On July 13th, 2024, a gunman opened fire at a pro-Donald Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, unleashing a volley of bullets into the crowd. President Donald Trump was on stage with his wife, Karen Trump, when the shots rang out.
00:06:30.000With author and journalist Selena Zito, who has a new book out, Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland.
00:06:40.000She was literally standing only feet away as bullets flew over her head and from the stage when the gunshots began nearly a year ago today.
00:06:53.000In the book, Selena zooms out and tells us the story of the battle of America's heartland and the issues that actually motivate voters.
00:07:02.000To understand how and why my father won the 2024 election, you have to understand places like Butler, Pennsylvania.
00:07:09.000There's so many of these towns that really house the forgotten men and women that we talk about all the time that are such an important and critical part of why my father did all of this.
00:07:21.000There are moments that define America.
00:07:24.000The late afternoon hours of July 13th, 2024 was one of them.
00:07:28.000And there's still a lot of unanswered questions about that day, including a motive, key findings from the congressional report, including significant failures in the security plan for the day of the rally.
00:07:40.000Five people from the Secret Service details that were there that day were actually suspended.
00:07:46.000Another example, investigators found that the building from which the shooter fired was identified as a concern due to its clear and obvious line of sight to the stage, yet it was not properly secured or monitored.
00:08:03.000The report details a breakdown and further breakdowns in communication and coordination between the Secret Service and state and local law enforcement partners.
00:08:11.000Evidence shows that law enforcement was aware of a suspicious individual on the building's roof for a significant period of time before the shooting began, but this information was not communicated to the appropriate personnel.
00:08:23.000So today, we'll do a deep dive into all of it.
00:08:27.000So make sure you guys are liking, sharing, subscribing, so you never miss one of these major episodes.
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00:10:50.000All right, guys, joining me now, journalist and author of the new book, Butler, The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland, Selena Zito.
00:11:03.000It's been a little while since I ran into you in Pennsylvania.
00:11:06.000Yeah, I did run into you in Pennsylvania.
00:11:08.000You were at a chocolate factory and you were having a really good time.
00:11:13.000Well, you know, listen, if you're going to be campaigning, you're going to be working that hard, you have to have a little bit of a good time.
00:11:17.000And I think, you know, that usually works well.
00:11:20.000When you're authentic and you're having a good time, people get it also, which is probably somewhat helpful in politics as well.
00:15:42.000And so five minutes before he's supposed to come and get myself, my daughter, my son-in-law, Michelle Picard III, and his name is very, very important, comes running back.
00:16:44.000Guys, doesn't she have the most beautiful hair in America?
00:16:47.000And of course, it's a room filled with state troopers.
00:16:50.000And I'm so like, I'm so awkward, right?
00:16:53.000I just want to like crawl inside myself.
00:16:56.000Listen, I mean, I'd say it's solid bag of hair, though.
00:16:58.000I mean, it's a, it's a, you know, hey, as a Trump, I don't make fun of hair because, you know, one day I could wake up if those genes ever kick in, it could be a total disaster.
00:18:21.000He goes, if people were following me on Twitter that day, I had video and pictures, people in the stands, your dad, make our way sort of over to the other side because I don't like logistics.
00:21:40.000I always have my recorder on when your dad has a rally, not because a transcript doesn't come a couple hours later, but I think it is important as a journalist, not just with presidential candidates, but also with people, to catch the nuance when someone says something.
00:22:01.000Because if you don't do that when you're writing the story, it can come across in a very different way.
00:23:05.000In terms, it tells you a lot, you know, about who your father surrounds himself with and who that he makes part of, whether it's his cabinet or his administration or the people that just work for him.
00:23:20.000And so I can see your dad from the angle I'm at.
00:23:39.000He's fighting with them about putting his shoes on.
00:23:43.000When I saw all of it, even when he came back up, I was like, I told him, like, I was like, that was the most badass thing I've ever seen.
00:23:49.000I'm not sure it's the smartest tactically because who knows if there's another shooter, but like, he was not going to not get up there and show that level of resolve, which I think, you know, people now understand.
00:24:00.000And I think it was a big turning point in an election because they're like, you know what?
00:24:02.000I want that representing me, not word salad comba.
00:24:07.000It's important that you point that out because the next morning, your dad calls me at O'Dark 30.
00:24:14.000And the first thing he says is, Selena, this is Donald Trump, President Donald Trump.
00:24:21.000I'm like, yeah, like I don't know what's you, right?
00:25:11.000We talked a lot about, you know, I suppose other journalists would have handled it in a different way, but he'd been through a traumatic experience.
00:25:20.000And I did too, not to the extent that he had, but certainly just being a witness to history, right?
00:25:29.000And so your dad starts talking to me, asking me, but I think he was more asking himself, like, why did I turn my head, Selena?
00:25:46.000And that's why I said, I mean, when you look at all the shortcomings, I'm sure we'll get into that shortly with the failure, this, that.
00:25:53.000I mean, I don't believe in that much coincidence, but watching him go to a chart that he never's done before, all of Those things happening in that instant.
00:26:01.000I remember when I was talking to him about it either the next day or whatever, and he was like, Well, you know, 130 yards pretty far shot.
00:26:08.000I'm like, No, I mean, I came from a competitive, you know, shooting background and everything.
00:26:11.000I was like, No, that's like missing a, you know, quite literally a 100-yard shot prone from a roof for 10 minutes.
00:26:18.000It's like, that'd be like missing a six-inch putt, you know, on someone's head.
00:26:23.000And he's like, I was like, Yeah, dad, it's not golf where, you know, if you get it within 10 feet of the hole, it's a, you know, it's a great shot from 100 yards.
00:26:37.000Don, this was the part that I think is the most important part, not just in terms of his character and understanding the moment, but also redefining American politics and the coalition that has formed around him.
00:26:56.000Because I said to him, why did you say fight, fight, fight?
00:27:02.000Because I could see him, the crowd was saying USA as he's getting up and he says USA a couple times.
00:27:08.000I don't even know if he remembers that, but I remember, and he was not saying it out loud, but he was repeating what they were saying.
00:27:15.000And then he turns around and he says, he's like to the Secret Service, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:27:59.000And as that, as that, in that moment, I'm not representing me.
00:28:05.000I'm representing what America stands for.
00:28:08.000Yeah, you know, it's interesting you say that because I had two people, because obviously that was, you know, right before the RNC, you know, basically that was Saturday, I think Sunday night we went to the RNC or Monday morning we went to the RNC and we were there for a week.
00:28:23.000And two separate people came up to me at the RNC and told me this thing that you're sort of saying as well.
00:28:31.000And I didn't even realize if he was conscious of it or not.
00:28:33.000But he goes, your dad saved a lot of lives that day.
00:29:55.000And the Secret Service took me to the back of the stage where the click room was.
00:30:00.000I think because of that sort of iconic photo of me with my cowboy boots on and Picard on top of me, I think they thought I had been injured and I didn't know that, which is possible.
00:30:11.000There are people that get hurt and they don't know it because the adrenaline.
00:31:08.000And obviously, that's not a story the media is ever going to tell because they want to vilify every Trump supporter and every sort of America first patriot and all of that.
00:31:22.000If someone's phone wasn't working, they were calling loved ones for them to let them know they were okay.
00:31:27.000And we were down there for another hour.
00:31:29.000So that was a total of two hours that they were down there.
00:31:31.000It was the most beautiful thing that I saw.
00:31:34.000And I remember thinking, and I wrote this in the book, they disparage these people so much, bitter clingers, Bible holders, you know, clinging to a past life, angry, resentful, deplorable, garbage, right?
00:32:07.000There's no benefit for them to behave in a certain way.
00:32:11.000And I really thought that your dad, because he did that, not just in that field, but also in the Raptors, but also across the country, could have been incredibly different.
00:32:25.000That moment changed American politics.
00:32:29.000There are two moments in the past year and a half that changed American politics that I think people haven't understood the depth of it.
00:32:38.000One of them was when he went to East Palestine with JD.
00:33:33.000But your dad, that moment changed because in that February of 2023, your dad was probably at the lowest point in terms of polling with DeSantis, right?
00:33:46.000And he was down, the New Hampshire poll had just come out a couple of days beforehand, and he was down to DeSantis.
00:34:12.000And it was only once he showed up, then all of a sudden Pete Buddhajed showed up in his unworn work boots and very shiny hazmat work stuff the next day because they had to show something.
00:34:23.000Then, of course, Biden shows up two years later for a campaign stop, I guess, for 30 seconds after not really doing anything.
00:35:15.000And those are the people that overwhelmingly voted for your father.
00:35:20.000And he doesn't have to always have the same ideals or same sort of buffet of what they want done.
00:35:29.000But that doesn't matter either because he sees them and he respects the dignity of their lives and he respects the value of where they come from.
00:35:40.000The other thing that changed was also Butler.
00:35:58.000And I was like, that's the most stupidest question I've ever heard.
00:36:03.000And I'm just not going to answer that.
00:36:06.000In those moments after your father was shot, there were several stories that came out.
00:36:12.000And I remember Chris Lesavita like losing it with these stories about him being hit with shrapnel from a teleprompter.
00:36:23.000And I mean, I'm laying on the ground and I see these stories coming up from people who aren't even sitting in the, they're not even in Pennsylvania.
00:36:33.000They're in a computer somewhere in DC, right?
00:36:36.000And so those stories, which by the way, still exist, I have this beautiful story today in the Washington Post interviewing both your dad and Helen Compatore.
00:36:47.000And most of the comments say, it really didn't happen.
00:36:51.000And that was the irresponsibility of my profession for immediately wanting to be first and not caring whether the story was right or wrong.
00:37:02.000And American people saw what happened and they made their decision in that moment that they don't trust anything anymore.
00:37:24.000And I mean, you know, we're used to sort of the plethora of Trump books, and it's by some hater journalist who interviewed probably no one.
00:37:40.000They don't know anything, but they'll say whatever they need to to further their narrative.
00:37:44.000But I know this book's different in that my father just gave you extraordinary access for the book, including top aides to JD Vance, to even the security detail.
00:37:57.000So I mean, this is one of the few books that's actually written with actual sources, with actual access to the people that were there, not sort of the, again, unknown sources, unmanned sources, you know, yada, yada, yada, for protection, to really protect them because they're so high level.
00:38:16.000You know, what stands out to you most about what you learned in the process of writing all of it with all of those people?
00:38:22.000What I learned is how much the country was changing right under our feet.
00:38:31.000And there were times I literally wanted to be a four-year-old having a tantrum and stomping my feet because I kept saying, you guys, you're not covering this in a way that is happening.
00:38:44.000You're covering it the way you want it to happen.
00:40:13.000I mean, you obviously mentioned you have deep ties to this sort of part of Pennsylvania, but is there a significance to this happening in a community like Butler as opposed to happening in an urban area or whatever it is?
00:40:28.000How does the culture and the support from my father in rural Pennsylvania play a part of that story?
00:41:23.000They could be singing at Peoria, right?
00:41:26.000But they felt that song and what that image of place meant.
00:41:32.000And that's what the middle of somewhere in this country, that's where places like Butler and East Palestine and your father being in places like that, it's symbolic of all different kinds of places.
00:41:47.000And so I think that goes back to that importance of place.
00:41:52.000But also, you know, places like Erie, Pennsylvania are always going to be more significant, more important, and more determinative than New York City is going to be in a presidential election.
00:42:07.000Our challenge, Don, and I write about this a lot in the book, our challenge is with our cultural curators, people that curate what we see in magazines, what we see online, in corporations, what they sell, in academia, what we teach our students, what we teach our kids, in Hollywood, in legacy media, and institutions, right?
00:42:34.000It's all curated by people that are located in the super zip codes of this country, very far removed from the people in the rest of the country.
00:42:47.000And there is a tension that has broken between the middle of the country and all those cultural curators because they don't know them, don't understand people that are going to sit in their seats, buy their products, watch their news.
00:43:02.000And that is the overriding thing that both the press doesn't understand.
00:43:10.000They don't know how to cover Erie, people from Erie, Pennsylvania.
00:43:14.000They don't know how to cover a girl that goes hunting with her dad.
00:43:58.000It's like, how does this like, even me, you know, the son of a brash billionaire from New York City, like, how can I go into like parts of Pennsylvania and like just have a conversation with people?
00:44:07.000But the people who choose to actually represent them in Congress are actually still incapable of doing so many of those things.
00:44:13.000I mean, there's some great irony in that.
00:44:15.000I used to get made fun of when I first called my father, like the blue-collar billionaire in like the early 2000s when I just started working.
00:44:23.000I was like, you know, he kind of wants to watch a ballgame.
00:44:26.000No one knows more about sports than him.
00:44:28.000He can, you know, he can turn on the show, but like who he is is actually that regular guy and it's why he can relate.
00:44:35.000But people in that New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles bubble, you know, the rest of the country is flyover country because they don't know anyone outside of that little provincial world of theirs.
00:44:47.000You know, people from the middle of the country, they'll go to New York and go see a Broadway play and they'll go see a bunch of things in New York and they'll soak up and enjoy and respect what New York has to offer them.
00:44:58.000The problem is, is that people that in New York often don't do the same thing in the middle of the country.
00:45:16.000I think that dam broke on Inauguration Day.
00:45:20.000When you saw the people that your father brought alongside shoulder to shoulder with future cabinet members, himself, your family, you saw the dam break.
00:46:22.000They couldn't see this wave coming because they'd never spoken to anyone else in sort of real America.
00:46:26.000I know you're known for sort of your shoe leather journalism.
00:46:29.000You said you don't even travel on planes because you don't want to miss the story that's happening in what I call sort of real America.
00:46:35.000How do you approach reporting in a way that's different from the others in the media?
00:46:41.000Do a lot of those stories get traction or do they get lost because it's just if no one else is sort of highlighting them, they just sort of go by the wayside?
00:46:49.000Well, interestingly, The Washington Post hired me in January.
00:47:39.000They're not going to get it from solar.
00:47:41.000I mean, you would have to go from one end of the country to the other with solar panels to be able to fuel one data center for an AI data center.
00:47:53.000And in fact, your dad's going to be at a summit next week.
00:47:55.000I'm going to be interviewing him, an AI energy summit.
00:47:59.000I'm so excited about it because this is the second industrial revolution.
00:48:04.000And the second one that is in the middle of Pennsylvania, just the way Titusville and Drake's oil discovery started the Industrial Revolution in the 1850s with steel and coal and iron.
00:48:21.000So I forget what you asked me because I just kept talking.
00:48:24.000Well, I was just saying, has anyone else really adapted to that level of journalism that you're doing or do the stories just not matter to them anyway?
00:48:31.000Like, you know, when you're driving, you know, off the turnpike, just on back roads, are you just stopping at a restaurant?
00:48:37.000How do you go about speaking to those people?
00:49:41.000And I try to respect and behave and observe the way they behave so that I can have conversations with them that I wouldn't have if I flew over them.
00:49:57.000These are the people that decide elections.
00:50:00.000I mean, I guess that's something, there's sort of something unique about Pennsylvania in that it's sort of anchored by two major cities, all the way east and all the way west.
00:51:04.000And I think that the working class and the middle class have been largely overlooked in how much they've changed by the press and by the Democrats.
00:51:18.000President Trump has done a good job of communicating to them about things that are important to them, which is often community, dignity of work, right?
00:51:30.000And security and safety and protections of their rights.
00:51:33.000I think JD Vance does a good job of that as well.
00:54:36.000And that interaction, taking from something he knew and seeing someone that he would see anywhere in this country, I thought was, and after that moment, we did the interview and I think I did it for the Wall Street Journal.
00:55:28.000I got to go to the White House when she had her 10-year anniversary, which was really a beautiful moment.
00:55:35.000So, you know, to bring it back a little bit to Butler, Celine, I'd like, you know, you've obviously had unprecedented access to all the people around there, but what have you taken away from the questions that perhaps continue to persist about the assassination attempt itself?
00:55:50.000I know we heard recently, I guess, a couple of Secret Service people were suspended.
00:55:54.000I mean, finally now, I guess, after all of that.
00:56:01.000Or is this going to be one of those things that we'll just never actually know?
00:56:04.000Because between the shooter and his background and the history just disappeared and you have this radicalized 19-year-old, 20-year-old kid that was so radicalized, but magically has no online footprint whatsoever.
00:56:27.000I don't think that ever happens in real life unless it was either sort of intentional neglect or create enough chaos to allow these things to kind of happen.
00:56:49.000No, I don't think people are buying that.
00:56:52.000Here is my best educated guess as to where we are in this moment going forward with this.
00:57:00.000Do you remember after 9-11 and there was the 9-11 commission?
00:57:05.000And one of the things that came out of it was how our law enforcement agencies, FBI, Secret Service, CIA, all of them, they weren't communicating with each other.
00:57:17.000They had no way to communicate with each other.
00:57:19.000And that was going to be one of the things that changed.
00:57:24.000It is shocking to me that no one was communicating that day in Butler.
00:57:30.000The most important people watching that event were local in terms of knowledge and of terrain and rhythm of a town and knowing what to look for are local law enforcement.
00:57:53.000Like, let's look at this and not the guys whose job it is to do that each and every day, right?
00:57:58.000It's a, yeah, a law enforcement guy in Ian Butler, I'm sure he has plenty of things that he deals with on a daily basis, but a sniper on a roof is probably not one of them.
00:59:43.000And then I think, you know, we don't talk about this enough in the public forum, but we have a real mental health crisis in our country that we totally just shove under the under the tablecloth, right?
01:00:11.000They decided to start shutting down mental health institutions where people were treated and kept safe from themselves and from other people.
01:00:21.000And instead of fixing the system, they just said, well, we're just going to medicate everybody and shut them down.
01:02:30.000I always wanted to be one, but then I got married and had kids.
01:02:36.000And I wanted to stay home with the kids.
01:02:39.000And I came to it after the kids were in high school.
01:02:41.000But, you know, I think where it comes from is I come from a long line of people that have been journalists.
01:02:48.000My grandfather, my great-grandfather, my great-great-grandfather, and so forth have all been in the news industry in some capacity or other, mostly small newspapers.
01:06:16.000I know how old money versus new money, right?
01:06:19.000There's a sort of punching up that you do when you come from an outer borough and trying to make your way into Manhattan.
01:06:30.000And the other thing that happened in that moment, which changed my career, was I said to your dad, you know, voters take you seriously, but they don't take you.
01:06:41.000And everyone's stolen this line, right?
01:06:43.000But they don't take everything you say literally, right?
01:07:27.000It had nothing to do about whether I did or did not like him, but the evidence was overwhelming in front of me in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania.
01:07:36.000And so on the last, the night before the election, I interviewed Mike Pence on the tarmac in Pittsburgh.
01:07:46.000And I went home and wrote the story, filed it, and cried because I knew after the next day, I wouldn't have a job.
01:07:54.000The next day, I worked for the New York Post covering the election in Pennsylvania, election night.
01:07:59.000I were 10 counties that I was watching, Don, to would tell me if your dad was going to win or not.
01:08:06.000People forget, this is why I need to like how much the Democratic Party has dramatically changed in my state.
01:08:12.000People forget that Barack Obama won by 11 percentage points in 2008 in Pennsylvania.
01:09:12.000And I remember that, you know, that night very carefully because I was, and it's, frankly, it's why I'm just not a big believer in so much of the conventional polling anymore because I would much rather look at the guys at Kelchie and look at the guys at polymarkets.
01:09:27.000When there's actually a betting market, like people aren't just, because some of these things, we get the exit polling, they're like, man, we thought we were going to do better than that.
01:09:35.000We're down seven points in a place we thought we were going to win by three.
01:09:39.000And they go, so I go, what's the breakdown?
01:09:51.000And if you added the go F. You don't know, because, you know, hey, and by the way, even to this day, right, then there was even more so probably, but there was a stigma.
01:10:00.000You know, if you were a Trump voter, you were the deplorable and you were this.
01:10:15.000So they may even lie and be like, oh, because it's politically easier or expedient to just say, oh, yeah, I voted for Clinton, even if you didn't.
01:10:24.000But that's where so many of those flaws existed in that conventional polling, which is why the betting markets, again, Calci, polymarkets, all the stuff that I follow online, it's like, it's amazing how they're getting this.
01:11:04.000It's like, I want everyone to stay at my hotel.
01:11:05.000But like when you became like, oh, now 50% of the country, 50% of the world, you have ostracized, guess what?
01:11:12.000Like, I'm okay going all in for my side and, you know, being looked at as a thought leader in that world perhaps is much better than just sort of being agnostic to the 100%.
01:11:23.000And so once you get comfortable with that, it's actually a great opportunity and very cathartic.
01:11:28.000You get rid of those people that you do the obligatory lunch once every other year and you sit there, you don't really have anything in common anymore, but you've known each other for 25 years.
01:13:30.000And she's, you know, strangely enough, I mean, she's probably spent more time one-on-one with my dad than me, my brother, my sister, you know, in a certain way because of golf, right?
01:14:29.000And, you know, again, the adrenaline dump starting to hit you a little bit.
01:14:32.000More afterwards, like, you know, I was like just wired.
01:14:36.000And then it hits you and then you sleep for like a lot.
01:14:41.000But, you know, I just like, hey, man, that was the most badass thing I've ever seen.
01:14:46.000You know, we're talking a little bit, but again, it was sort of awkward.
01:14:48.000It's like my brother, my sister, my kids, they're all there at my house.
01:14:52.000We're sort of gathered on a speakerphone with my dad.
01:14:54.000And then finally, I was like, okay, we got to break this ice.
01:14:57.000And so I just go to him, I go, okay, most importantly, how's the hair?
01:15:03.000And he goes, you know, Don, Don, the hair is fine, Don, but a lot of blood.
01:15:08.000There's a lot of blood in the hair, but the hair held up, it'll wash out, but there was a lot of blood.
01:15:14.000And I think, you know, everyone on the phone probably rolling their eyes at me, but it was sort of that, you'll break the ice moment to get all of that.
01:15:21.000And it was that next day, I guess that Sunday, my daughter calls me at like 6 a.m.
01:15:28.000Also unusual for a teenager, although she wakes up early to work out.
01:17:01.000But like we sort of opened up with, I think it also changed not just his, but everyone's faith in God.
01:17:12.000Whether you had 100% faith in God or zero, whatever you had, you moved up the scale because, again, I don't think anyone believed in that much coincidence anymore without some sort of higher power intervention.
01:17:23.000So it was a pretty amazing time, pretty crazy.
01:17:27.000I mean, would love not to have gone through it, but the fact that it ended out this way, I guess, makes all that difficulty worth it.
01:17:37.000You said you told your dad that was a badass moment with the fight, fight, fight.
01:17:43.000What he told me, does that now make like even can you?
01:17:51.000At first I was like, was this just like the greatest publicity stunt ever?
01:17:54.000Like, you know, look at, again, he's still Trump.
01:17:57.000I was like, was that, he's like, honestly, it was like, He's like, and he's cognizant of those things, but he goes, It really wasn't.
01:18:03.000I didn't think about it in those times.
01:18:05.000I probably knew I shouldn't have gotten up, but I also wasn't going to let the chaos sort of prevail and let those guys get the better of me.
01:18:14.000And it was really one of those moments.
01:18:16.000And it's funny, the people I hear about it most from are actually soldiers.
01:18:22.000they're like, hey, man, there's guys that are the toughest guys in the world, and then under fire, all of a sudden, not so tough.
01:18:27.000You never know until you actually have it happen to you.
01:18:31.000And they said that same thing, which is like, that was badass, man.
01:18:35.000I know a lot of serious guys that under that circumstance just break a little bit.
01:18:41.000And the fact that he didn't tell me everything I needed to know.
01:18:44.000So it was, I think, a big learning experience for a lot of the country, right?
01:18:49.000Especially the way they try to vilify him.
01:18:50.000It's like, you know, you can say what you want, but like, yeah, you don't do that if you're not actually a badass.
01:18:56.000Yeah, no, that was totally a badass moment.
01:18:58.000It changed, it contributed to changing everything.
01:20:11.000The fact that you are doing this kind of journalism, that you are getting down to the ground, that you're telling the stories that affect so many Americans that so few other people are really willing to tell.