 I mean, just talk about getting the focus wrong. That was not the story on Saturday night,

01:59:59.340 and it's not the story today.

02:00:01.920 And maybe stop texting Margaret Brennan. If she treats you like this, if she treats people like

02:00:06.840 this, maybe stop texting her. Stop trying to get your name mentioned on national television in the

02:00:11.900 aftermath of a tragedy. I'm not ascribing ill motives. I think it's just honestly a time for

02:00:17.080 for people to learn that if your former president, the former president of your party is nearly

02:00:23.920 assassinated on international television, and that's the response of somebody in the chair like

02:00:30.480 that in mainstream media. Maybe they're not capable of covering you with fairness. And maybe you should

02:00:37.380 think about tactically how you respond to that going forward. But I don't know how that's, you know,

02:00:42.520 I think it's a big lesson for everybody. I don't know if you remember, Megan, when those pipe bombs,

02:00:47.380 horrible situation, were sent to CNN newsrooms. You know, obviously a terrible incident, much,

02:00:53.620 much smaller scale than what we saw play out on Saturday. And the entire conversation was about

02:00:58.980 how horrible the right is. You weren't allowed to, you know, quote both sides of it. And again,

02:01:03.360 I think that's right. When something happens in one direction, it's appropriate to talk about that

02:01:08.800 and to remember that these are people too. But of course, now it's just both sides,

02:01:13.820 both sides, both sides. Those aren't the rules they play by. They're not the rules they demand

02:01:17.340 everybody else play by. But now, of course, we can only talk about how it's both sides,

02:01:22.800 not how the political right has been demonized in these ways.

02:01:29.000 Which is the story on the night that the political rights leader almost died. That's the story. You want

02:01:34.760 to get into rhetoric while the man is still got stitches in his ear or however he recovered from

02:01:39.420 that? Then let's do that. Let's talk about the rhetoric leading up to the assassination attempt.

02:01:44.060 What led to that? That's the story, not the anger in response to it and condemning it.

02:01:51.300 And a man died during his family.

02:01:54.140 Yes, exactly right. And Margaret Brennan was definitely part of the problem.

02:01:59.100 Jamie Gengel, oh my God, at CNN. Look at this. I'm so,

02:02:04.760 how clueless can you be? It's not 17.

02:02:09.560 I do want to say there was one thing that when I watched the tape, I found

02:02:14.600 odd because of all of the heated rhetoric. And that is that after he was hit,

02:02:22.300 former President Trump got up and said, fight, fight, fight. I think what we're hearing from people

02:02:29.200 is that's not the message that we want to be sending right now. We want to tamp it down.

02:02:36.080 You're an idiot. Exactly wrong on all fronts. It's exactly what we needed to hear. It's what

02:02:40.960 most normal people wanted to hear and were inspired by as one of the most inspirational moments

02:02:45.780 of our lives, of recent history, to see a man under fire like that coming out and saying,

02:02:52.180 I'm okay, and putting his fist in the air and saying, fight, continue fighting for our ideals.

02:02:57.020 What planet does this person live on? How bad is her Trump derangement syndrome

02:03:02.700 that she thinks it was a negative message?

02:03:06.020 Shouldn't we fight what led to a man having to shield his family and sacrifice his own life and

02:03:14.140 have his blood smeared all over those bleachers in the Butler Farm Show in Pennsylvania? Shouldn't

02:03:20.420 that be the reaction to anybody? The man was just shot at. Donald Trump was just shot at,

02:03:24.860 pushed to the ground by Secret Service. He stood up. That's fighting in and of itself. Should he not

02:03:29.500 have done that? I don't know, Megan. I'm curious what you think about whether or not this was in the

02:03:33.760 other direction if people would get suspended for saying things like that.

02:03:36.880 Yeah, they would. Absolutely, they would. But you get a total pass when you're on the left.

02:03:41.980 There's been no, I asked my team this morning, has there been any blowback on the New Republic for

02:03:45.860 that Hitler cover? Have they weighed in at all? Have they apologized? It was only eight or nine days

02:03:50.380 ago. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Then you've got Representative Benny Thompson. You saw this,

02:03:55.480 I'm sure, Democrat, Mississippi, who he offered condolences. So sorry, this is sad.

02:04:01.180 You know, political violence, bad. And Benny Johnson, sorry, Thompson, is the same person who

02:04:09.280 tried to pull President Trump's Secret Service protection in light of his conviction in being

02:04:16.360 found guilty as a felon in New York State. It was called the Disgraced Act, denying infinite security

02:04:23.480 and government resources allocated toward convicted in an extremely dishonorable form of protectees act.

02:04:27.760 So he can spare me the kind words now. And not just that, but his staffer, Jacqueline Marsaw,

02:04:34.260 was out there. She's a field director for him. And she posted on Facebook,

02:04:41.340 I don't condone violence, but please get some shooting lessons so you don't miss next time.

02:04:46.420 Oops, that wasn't me talking. And then in a follow up post, she wrote,

02:04:50.520 that's what your hate speech got you. So now she's been fired. But what kind of an office is

02:04:55.580 Benny Thompson running where he thinks President Trump should have lost his security and he's got

02:05:01.240 staffers like this?

02:05:03.180 Yeah, I was going to say he's running an office that gleefully did a media debut for that bill,

02:05:08.800 that piece of legislation. They went across media and just were so smug and, again, gleeful about it.

02:05:14.920 If people go back and roll the tapes the way they talked about that bill, it was, I mean, again,

02:05:20.440 you would be forced to answer for this with, you know, not just involving firing a staffer who said

02:05:25.240 something insane afterwards, but for your own conduct and your own culpability in creating that

02:05:31.080 atmosphere by introducing a bill like that. So, I mean, it's just says so much that are, you know,

02:05:37.540 it's kind of too little to late from people like Jeff Bezos, because this should have been happening,

02:05:42.620 you know, a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, almost 10 years ago at this point,

02:05:46.940 as we were all reacting to the rise of populism, there was just no grace given to the people who

02:05:53.180 looked at Donald Trump and saw a hero, which is unthinkable to people in coastal newsrooms. I get

02:05:58.400 it. It's unthinkable to people in Hollywood, but there's just never been any grace. And the reaction

02:06:02.940 has always been counterproductive, even by the left's standards. If you hate populism, stop giving

02:06:08.620 reasons for people to love populism, because you are punching down at them relentlessly, relentlessly,

02:06:15.180 even when their champion is shot in the head, the punching down continues.

02:06:20.600 Two points. One, because I promised earlier, Keith Olbermann actually out there over the weekend,

02:06:26.400 suggesting Trump wasn't actually shot, saying the strangest parts of this are 12 hours afterward,

02:06:31.800 and no authorities are confirming Trump's assertion that he was shot. And there seem to be few media

02:06:36.760 questions as to why they haven't. What an idiot. Read the news. Confirmed multiple times by the Secret

02:06:41.320 Service by Trump himself, but he doesn't believe a word that comes out of Trump's mouth.

02:06:45.040 He can't deal with it. Anything would make Trump look sympathetic. It's just rejected.

02:06:48.780 And then there's Jack Black, emblematic of many people in Hollywood who, just like that staffer

02:06:55.540 for Thompson, got on stage at an event that he was playing for his band this weekend and said this.

02:07:01.500 Happy birthday to you. Make a wish. Don't miss Trump next time.

02:07:18.560 Don't miss Trump next time. To the laughter of, I guess, his Canadian crowd. Their big lamentation

02:07:25.940 today is not the rhetoric of the left, the president, never mind the right. It's that the

02:07:31.160 shooter missed, which takes us where, Emily, in the, in the call to unify and lower the temperature.

02:07:40.000 I mean, it's just the, the Keith Olbermann, just starting with him. Um, there was also an

02:07:46.760 advisor to Reed Hoffman who put out a memo, apparently to journalists after the shooting,

02:07:52.080 suggesting very seriously that it may have been staged. Dimitri Melhorn, uh, just jaw dropping

02:07:57.360 stuff from somebody who's really a part of the democratic mainstream is an ardent

02:08:01.160 Biden supporter, uh, even after the debate has doubled down on support for Biden. And I think

02:08:07.140 what that speaks to is how the left, uh, and the Jack Black quip too, how the left likes to act,

02:08:12.320 that it's only on the right that, you know, those toothless rubes see these elections as being

02:08:17.560 existential, that they really are, you know, that their ways of life are really threatened by who's

02:08:22.480 in the Oval Office and who's not. But the left sees it the exact same way. They don't just get,

02:08:26.900 they just don't get any flack for when they talk recklessly about it, except for people on the

02:08:31.640 right and left will point to that and be like, Oh, you know, you see Fox news did a bunch of

02:08:35.160 segments on, on the Jack Black thing. So, you know, it's, it's, we're even here and we're not,

02:08:41.020 we're not even at all. Um, because it's, it's, we, we all know you don't even need to do a study of

02:08:46.760 it. We all see it very plainly that there's a grave imbalance in how, uh, this is talked about from

02:08:52.020 one side to the other. Uh, Reed Hoffman himself, who was speaking at this muckety muck conference

02:08:58.200 out, uh, in Sun Valley this weekend, clearly called for someone to make a martyr out of Trump.

02:09:04.420 And I have several sources who were in the room who heard it. And now in the wake of all this and

02:09:09.020 his staffer, you know, suggesting the whole thing is a conspiracy theory that it, you know,

02:09:12.480 somehow made up or orchestrated. Um, he tries to come out and say, Oh, I didn't mean it that way.

02:09:18.100 His whole thing is I, you know, Trump said all these terrible things, bloodbath,

02:09:22.060 all the misrepresentations. And then, um, he said, Peter Thiel said, Oh, all my lawsuit work

02:09:27.300 against Trump was turning, uh, turning him into a martyr. And I replied that I wish that Trump would

02:09:33.480 martyr himself. And then he adds this meaning let himself be held accountable for his assaults on

02:09:40.120 and lies about women. Of course, I meant nothing about any sort of physical harm or violence,

02:09:45.500 which I categorically deplore what a joke. And I replied to him on Twitter as follows your very

02:09:54.120 attempt to both sides. It reveals your insincerity. I have multiple sources who were in the room when

02:10:00.240 you said it and everyone took away the same meaning. You want Trump dead. You're not fooling anyone.

02:10:08.040 None of these people are we're keeping the records and people's professional reputations ought to change

02:10:14.720 as a result of these reactions to an attempted presidential assassination. Tomorrow's going

02:10:20.780 to be a huge day. We're going to know Trump's VP pick. We're going to have the Lester Holt interview

02:10:25.320 of Joe Biden, and we're going to find out, I guess, what direction Democrats are going to go

02:10:31.420 now that they appear to be stuck with this guy against Trump, Trump, who's attained almost superhero

02:10:38.560 status. Emily, what a time to be in news. Seriously, it never stops, but it never comes

02:10:46.760 quite this fast. It's great to see you. Thanks so much. Thanks to all of you as well. We will be

02:10:53.720 here for you tomorrow. Busy week ahead. See you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly

02:11:00.560 Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - July 15, 2024

Trump Assassination Attempt Fallout, And Florida Docs Case Dropped, with Emily Jashinsky, Eliana Johnson, Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, Sean Parnell, and More ｜ Ep. 838

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