Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - Butler: The Untold Story, Interview with Salena Zito | TRIGGERED Ep.257

00:06:30.000 With 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.

00:06:40.000 She 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.

00:06:53.000 In the book, Selena zooms out and tells us the story of the battle of America's heartland and the issues that actually motivate voters.

00:07:02.000 To understand how and why my father won the 2024 election, you have to understand places like Butler, Pennsylvania.

00:07:09.000 There'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.

00:07:21.000 There are moments that define America.

00:07:24.000 The late afternoon hours of July 13th, 2024 was one of them.

00:07:28.000 And 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.

00:07:38.000 I believe it was just today.

00:07:40.000 Five people from the Secret Service details that were there that day were actually suspended.

00:07:46.000 Another 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.

00:07:58.000 That stuff doesn't happen.

00:07:59.000 It's not supposed to happen.

00:08:00.000 That's a major breakdown.

00:08:03.000 The report details a breakdown and further breakdowns in communication and coordination between the Secret Service and state and local law enforcement partners.

00:08:11.000 Evidence 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.

00:08:23.000 So today, we'll do a deep dive into all of it.

00:08:27.000 So make sure you guys are liking, sharing, subscribing, so you never miss one of these major episodes.

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00:10:50.000 All 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.

00:11:02.000 Great to see you again, Selena.

00:11:03.000 It's been a little while since I ran into you in Pennsylvania.

00:11:06.000 Yeah, I did run into you in Pennsylvania.

00:11:08.000 You were at a chocolate factory and you were having a really good time.

00:11:13.000 Well, 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.

00:11:17.000 And I think, you know, that usually works well.

00:11:20.000 When you're authentic and you're having a good time, people get it also, which is probably somewhat helpful in politics as well.

00:11:25.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:11:27.000 Well, thank you for joining today.

00:11:28.000 I know you were just feet away from my father back almost a year ago, almost exactly a year ago, when shots broke out in Butler.

00:11:40.000 Take us through that sequence of events and how it really shaped your new book.

00:11:46.000 So that, you know, I think it's important to say people running for president don't go to places like Butler.

00:11:56.000 And they go to places like East Palestine.

00:11:59.000 And I had written a story right before he went, the day before, saying, why does he go to Butler?

00:12:05.000 I understand that.

00:12:07.000 And these are the people, and your father and I have talked about this numerous times, that he has a connective tissue to.

00:12:15.000 And he feels as though both parties have left them behind for generations.

00:12:21.000 So that day I was set to interview your dad.

00:12:27.000 When you're a journalist, there's a level of expectation that things are going to change.

00:12:32.000 And things changed several times that day.

00:12:36.000 Chris Lasavita texts me, Zita, you got five minutes with the president.

00:12:41.000 I'm like, okay, well, I know your dad.

00:12:43.000 I know I'd get more time.

00:12:44.000 Yeah, that could turn into an hour really quickly with him once he gets going.

00:12:47.000 It really does.

00:12:50.000 And then I get to the farm, the farm show complex.

00:12:54.000 I should tell people that Butler is very near and dear to my heart.

00:12:58.000 My family first settled There in the 1750s, one of the founding families of Butler, Pennsylvania.

00:13:06.000 So I know this place really, really well.

00:13:09.000 So I get there, it's hot, it's hot as heck.

00:13:13.000 I bring, see, it hits 100 that day, and there's no trees to cover you, there's nothing to go to any shade to get to.

00:13:22.000 And I bring my daughter, she's a photo journalist, she's going to do the photos.

00:13:27.000 And we drag my poor son-in-law, who's like a finance guy, right?

00:13:33.000 But we vainly believed that he was going to hold all the equipment and we would stay nice and, you know, we wouldn't get sweaty.

00:13:41.000 Well, that didn't happen.

00:13:42.000 We were a mess by the end of the day.

00:13:44.000 But once we get there, about two hours in, I get a text from Susie Wiles.

00:13:50.000 She's today, she is the president's chief of staff. 0.72

00:13:53.000 At the time, she was the other co-campaign chair.

00:13:56.000 And she says, hey, Selena, we're going to have to make some changes.

00:14:01.000 And as a reporter, I'm thinking, well, it's probably going to get canceled.

00:14:05.000 And when you're at a rally, the internet like breaks down.

00:14:10.000 So you don't.

00:14:11.000 Yeah, the Secret Service, there's all sorts of jamming stuff.

00:14:14.000 You can never live stream.

00:14:16.000 I always try to do it, you know, just for various social, just to give people that sort of first-hand experience of it.

00:14:20.000 It just usually never works well.

00:14:22.000 It never works.

00:14:23.000 So I thought, oh, well, it's not happening.

00:14:25.000 And then the rest of the text comes through.

00:14:27.000 And she goes, how about five minutes after?

00:14:30.000 And I'm like, fine, I'll roll with it.

00:14:33.000 And then like three or four, I mean, I'm there for ever.

00:14:36.000 And I have three or four hours later, your father's plane has landed.

00:14:40.000 He's in the back of the stage area.

00:14:42.000 If people aren't familiar with this, this is called the click area.

00:14:46.000 This is the area where the president will meet with local law enforcement, firemen, paramedics, police, state trooper.

00:14:57.000 But also they pull, I always find this very lovely.

00:15:00.000 I wish more people saw this.

00:15:02.000 They always pull people from the event just to go back and meet the president, shake his hand.

00:15:07.000 He talks with them.

00:15:08.000 He hugs them.

00:15:10.000 It's a very endearing moment.

00:15:12.000 And so he's back there.

00:15:14.000 And I get a text from Susie and she says, so change of plans.

00:15:20.000 And I'm like, there it is.

00:15:21.000 It's canceled.

00:15:23.000 And it wasn't canceled.

00:15:24.000 She said, how would you feel about going to Bedminster and doing the interview on the plane?

00:15:30.000 And I'm like, well, okay.

00:15:32.000 I didn't have that on my bingo card, but I'm in.

00:15:35.000 That's an upgrade.

00:15:36.000 Yeah.

00:15:36.000 He said the president really wants to talk to you about Pennsylvania.

00:15:40.000 I said, I'm all in.

00:15:42.000 And 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.

00:15:54.000 He is the campaign advance man.

00:15:56.000 He said, it's go time.

00:15:58.000 I'm like, okay.

00:15:59.000 They changed their mind again.

00:16:01.000 So we race through the crowd.

00:16:03.000 We get behind the stage.

00:16:05.000 We're standing there.

00:16:06.000 We're at the end of the click line.

00:16:08.000 And I look at Picard and I say, where are we doing this interview?

00:16:12.000 And he's like very sheepish.

00:16:13.000 He's like, I actually don't know.

00:16:16.000 So he goes around and he asks the president and he comes back and he says, he just wanted to say hi to you.

00:16:23.000 We're still going to Bedminster.

00:16:26.000 So I'm making my way around the blue curtain and I can hear your dad.

00:16:31.000 I can hear your dad.

00:16:32.000 He always says my name the same way, Salina.

00:16:36.000 He like exaggerates the E. And he gives me the same greeting he always gives me.

00:16:42.000 Look at that hair.

00:16:44.000 Guys, doesn't she have the most beautiful hair in America? 1.00

00:16:47.000 And of course, it's a room filled with state troopers.

00:16:50.000 And I'm so like, I'm so awkward, right?

00:16:53.000 I just want to like crawl inside myself.

00:16:56.000 Listen, I mean, I'd say it's solid bag of hair, though.

00:16:58.000 I 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.

00:17:06.000 So I'm just, you know, I go with it.

00:17:09.000 So, so he's like, he asked, he remembers my grandchildren's names.

00:17:14.000 He asks about them.

00:17:15.000 He asks about my kids.

00:17:17.000 And he said, I'm really looking forward to talking about Pennsylvania.

00:17:19.000 I really am looking forward to this interview.

00:17:21.000 It's going to be great.

00:17:23.000 Now, at that point, as most people know, there's a sort of sequence that happens with music.

00:17:31.000 And I know Lee Greenwood's song is next.

00:17:34.000 And so I'm ushered out of there quite quickly.

00:17:37.000 And Picard doesn't know what to do with me.

00:17:40.000 So he says, you know, you're just going to have to stay in the buffer.

00:17:44.000 The buffer is that well between the president's stage and the people that are attending the rally.

00:17:51.000 And he goes, you just go in through the buffer and make your way over to the other side because you're just going to hop in the motorcade.

00:17:59.000 I'm going to be able, I'm going to need to grab you and Shannon.

00:18:02.000 I said, okay.

00:18:04.000 So your dad comes out.

00:18:06.000 In fact, if you look at the cover of Butler, my daughter took that photo.

00:18:10.000 Oh, wow.

00:18:11.000 And it's very significant why we chose that as the cover because it says so much about what he tells me later.

00:18:20.000 And so we get out there.

00:18:21.000 He 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.

00:18:34.000 I don't want to fail at them.

00:18:36.000 I want to make sure I'm exactly where they told me to be.

00:18:40.000 And your dad does two things that he never does.

00:18:46.000 A chart comes down.

00:18:47.000 Now, if there's ever a chart, the chart is always on the other side of him.

00:18:53.000 And it's always at the end.

00:18:55.000 And it's pretty rare that there's a chart anyways.

00:18:59.000 So this chart comes down.

00:19:01.000 It's a digital chart.

00:19:03.000 And I'm thinking, I said to my daughter at the time, I'm like, what is he, Ross Perot?

00:19:08.000 Yeah, he's never, that was the odd thing about that day.

00:19:10.000 I noticed that too.

00:19:11.000 It's like, yeah, I've been to a, let's call it, you know, what, just shy of a billion rallies.

00:19:16.000 I've never seen him use like a PowerPoint presentation.

00:19:18.000 Like he's never done it.

00:19:19.000 You know what I mean?

00:19:20.000 It's not his style.

00:19:21.000 Yeah, it's not his style.

00:19:22.000 And then he does something else.

00:19:24.000 And I'm sure you know this about your father.

00:19:27.000 The relationship between him and the people that attend is very connective.

00:19:34.000 There's a lot of connective tissue there.

00:19:36.000 It's very transactional.

00:19:38.000 And what do I mean by that?

00:19:39.000 Well, he feeds off of their energy, but they also feed off of his energy, right?

00:19:45.000 It's very mutual.

00:19:47.000 So your dad may turn his whole body to face a different part of the rally, but he never turns his neck.

00:19:54.000 He never turns his neck.

00:19:57.000 The chart goes down.

00:19:59.000 I forget the words that he says.

00:20:01.000 He turns his neck and it's pop, pop, pop, pop.

00:20:04.000 It goes right over my head.

00:20:06.000 Now, when people say that time slows down for them in the midst of something that's traumatic, I will say that was also the case for me.

00:20:20.000 And it almost seemed to have my, I remember just feeling out of body, not out of body, but just almost had a 360 feeling of my place.

00:20:33.000 And I remember seeing the blood go across your face, your dad's face.

00:20:38.000 I remember him, I mean, I'm just a few feet away.

00:20:42.000 And I see him grab his ear.

00:20:45.000 And then I see him take himself down.

00:20:47.000 And I remember making a mental note.

00:20:49.000 He didn't fall.

00:20:51.000 He wasn't knocked off of his feet.

00:20:53.000 He was able to take himself down.

00:20:55.000 That's a good sign.

00:20:58.000 And then he's surrounded.

00:20:59.000 At the same time, he's surrounded by a sea of blue suits, right?

00:21:04.000 The Secret Service, his field people, they put a protective stamp around him.

00:21:11.000 There's another four shots.

00:21:13.000 Now, I'm still standing.

00:21:16.000 There was a part of me that was saying, God gave you a gift.

00:21:22.000 You are someone who recounts history and you have a purpose in this moment and you need to live up to that.

00:21:31.000 And obviously it was a conversation with myself, right?

00:21:35.000 But I remember thinking that so vividly.

00:21:38.000 So my recorder is still on.

00:21:40.000 I 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.

00:22:01.000 Because if you don't do that when you're writing the story, it can come across in a very different way.

00:22:07.000 Yeah.

00:22:08.000 You're interviewing.

00:22:10.000 I've seen that a lot where it's like, you know, if you play the video or the audio of me saying something, it clearly means something.

00:22:17.000 But you put it in print, you change the punctuation a little bit.

00:22:20.000 You know, a question looks like a statement.

00:22:22.000 A statement looks like a question.

00:22:24.000 They can manipulate that very, very easily in print.

00:22:28.000 Yes.

00:22:28.000 And I wouldn't do that to your father.

00:22:30.000 And I wouldn't do it to anybody that I interview.

00:22:32.000 I wouldn't do it to the car service guy.

00:22:34.000 I wouldn't do it to the mechanic, right?

00:22:36.000 That's my obligation as a reporter.

00:22:39.000 So the record, I forget that the recorder is on.

00:22:43.000 It's in my pocket.

00:22:44.000 At that moment, Michelle Picard III, like 28 years old, cancer survivor, just comes flying over and knocks me down. 1.00

00:22:55.000 Like, get down, get down, get down.

00:22:57.000 And he protects me.

00:22:59.000 And I'm thinking, I just met this kid six hours ago.

00:23:03.000 Like, that's next level, right?

00:23:05.000 In 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.

00:23:20.000 And so I can see your dad from the angle I'm at.

00:23:24.000 I can see your dad.

00:23:26.000 I can see, I can hear the conversation.

00:23:29.000 I know the shooter is dead.

00:23:32.000 And then I know that your dad's okay because he's, this was kind of funny.

00:23:36.000 If it wasn't so tragic, it was funny.

00:23:39.000 He's fighting with them about putting his shoes on.

00:23:43.000 When 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.

00:23:49.000 I'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.

00:24:00.000 And I think it was a big turning point in an election because they're like, you know what?

00:24:02.000 I want that representing me, not word salad comba.

00:24:07.000 It's important that you point that out because the next morning, your dad calls me at O'Dark 30.

00:24:14.000 And the first thing he says is, Selena, this is Donald Trump, President Donald Trump.

00:24:21.000 I'm like, yeah, like I don't know what's you, right?

00:24:24.000 He's got a distinct voice.

00:24:25.000 Yeah.

00:24:26.000 Announces his name.

00:24:27.000 He said, I just want to make sure that you are okay, that Shannon is okay and Michael is okay, meeting my daughter and a son-in-law.

00:24:34.000 And I'm really sorry I didn't get to do that interview with you.

00:24:38.000 I was like, I did something.

00:24:40.000 My parents are going to be so mad at me when they read the book.

00:24:43.000 I said, I swore like a truck driver to the president of the United States.

00:24:47.000 I never swear.

00:24:49.000 And I said, are you bleeping kidding me?

00:24:51.000 I didn't say bleep.

00:24:52.000 I said another one.

00:24:55.000 And I'm like, you have been shot.

00:24:57.000 I'm like, that is so kind of you.

00:24:59.000 And I'm not worried about an interview.

00:25:02.000 And your dad would go on to call me seven times that day.

00:25:07.000 And very powerful conversations.

00:25:11.000 We 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.

00:25:20.000 And I did too, not to the extent that he had, but certainly just being a witness to history, right?

00:25:29.000 And 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?

00:25:38.000 Why did I keep that chart down?

00:25:40.000 And then he comes to a conclusion where he says, that had to be God.

00:25:44.000 That was the hand of God, wasn't it?

00:25:46.000 Yeah.

00:25:46.000 And 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.

00:25:53.000 I 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.

00:26:01.000 I 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.

00:26:08.000 I'm like, No, I mean, I came from a competitive, you know, shooting background and everything.

00:26:11.000 I was like, No, that's like missing a, you know, quite literally a 100-yard shot prone from a roof for 10 minutes.

00:26:18.000 It's like, that'd be like missing a six-inch putt, you know, on someone's head.

00:26:23.000 And 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.

00:26:30.000 It's a little different in shooting.

00:26:31.000 Like, if I couldn't hit a golf ball every time at 100 yards, I'm doing something really badly wrong.

00:26:35.000 Yeah.

00:26:37.000 Don, 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.

00:26:56.000 Because I said to him, why did you say fight, fight, fight?

00:27:02.000 Because I could see him, the crowd was saying USA as he's getting up and he says USA a couple times.

00:27:08.000 I 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.

00:27:15.000 And then he turns around and he says, he's like to the Secret Service, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

00:27:20.000 And he says, fight, fight, fight.

00:27:21.000 So I said, why did you say that?

00:27:24.000 And this is a part of him that I think more people should know.

00:27:29.000 He says, in that moment, I wasn't Donald Trump.

00:27:33.000 I was representing the country, the presidency.

00:27:38.000 And all the grits, all the exceptionalism, everything that the country stands for, I had an obligation to show that strength.

00:27:46.000 I had an obligation because the people there would have would have, you know, there could have been chaos.

00:27:52.000 There could have been a stampede.

00:27:54.000 So an obligation for the country is watching this.

00:27:57.000 We are a resilient, strong country.

00:27:59.000 And as that, as that, in that moment, I'm not representing me.

00:28:05.000 I'm representing what America stands for.

00:28:08.000 Yeah, 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.

00:28:23.000 And two separate people came up to me at the RNC and told me this thing that you're sort of saying as well.

00:28:31.000 And I didn't even realize if he was conscious of it or not.

00:28:33.000 But he goes, your dad saved a lot of lives that day.

00:28:36.000 And I go, what are you talking about?

00:28:37.000 What do you mean?

00:28:37.000 Like, he got shot at.

00:28:40.000 He goes, when he came back up and he did that fight, fight, fight thing, everyone just calmed down.

00:28:48.000 He goes, you know, I was on the highest level of one of the rafters and like people were trying to stampede.

00:28:54.000 This thing was going to collapse and crush people in the wake.

00:28:58.000 The second he did that, it was just like a calming force across the entire field.

00:29:04.000 Everyone just sort of stopped and were in the moment and it allowed things to settle down, which was kind of amazing.

00:29:09.000 I never thought of it.

00:29:10.000 I had never thought of it until that, but like two separate people came and said it and you seem to be sort of saying the same thing.

00:29:15.000 Yeah, I talked to him two weeks ago and we went back to that.

00:29:21.000 And he said, yeah, you know, that's why I did it.

00:29:25.000 I thought it was the right thing to do.

00:29:27.000 And to your point about the crowd, it was fascinating to me.

00:29:32.000 And that did happen.

00:29:33.000 The crowd immediately calmed down.

00:29:36.000 People evacuated quietly.

00:29:39.000 There was no screaming.

00:29:40.000 I mean, obviously there's a medic there.

00:29:42.000 The medic is with Corey and Helen and the other two men that have been injured.

00:29:47.000 They were very seriously injured as well.

00:29:49.000 They almost died.

00:29:52.000 But they left quietly.

00:29:55.000 And the Secret Service took me to the back of the stage where the click room was.

00:30:00.000 I 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.

00:30:11.000 There are people that get hurt and they don't know it because the adrenaline.

00:30:15.000 The adrenaline kicks in.

00:30:16.000 You don't even feel it.

00:30:17.000 Yeah.

00:30:18.000 And so I didn't go out until an hour later.

00:30:21.000 Well, we walk out and we see this farm field.

00:30:25.000 It's so quiet.

00:30:27.000 And there's a wheelchair just sitting in the middle of it. 0.60

00:30:33.000 And the farm field, you know Pennsylvania really well.

00:30:35.000 We have these, Appalachia, you have these rolling mountains.

00:30:39.000 So the farm field rolls just like the rest of the train.

00:30:43.000 And that's where the parking lot was.

00:30:45.000 Now, there were at least 50,000 people there that day.

00:30:48.000 So that means there's anywhere between 15 to 20,000 cars there.

00:30:53.000 They were all still there.

00:30:55.000 Oh, wow.

00:30:56.000 And people were out of their vehicles.

00:30:58.000 They were hugging.

00:30:59.000 They were singing.

00:31:01.000 I get chills when I think about how people behaved in the moment.

00:31:06.000 I actually have never even heard that.

00:31:07.000 I didn't realize that.

00:31:08.000 And 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.

00:31:17.000 But that's pretty incredible, actually.

00:31:18.000 I had no idea.

00:31:20.000 They were sharing water.

00:31:21.000 They were sharing food.

00:31:22.000 If someone's phone wasn't working, they were calling loved ones for them to let them know they were okay.

00:31:27.000 And we were down there for another hour.

00:31:29.000 So that was a total of two hours that they were down there.

00:31:31.000 It was the most beautiful thing that I saw. 0.97

00:31:34.000 And 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? 0.99

00:31:51.000 Extremist. 0.95

00:31:52.000 And I thought, and I've always thought this, not just because I'm from Pennsylvania, it's because I've never left Western Pennsylvania.

00:31:59.000 These are the best people in the world.

00:32:01.000 And they showed that in that moment.

00:32:05.000 There's no cameras rolling, right?

00:32:07.000 There's no benefit for them to behave in a certain way.

00:32:11.000 And 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.

00:32:25.000 That moment changed American politics.

00:32:29.000 There 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.

00:32:38.000 One of them was when he went to East Palestine with JD.

00:32:44.000 I was on that trip.

00:32:45.000 Yep.

00:32:46.000 I remember.

00:32:47.000 That was an ugly day.

00:32:49.000 Typical Appalachia, right?

00:32:51.000 Like gray sky.

00:32:52.000 It's like sleet, snow.

00:32:55.000 You don't know what's in the air.

00:32:56.000 You don't know what's in the puddles, right?

00:32:59.000 But your dad comes rolling in with bottled water, buys all the law enforcement McDonald's.

00:33:06.000 But most importantly, he walks around town.

00:33:09.000 Now, my family is from East Palestine.

00:33:12.000 Oh, wow.

00:33:13.000 My great-grandfather was a farm boy and a coal miner from East Palestine.

00:33:18.000 He even ran for office as a free silver Democrat, which today would be a Republican.

00:33:26.000 Right.

00:33:28.000 And, you know, it's a village of 1800.

00:33:32.000 Nobody else cared.

00:33:33.000 But 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?

00:33:46.000 And he was down, the New Hampshire poll had just come out a couple of days beforehand, and he was down to DeSantis.

00:33:54.000 And I wrote the story that day.

00:33:55.000 I still have, like, it has water stains on it on the paper as I was writing my notes down.

00:34:01.000 I said, if everything changes for him, it happened right here.

00:34:05.000 This is his inflection point.

00:34:07.000 Two weeks later, he's ahead of the polls and he never looks back.

00:34:10.000 Yeah, because no one was going to go.

00:34:12.000 And 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.

00:34:23.000 Then, of course, Biden shows up two years later for a campaign stop, I guess, for 30 seconds after not really doing anything.

00:34:31.000 But no one bought it.

00:34:33.000 There was a difference.

00:34:34.000 No one bought that the other sale, but he at least forced some attention onto the issue.

00:34:38.000 And I think that was a big, big difference.

00:34:41.000 I completely agree.

00:34:42.000 They didn't understand that moment.

00:34:44.000 They didn't understand why your father goes to places like Butler.

00:34:47.000 Why does Butler matter?

00:34:49.000 Well, Butler matters because of place.

00:34:52.000 Place and rootedness have a deep and profound impact in American politics.

00:34:57.000 And there have been very few men or women that have run for office and understood that as a value.

00:35:05.000 Eight out of 10 people in this country live within 50 miles of where they grew up.

00:35:12.000 Those are the placed, right?

00:35:15.000 And those are the people that overwhelmingly voted for your father.

00:35:20.000 And he doesn't have to always have the same ideals or same sort of buffet of what they want done.

00:35:29.000 But 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.

00:35:40.000 The other thing that changed was also Butler.

00:35:43.000 Butler changed everything.

00:35:44.000 And again, nuance, which is dead, right?

00:35:48.000 You know, today I was asked in a podcast and I don't have a poker face.

00:35:55.000 They said, well, was he really shot? 1.00

00:35:58.000 And I was like, that's the most stupidest question I've ever heard. 1.00

00:36:03.000 And I'm just not going to answer that. 1.00

00:36:06.000 In those moments after your father was shot, there were several stories that came out.

00:36:12.000 And I remember Chris Lesavita like losing it with these stories about him being hit with shrapnel from a teleprompter.

00:36:23.000 And 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.

00:36:33.000 They're in a computer somewhere in DC, right?

00:36:36.000 And 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.

00:36:47.000 And most of the comments say, it really didn't happen.

00:36:51.000 And that was the irresponsibility of my profession for immediately wanting to be first and not caring whether the story was right or wrong.

00:37:02.000 And American people saw what happened and they made their decision in that moment that they don't trust anything anymore.

00:37:11.000 We have completely given up on you.

00:37:14.000 And it changes not only American politics, but it also changes journalism and how Americans are covered from this day forward.

00:37:24.000 I think that's right.

00:37:24.000 And 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.

00:37:33.000 They probably just made it up.

00:37:34.000 But unnamed sources, very close to.

00:37:37.000 I've seen those unnamed sources.

00:37:39.000 They're not very close.

00:37:40.000 They don't know anything, but they'll say whatever they need to to further their narrative.

00:37:44.000 But 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.

00:37:57.000 So 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.

00:38:12.000 You know, they give me a break.

00:38:13.000 We've all seen it.

00:38:14.000 So this one's a little different.

00:38:16.000 You know, what stands out to you most about what you learned in the process of writing all of it with all of those people?

00:38:22.000 What I learned is how much the country was changing right under our feet.

00:38:31.000 And 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.

00:38:44.000 You're covering it the way you want it to happen.

00:38:47.000 And the country is changing so much.

00:38:52.000 You see and I explore the youth vote, which is very, very important.

00:38:58.000 And I see the change.

00:39:00.000 And I've been watching this for a while actually with Hispanic voters.

00:39:03.000 Hispanic voters vote very much like my grandparents did. 0.61

00:39:09.000 So when they first came to this country, they're Democrats.

00:39:13.000 And then that sort of evolves into saying, wait a minute, we're actually Republicans, right?

00:39:20.000 That more lines up with my values than what the Democrats stand for today.

00:39:27.000 And so you see how this changed.

00:39:30.000 You see where it changed.

00:39:32.000 If there's any state that is the most important in this country in understanding American politics, it's Pennsylvania.

00:39:39.000 And if people read me, they know that I don't fly, not because I'm afraid, but because I miss so many stories.

00:39:46.000 I don't even take the turnpike, right?

00:39:48.000 I'm like on what's up where your place is, US6, right?

00:39:53.000 The Endless Mountains.

00:39:55.000 That's where the story is.

00:39:57.000 And so that is really important that people understand that this book doesn't end on that day.

00:40:05.000 It begins the story of where America is right now.

00:40:09.000 And I think that's really, really important.

00:40:12.000 So that's sort of interesting.

00:40:13.000 I 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?

00:40:28.000 How does the culture and the support from my father in rural Pennsylvania play a part of that story?

00:40:34.000 It plays a large part.

00:40:36.000 One of the things that people say, it's a throwaway line that really irks me when people say, oh, that's the middle of nowhere.

00:40:46.000 I always call it the middle somewhere because I don't think any place in this country is nowhere.

00:40:54.000 And, you know, every inch of this country matters.

00:40:58.000 And it matters why, do you remember the song, you're young, you probably don't.

00:41:04.000 Well, maybe you do.

00:41:04.000 Do you remember the song Allentown by Billy Joel?

00:41:07.000 Yeah, of course.

00:41:08.000 Okay.

00:41:09.000 So when I was growing up in the 70s, that was like everybody was singing that song, right?

00:41:15.000 Why?

00:41:16.000 Well, because everything was falling apart in the middle of the country.

00:41:19.000 And they saw themselves in that song.

00:41:22.000 They weren't from Allentown.

00:41:23.000 They could be singing at Peoria, right?

00:41:26.000 But they felt that song and what that image of place meant.

00:41:32.000 And 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.

00:41:47.000 And so I think that goes back to that importance of place.

00:41:52.000 But 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.

00:42:07.000 Our 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?

00:42:34.000 It'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.

00:42:47.000 And 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.

00:43:02.000 And that is the overriding thing that both the press doesn't understand.

00:43:10.000 They don't know how to cover Erie, people from Erie, Pennsylvania.

00:43:14.000 They don't know how to cover a girl that goes hunting with her dad.

00:43:17.000 Has any of that changed?

00:43:18.000 Because I mean, that was the same thing you saw in 2016.

00:43:21.000 And it wasn't just a U.S. phenomenon.

00:43:23.000 I mean, I remember going, we were opening up our golf course in Turnbury in Scotland in 2016 the day Brexit was happening.

00:43:31.000 And it was funny.

00:43:32.000 You're in a small town outside of the major cities in Scotland.

00:43:37.000 And you're having a conversation with the Greenskeepers and they're like, well, we're gone. 1.00

00:43:41.000 We're totally out of this thing.

00:43:42.000 No question.

00:43:43.000 I don't know a single person who's voting to stay in the European Union.

00:43:46.000 Then you speak to all the reporters in the other room and they're like, we don't know a single person voting to leave.

00:43:51.000 And it's like, you live in the same town.

00:43:53.000 No one's ever had a conversation.

00:43:55.000 In 16, we saw the same thing.

00:43:57.000 I always found it so ironic.

00:43:58.000 It'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?

00:44:07.000 But the people who choose to actually represent them in Congress are actually still incapable of doing so many of those things.

00:44:13.000 I mean, there's some great irony in that.

00:44:15.000 I 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.

00:44:23.000 I was like, you know, he kind of wants to watch a ballgame.

00:44:26.000 No one knows more about sports than him.

00:44:27.000 He's sort of a regular guy.

00:44:28.000 He 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.

00:44:35.000 But 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.

00:44:45.000 Yeah, it's really interesting.

00:44:47.000 You 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.

00:44:58.000 The problem is, is that people that in New York often don't do the same thing in the middle of the country.

00:45:05.000 I mean, they'll go to a resort.

00:45:07.000 That doesn't count.

00:45:08.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:45:10.000 You've got to immerse yourself in the culture of the country.

00:45:13.000 I think that dam has broken.

00:45:16.000 I think that dam broke on Inauguration Day.

00:45:20.000 When you saw the people that your father brought alongside shoulder to shoulder with future cabinet members, himself, your family, you saw the dam break.

00:45:34.000 And I see evidence of it every day.

00:45:38.000 That stranglehold of power is now has lost that power.

00:45:44.000 And they're flailing because they don't understand it.

00:45:46.000 Now, you see some universities, some corporations making decisions that sort of sheds that.

00:45:55.000 And that's what I mean by the dam has broken.

00:45:56.000 Well, at least optically.

00:45:58.000 I'll believe it when I actually see them do it.

00:45:59.000 But they're going to say they're going to do it so they get funded by the federal government for no reason.

00:46:05.000 I'll believe it when I see it, like I said.

00:46:07.000 Agree.

00:46:08.000 I completely agree.

00:46:10.000 Have you seen any of that change in journalism itself amongst your colleagues in journalism?

00:46:18.000 Because it was the same thing with them, right?

00:46:20.000 They couldn't get it.

00:46:21.000 They didn't understand.

00:46:22.000 They couldn't see this wave coming because they'd never spoken to anyone else in sort of real America.

00:46:26.000 I know you're known for sort of your shoe leather journalism.

00:46:29.000 You 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.

00:46:35.000 How do you approach reporting in a way that's different from the others in the media?

00:46:41.000 Do 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?

00:46:49.000 Well, interestingly, The Washington Post hired me in January.

00:46:54.000 Wow.

00:46:56.000 Didn't see that coming.

00:46:58.000 I know.

00:46:59.000 My first story, I sat down with John Fetterman and Dave McCormick.

00:47:04.000 My second story, I spent the day inside a steel mill and tried to make them understand the importance of that deal.

00:47:10.000 By the way, that deal your dad made, oh my God.

00:47:14.000 Game changer.

00:47:16.000 Absolute game changer.

00:47:18.000 And the third story was I tried to make them understand that AI and energy, that's happening in RESPAL.

00:47:28.000 That's where it's not Silicon Valley because all of these AI power data centers, what do they need?

00:47:38.000 They are thirsty for energy.

00:47:39.000 They're not going to get it from solar.

00:47:41.000 I 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.

00:47:51.000 And so there is a rebirth.

00:47:53.000 And in fact, your dad's going to be at a summit next week.

00:47:55.000 I'm going to be interviewing him, an AI energy summit.

00:47:59.000 I'm so excited about it because this is the second industrial revolution.

00:48:04.000 And 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.

00:48:21.000 So I forget what you asked me because I just kept talking.

00:48:24.000 Well, 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?

00:48:31.000 Like, you know, when you're driving, you know, off the turnpike, just on back roads, are you just stopping at a restaurant?

00:48:37.000 How do you go about speaking to those people?

00:48:39.000 How do these stories emerge?

00:48:41.000 What are those moments like?

00:48:43.000 Well, I do a couple of things.

00:48:45.000 First, anytime I go, like I said, I go on a back road.

00:48:48.000 So I'll take US 30, US 6, I'm in Pennsylvania, 22, 15, 11, any of those roads.

00:48:55.000 And I usually just stop in a town or two, and I'll just sit down and talk to people on the sidewalk.

00:49:03.000 I'll pull up to their farm.

00:49:04.000 I'll pull up to their company.

00:49:07.000 I've had, I got to go in a coal mine at one time by doing that, which was really awesome.

00:49:13.000 And, you know, or diners, bowling alleys, anywhere where there's centers of community, right?

00:49:20.000 Where the place rocks, going to church.

00:49:22.000 And I usually stay in like a bed and breakfast.

00:49:26.000 There's a reason for that.

00:49:28.000 It's typically owned by a small business person.

00:49:31.000 Well, nobody knows where all the bodies are buried more than the, you're right.

00:49:35.000 The best gossip is a small business person.

00:49:38.000 So I get to know the town that way.

00:49:41.000 And 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.

00:49:57.000 These are the people that decide elections.

00:49:59.000 Yeah.

00:50:00.000 I 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.

00:50:11.000 And the rest is very rural.

00:50:13.000 I mean, the voters in Bucks County or Allegheny County or Butler County all tell a different story.

00:50:19.000 It really is the Keystone state that way.

00:50:22.000 What are the themes that really stick out to you in Pennsylvania for the future?

00:50:28.000 What are the things that people are going to have to pay attention to politically?

00:50:30.000 Because it is such a bedrock state for future sort of national elections.

00:50:36.000 Keep your eye on the middle class. 0.84

00:50:38.000 The middle class and the working class.

00:50:40.000 They've been siloed off by my profession as being white working class, black working class, Hispanic, Asian.

00:50:48.000 They don't vote and think that way.

00:50:51.000 They vote and think as a community.

00:50:53.000 They all go to church together.

00:50:55.000 They all go to their kids' baseball games together, right?

00:50:58.000 They coach each other's kids.

00:51:00.000 They're ushers at church.

00:51:02.000 They go hunting together.

00:51:04.000 And 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.

00:51:14.000 The Republicans have been lucky.

00:51:18.000 President 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?

00:51:30.000 And security and safety and protections of their rights.

00:51:33.000 I think JD Vance does a good job of that as well.

00:51:36.000 He's an incredible communicator.

00:51:38.000 I've been covering JD.

00:51:40.000 The first time I met JD, we were both working together at CNN.

00:51:44.000 It was like our first day and it was inauguration day.

00:51:50.000 And you know how they would have those big panels.

00:51:52.000 It's like a half circle.

00:51:54.000 And he was on one end and I'm on the other.

00:51:56.000 And I forget who the host was.

00:51:58.000 I remember who the host was, but they were making fun of Trump voters.

00:52:02.000 And both of us at the same time looked up.

00:52:05.000 we hadn't met each other yet.

00:52:06.000 We both looked at each other, went rolled our eyes like, Oh, I cannot believe they did that.

00:52:12.000 We talked after that, and we became.

00:52:15.000 I quickly had a lot of respect for this young man.

00:52:18.000 Yeah, I think he's great.

00:52:20.000 I covered his Senate race that primary in 2022.

00:52:27.000 And everyone was knocking him, like saying he's not going to win, not going to win.

00:52:30.000 Yeah, I basically endorsed him when he was running number four in an Ohio GOP primary.

00:52:35.000 So I was like, I saw the talent.

00:52:36.000 We'd become friends.

00:52:37.000 I was like, you know, this is a long shot bid, but this guy's going to be, you know, this guy's got a future.

00:52:43.000 And it seems like I was right.

00:52:46.000 He's absolutely got a future.

00:52:48.000 Right before you were introduced or endorsed him, he was in Steubenville, Ohio inside an old church and giving a speech.

00:53:00.000 And after he was done, I said, JD, you're going to win this.

00:53:04.000 He goes, I don't know.

00:53:05.000 I goes, no, you're going to win this.

00:53:06.000 I don't think you understand what you have here.

00:53:10.000 You're really, really good.

00:53:13.000 And then I interviewed him in mid, no, late 2023.

00:53:21.000 He went to a Votech school in Cincinnati.

00:53:24.000 And I was excited because I'd get to go to Skyline Chili afterwards, right?

00:53:29.000 And I do the, he does, and this was so great.

00:53:32.000 This was like such a- For those of you who don't know, that's a big deal in Ohio.

00:53:35.000 Okay.

00:53:35.000 And no one else outside of Ohio would know what that is, but yeah.

00:53:39.000 He's he's in this, and this is in the book, but he's at this Votec and he's going to the different classes.

00:53:48.000 And these kids are trying out to be, or studying to be surgical techs.

00:53:55.000 And so they were taking their finals and the one young lady was supposed to get her blood drawn and she was really nervous.

00:54:03.000 And so JD said, I'll step in.

00:54:06.000 Why don't you draw my blood?

00:54:08.000 And like the whole class was like, oh my God.

00:54:11.000 And this poor girl, Don, if you would have seen how much her hands were shaking.

00:54:16.000 And he just rolled up his, took his jacket off, rolled up his sleeve.

00:54:20.000 And she and he was so soothing to her.

00:54:24.000 He said, it's okay.

00:54:26.000 You got this.

00:54:28.000 My mom studied to be a nurse.

00:54:30.000 I was her victim all the time.

00:54:32.000 You got this.

00:54:33.000 She got it on the first time.

00:54:35.000 That's pretty cool.

00:54:36.000 And 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.

00:54:53.000 And we're just sitting there talking.

00:54:55.000 And it dawned on me.

00:54:58.000 I'm like, oh, my God, are you thinking, is President Trump talking to you about being vice presidential pick?

00:55:06.000 And he immediately changed the subject.

00:55:09.000 He said, you know, the skyline chili's right down the street.

00:55:12.000 Yeah, it's right there.

00:55:13.000 It's right down the street.

00:55:14.000 I'm like, oh, why didn't I think of that?

00:55:17.000 That's funny.

00:55:18.000 Because he just leaned, he wouldn't say anything, but it was pretty funny.

00:55:23.000 And I got to interview his mom, too.

00:55:25.000 Yeah, she's great.

00:55:27.000 She's great.

00:55:28.000 I got to go to the White House when she had her 10-year anniversary, which was really a beautiful moment.

00:55:35.000 So, 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?

00:55:50.000 I know we heard recently, I guess, a couple of Secret Service people were suspended.

00:55:54.000 I mean, finally now, I guess, after all of that.

00:55:58.000 What else have you learned?

00:55:59.000 What do you want to learn?

00:56:00.000 What are some of the unknowns?

00:56:01.000 Or is this going to be one of those things that we'll just never actually know?

00:56:04.000 Because 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.

00:56:16.000 It doesn't add up to me.

00:56:20.000 That a shooter can get on a roof within 130 yards of the presumptive nominee of a political party.

00:56:26.000 I don't know.

00:56:27.000 I 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.

00:56:37.000 But I don't know.

00:56:40.000 What are the questions that you hear most?

00:56:41.000 What are the things that most other people want answered?

00:56:44.000 Or are they just sort of buying that no one knows?

00:56:48.000 We'll never know.

00:56:49.000 No, I don't think people are buying that.

00:56:52.000 Here is my best educated guess as to where we are in this moment going forward with this.

00:57:00.000 Do you remember after 9-11 and there was the 9-11 commission?

00:57:05.000 And 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.

00:57:17.000 They had no way to communicate with each other.

00:57:19.000 And that was going to be one of the things that changed.

00:57:21.000 That's why we got Homeland Security.

00:57:24.000 It is shocking to me that no one was communicating that day in Butler.

00:57:30.000 The 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.

00:57:45.000 And yet they were not engaged.

00:57:47.000 Correct.

00:57:47.000 And I think that...

00:57:53.000 Like, let's look at this and not the guys whose job it is to do that each and every day, right?

00:57:58.000 It'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.

00:58:09.000 You know, or even looking for that.

00:58:11.000 Whereas, you know, some of the federal agencies, that would be their job on a daily basis to be searching these things.

00:58:17.000 So, yeah, the whole thing seems a bit fishy to me.

00:58:20.000 Yeah, that lack of communication.

00:58:25.000 Those decisions don't come from the guys in the field.

00:58:28.000 Those decisions come from the suits in D.C., right?

00:58:32.000 And I think that's where the onus of the investigation should be.

00:58:38.000 And I suspect that's going to continue.

00:58:40.000 As far as Thomas Matthew Crooks, I did a lot of hard work trying to find things, and it was almost literally impossible.

00:58:49.000 He didn't have any kind of footprint at all.

00:58:53.000 Yeah, but these days, how do you get that?

00:58:55.000 Like, I don't even know how someone would get that radicalized at that age.

00:58:59.000 I think it was.

00:59:00.000 Without it.

00:59:01.000 Like, you know, like the online stuff, I mean, I see it.

00:59:04.000 I've got a lot of kids and sometimes they're like, oh, I'm watching a thing on history.

00:59:07.000 I'm like, that's not history.

00:59:10.000 We have enough understanding of where you're getting your information from.

00:59:13.000 Just because it's online doesn't mean it's always accurate, right?

00:59:15.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:59:17.000 And, you know, he was atypical in terms of the isolationist way he led his life.

00:59:25.000 There's, there has since COVID and all the things that impacted him, that impacted him in his sophomore year of high school.

00:59:32.000 Yeah.

00:59:33.000 Right.

00:59:33.000 And no going to school for, I forget, maybe a year.

00:59:37.000 Right.

00:59:38.000 And if you're already an awkward, shy kid, it just gets worse.

00:59:42.000 Yeah.

00:59:43.000 And 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?

00:59:57.000 We don't want to address it.

00:59:58.000 We don't want to make people take their meds.

01:00:00.000 We don't want to institutionalize people.

01:00:02.000 We don't want to address it.

01:00:04.000 And they hurt themselves and they hurt other people.

01:00:07.000 I mean, and that began.

01:00:09.000 There's cause and effect.

01:00:11.000 They decided to start shutting down mental health institutions where people were treated and kept safe from themselves and from other people.

01:00:21.000 And instead of fixing the system, they just said, well, we're just going to medicate everybody and shut them down.

01:00:26.000 And we hope they take their pills.

01:00:27.000 Well, they don't.

01:00:29.000 That's why I call them by, right?

01:00:31.000 That's why we have what happened because they have issues that are not addressed.

01:00:36.000 And this is a kid that really started to really decline in the last four months.

01:00:42.000 He was at the gun range, not when people usually go to a gun range.

01:00:47.000 He was there on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, Valentine's Day, right?

01:00:52.000 These are days that you would spend with family.

01:00:54.000 I don't know.

01:00:55.000 Listen, I've been to the gun range.

01:00:57.000 I'm not going to lie.

01:00:58.000 Listen, sometimes I get bored.

01:01:00.000 It's nice.

01:01:00.000 I have a gun range in my backyard.

01:01:02.000 So I can get done cooking and I'm like, okay, I need a couple of minutes.

01:01:04.000 I'm going to go shoot some clays.

01:01:06.000 I'm going to go shoot something far away.

01:01:08.000 I've definitely gone hunting a lot on Thanksgiving.

01:01:10.000 But okay, fair.

01:01:12.000 But yes, I'm probably unusual as well. 1.00

01:01:14.000 Not nearly as homicidal as this moron. 0.99

01:01:18.000 Well, I think you combine that with no friends and you start to see a pattern of behavior, right? 0.99

01:01:26.000 That's what we look for in people that have done things that are unexplainable.

01:01:31.000 What's the pattern of behavior?

01:01:33.000 And that's what, to me, is what stands out.

01:01:37.000 And so, you know, when his grandfather died, his grandfather was an officer in the Vietnam War.

01:01:44.000 He served his country.

01:01:45.000 He served his community.

01:01:46.000 He was very well thought of.

01:01:48.000 And when he died, he said the loves of his life were his two grandchildren, Matthew and Matthew and his sister, or Thomas and his sister.

01:01:56.000 And then you fast forward to now, that grandmother hasn't talked to the family in years.

01:02:03.000 Something happened in that family.

01:02:06.000 Something just completely collapsed in that family.

01:02:10.000 Yeah.

01:02:11.000 So there's a saying, you know, sometimes in life, the moment finds you.

01:02:15.000 That sort of seems like this story.

01:02:17.000 How did you get your start in reporting and come to embrace such a hands-on approach to really storytelling?

01:02:23.000 Because it seems no one else in your industry is doing that.

01:02:27.000 Well, I came to it late in life.

01:02:30.000 I always wanted to be one, but then I got married and had kids.

01:02:36.000 And I wanted to stay home with the kids.

01:02:39.000 And I came to it after the kids were in high school.

01:02:41.000 But, you know, I think where it comes from is I come from a long line of people that have been journalists.

01:02:48.000 My 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.

01:02:59.000 But I've also, I've been a waitress.

01:03:02.000 I have worked in a sewerage treatment plant.

01:03:05.000 I have been a shampoo girl, the cafeteria lady, and worked in a daycare center.

01:03:10.000 So I think, and I've always been a, I always have had a profound love and respect for history, good and bad.

01:03:18.000 I just feel like it tells us something every time we read it and learn from it.

01:03:24.000 And so I came to it late in life and I started in the 2000 as a local reporter.

01:03:32.000 And this is an interesting aspect to my career.

01:03:36.000 In September of 2016, my local newspaper decided to offer everyone buyouts.

01:03:44.000 And I love my job.

01:03:45.000 Don, I would have never left it.

01:03:48.000 I loved my job.

01:03:50.000 And they said, you know, you ought to think about something new and take the buyout.

01:03:56.000 And I was like, oh, they're telling me I have to take the buyout. 0.97

01:04:01.000 I'm dumb, but I'm not that dumb. 0.98

01:04:05.000 So I'm walking out of the newsroom. 0.99

01:04:08.000 I'm weeping because it's like the land of the misfit boys, right? 1.00

01:04:14.000 You all love each other and hate each other all at the same time.

01:04:17.000 And I get a phone call from a guy that I have known forever.

01:04:21.000 His name is David Urban.

01:04:23.000 And he said, hey, you have an interview with candidate Donald Trump tomorrow.

01:04:29.000 And I was like, oh, you know, like I put my best face forward.

01:04:33.000 I'm like, oh, okay, that's awesome.

01:04:37.000 And then I hang up the phone and I'm like, I don't have a bleeping job.

01:04:42.000 So I called the New York Times and they turned it down.

01:04:44.000 I called the Washington Post, they turned it down.

01:04:46.000 I think I called like, I don't know, one of those online papers like Politico or Daily Beast at the time.

01:04:53.000 They all turned it down.

01:04:54.000 I called the Atlantic of all places and I got paid $200 for that Story.

01:05:01.000 I interviewed your dad at the Marcellus Shale Coalition convention.

01:05:08.000 Two really important things came from that moment.

01:05:11.000 That's when I noticed your dad's connective tissue with working class. 1.00

01:05:17.000 After the interview, he said, Come on, Zito, let's go for a walk.

01:05:22.000 I'm like, okay, it's the first time I interviewed him.

01:05:24.000 I'm like, I don't, where's this taking me?

01:05:26.000 I didn't have my recorder on.

01:05:28.000 There was no cameras.

01:05:29.000 It was just me and him and, you know, his people.

01:05:33.000 And we're walking around behind the green room, like the curtained off green room.

01:05:38.000 So behind where the C-suites are, people are.

01:05:41.000 And there's the janitors, there's the electricians, the plumbers, the people pushing the carts with the water, the caterers.

01:05:48.000 He stops and talks to just about everyone and asks about their life.

01:05:53.000 Why do you do what you do?

01:05:54.000 Why do you like what you do?

01:05:55.000 Tell me about your family.

01:05:57.000 And I was like, oh, he's not a guy with a gold building in Manhattan.

01:06:04.000 He's a guy from the outer borough who worked on construction sites.

01:06:08.000 Who also has a gold building in Manhattan, but yeah, minor details.

01:06:12.000 Old habits die hard.

01:06:14.000 I know how the elite in New York are.

01:06:16.000 I know how old money versus new money, right?

01:06:19.000 There's a sort of punching up that you do when you come from an outer borough and trying to make your way into Manhattan.

01:06:30.000 And 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.

01:06:41.000 And everyone's stolen this line, right?

01:06:43.000 But they don't take everything you say literally, right?

01:06:46.000 Like when he's joking.

01:06:48.000 But my profession takes everything that you say literally.

01:06:52.000 No, they actually do the opposite.

01:06:54.000 When he's serious, they pretend he's joking.

01:06:55.000 And when he's joking and everyone knows that he's joking, they pretend he's serious.

01:06:58.000 So yeah, no, it's even worse than all of that.

01:07:02.000 Yeah.

01:07:03.000 So that's sort of how my, that's like sort of the trajectory of my of my career.

01:07:10.000 I didn't have, like, I didn't have a job.

01:07:13.000 Like I was working four different freelance jobs, by the way, making $200.

01:07:18.000 Yeah.

01:07:19.000 $200.

01:07:20.000 Travel all over the country because I wanted to finish that election.

01:07:23.000 I knew your dad was going to win.

01:07:26.000 I knew it.

01:07:27.000 It 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.

01:07:36.000 And so on the last, the night before the election, I interviewed Mike Pence on the tarmac in Pittsburgh.

01:07:46.000 And I went home and wrote the story, filed it, and cried because I knew after the next day, I wouldn't have a job.

01:07:54.000 The next day, I worked for the New York Post covering the election in Pennsylvania, election night.

01:07:59.000 I were 10 counties that I was watching, Don, to would tell me if your dad was going to win or not.

01:08:06.000 People forget, this is why I need to like how much the Democratic Party has dramatically changed in my state.

01:08:12.000 People forget that Barack Obama won by 11 percentage points in 2008 in Pennsylvania.

01:08:20.000 He didn't even crack 5% in 2012.

01:08:25.000 That's a massive amount of loss of voter support.

01:08:29.000 Where did those voters go?

01:08:31.000 Okay, that's what I was thinking about.

01:08:34.000 And so I went and looked at 10 counties that Mitt Romney, if he only had gotten 2,000 more votes, he would have won.

01:08:42.000 Didn't matter what happened in Philly or Pittsburgh.

01:08:45.000 If he got 2,000 more votes in those 10 counties.

01:08:49.000 So election night comes and he surpasses it in those 10 counties.

01:08:55.000 I filed my story for the New York Post at like a quarter to nine.

01:08:59.000 I'm like, it's over.

01:09:01.000 He's won Pennsylvania.

01:09:02.000 And if he's won Pennsylvania, that means he's won Ohio.

01:09:05.000 Remember, Ohio.

01:09:06.000 Yeah, Ohio is a purple state.

01:09:07.000 Now it's like it's solid red like Florida.

01:09:11.000 It's sort of amazing.

01:09:12.000 And 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.

01:09:27.000 When 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.

01:09:35.000 We're down seven points in a place we thought we were going to win by three.

01:09:39.000 And they go, so I go, what's the breakdown?

01:09:41.000 It's like, here's the Trump voters.

01:09:42.000 Here's the Clinton voters.

01:09:43.000 I go, yeah, but like, there's 10% missing.

01:09:47.000 It's like, oh, those people told us to go F ourselves.

01:09:49.000 It's like, that's a Trump voter.

01:09:51.000 And 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. 0.64

01:10:00.000 You know, if you were a Trump voter, you were the deplorable and you were this.

01:10:03.000 So people just didn't want to bother. 0.81

01:10:04.000 They just wouldn't tell them.

01:10:05.000 And so if you took the Trump voter plus the go F yourself voter, it added up to exactly what the polling should have been.

01:10:12.000 But that's why the conventional polling is never going to do it.

01:10:14.000 No one has anything at stake.

01:10:15.000 So 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.

01:10:23.000 Hopefully some of that's changing.

01:10:24.000 But 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.

01:10:33.000 They get the trend.

01:10:34.000 They get the movement.

01:10:35.000 They're feeling that stuff in the moment.

01:10:36.000 And it's just much more accurate.

01:10:39.000 Yeah, it absolutely is.

01:10:40.000 People have skin in the game.

01:10:42.000 And, you know, it's that election taught me to trust my instincts.

01:10:51.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:10:52.000 And to who cares if you get the crap bullied out of you online? 0.99

01:10:57.000 Yeah. 0.98

01:10:58.000 So what?

01:10:59.000 Hey, it was this.

01:11:00.000 So what?

01:11:00.000 That was not easy as a guy for like maybe coming out of a real estate.

01:11:03.000 You know, we build hotels.

01:11:04.000 It's like, I want everyone to stay at my hotel.

01:11:05.000 But like when you became like, oh, now 50% of the country, 50% of the world, you have ostracized, guess what?

01:11:12.000 Like, 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%.

01:11:23.000 And so once you get comfortable with that, it's actually a great opportunity and very cathartic.

01:11:28.000 You 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.

01:11:36.000 So you do it.

01:11:36.000 Like politics was great because it's like those people flush themselves out of my life forever, and I don't have to waste the time.

01:11:42.000 So it's been good.

01:11:43.000 It's been a great experience.

01:11:44.000 I want to ask you one question.

01:11:46.000 Sure.

01:11:46.000 Where were you, and how did you find out about your dad?

01:11:50.000 With Butler?

01:11:52.000 Yeah, so I was actually, I mean, it was a Saturday, obviously, July 13th, and I got the unusual call from my daughter, my 17-year-old Kai.

01:12:04.000 She was the one that spoke at the RNC, and that was.

01:12:06.000 I mean, she's awesome.

01:12:07.000 Yeah, that was totally sort of organic and whatever it was.

01:12:10.000 But she called me up that day, and this does not happen often. 0.98

01:12:13.000 And if you're father of a teenage girl, I'm probably most of the time in her mind, like the least funny, dumbest human being in the world. 0.97

01:12:23.000 But I got a call that morning. 0.99

01:12:24.000 She's like, I want to go fishing.

01:12:25.000 And I'm like, who are you?

01:12:27.000 And what have you done with my daughter?

01:12:28.000 Because she's a great athlete, great golfer. 0.53

01:12:30.000 She's always working out and playing golf.

01:12:31.000 And she takes it very seriously.

01:12:34.000 And so that was unusual to get that call.

01:12:36.000 So when you do get that call as a dad, you're like, we're going fishing.

01:12:38.000 I don't care if it was 12-foot C's. 1.00

01:12:40.000 Like, we're going to go fishing.

01:12:41.000 And I'm going to put her on some fish. 0.99

01:12:43.000 And we went out, pretty calm day, but we're way offshore.

01:12:47.000 We're, you know, probably 13 miles offshore.

01:12:50.000 And we just got a call.

01:12:52.000 I mean, you're getting to that range where it's almost spotty cell reception.

01:12:56.000 And I pick up the phone.

01:12:57.000 It's like, your dad's been shot.

01:12:59.000 And I'm like, and, you know, I mean, there's no good.

01:13:04.000 You know, some calls are good or bad.

01:13:06.000 Or, you know, there's no range of good in terms of when you get the call, your father's been shot.

01:13:10.000 But it's like, well, I mean, is it like really, really, really, really bad or just really bad?

01:13:14.000 What are we talking about here?

01:13:16.000 We don't know. 1.00

01:13:17.000 I'm like, oh, shit. 0.99

01:13:19.000 Now I got to tell, you know, my 17-year-old daughter at the time, we got to go and we got to go fast. 0.99

01:13:25.000 And we had a great day.

01:13:26.000 We were catching fish.

01:13:27.000 We were having an absolute blast.

01:13:30.000 And 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?

01:13:41.000 So she's like his golfing buddy.

01:13:43.000 I mean, they play every weekend when he's around.

01:13:44.000 And certainly at this time when he wasn't president, you know, he was there all the time.

01:13:48.000 So, you know, she's, you know, shocked.

01:13:52.000 I set the, you know, the C-speed record from wherever I was back into, you know, my house in Jupiter.

01:13:58.000 And it's 90 minutes.

01:14:00.000 We can't get through.

01:14:01.000 You know, like you said, there's always bad cell phone reception, but then they shut everything down.

01:14:05.000 You couldn't get through.

01:14:06.000 No cell phones, no nothing.

01:14:07.000 They just, all the radar jamming.

01:14:08.000 They didn't, I guess, you know, trying to prevent IEDs and stuff.

01:14:11.000 So 90 minutes before we could get through to find out, if anything.

01:14:15.000 Now, by that time, I'd start seeing the videos online, him coming up defiant.

01:14:18.000 And finally, we got through and he's, you know, hey, I just told him, I sort of opened up.

01:14:27.000 It was very like sort of somber.

01:14:29.000 And, you know, again, the adrenaline dump starting to hit you a little bit.

01:14:32.000 More afterwards, like, you know, I was like just wired.

01:14:36.000 And then it hits you and then you sleep for like a lot.

01:14:41.000 But, you know, I just like, hey, man, that was the most badass thing I've ever seen.

01:14:46.000 You know, we're talking a little bit, but again, it was sort of awkward.

01:14:48.000 It's like my brother, my sister, my kids, they're all there at my house.

01:14:52.000 We're sort of gathered on a speakerphone with my dad.

01:14:54.000 And then finally, I was like, okay, we got to break this ice.

01:14:57.000 And so I just go to him, I go, okay, most importantly, how's the hair?

01:15:03.000 And he goes, you know, Don, Don, the hair is fine, Don, but a lot of blood.

01:15:08.000 There's a lot of blood in the hair, but the hair held up, it'll wash out, but there was a lot of blood.

01:15:14.000 And 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.

01:15:21.000 And it was that next day, I guess that Sunday, my daughter calls me at like 6 a.m.

01:15:28.000 Also unusual for a teenager, although she wakes up early to work out.

01:15:32.000 But like she called me at 6 a.m.

01:15:34.000 She's like, I'm speaking at the RNC this week.

01:15:36.000 And I'm like, oh, that's wonderful.

01:15:38.000 I just bumped some governor.

01:15:39.000 Like it's just going to happen.

01:15:41.000 And she's like, no, I'm serious.

01:15:42.000 I want to do this.

01:15:43.000 And everyone was like, oh, you know, the lovely ladies of the view were like, Don Jr. trying to pawn off his daughter. 0.67

01:15:48.000 I was like, I would never put my, like, your first speech shouldn't be in front of 40,000 people.

01:15:52.000 It's just not the great, you know, it's not the greatest warm-up.

01:15:54.000 That can go really wrong.

01:15:55.000 It often does, even with seasoned professionals.

01:16:00.000 So I called my dad and I was like, hey, man, Kai wants to speak at the RNC.

01:16:06.000 And I'm like, he's like, he did the same reaction to me.

01:16:09.000 He's like, whoa.

01:16:10.000 He goes, whoa, that's a big one.

01:16:14.000 You know, because he understands these people are animals.

01:16:16.000 You know what I mean?

01:16:17.000 Hunter Biden was beyond reproach, right?

01:16:19.000 He could do no wrong as a 50-year-old man.

01:16:22.000 If she's a 17-year-old girl, but she's got the last name Trump, they will try to destroy her if it's even a little bit off. 1.00

01:16:32.000 But he thought about it for a few seconds.

01:16:33.000 He goes, you know what?

01:16:35.000 That kid's a winner.

01:16:36.000 Let her do it.

01:16:36.000 She'll be fine.

01:16:38.000 And I was like, okay, look, someone's going to be pissed because they're going to lose a prime time slot.

01:16:43.000 And she absolutely crushed that thing.

01:16:45.000 I mean, I continued to get comments two years later almost about it.

01:16:52.000 So she really rose to the occasion.

01:16:54.000 So it was sort of a groundbreaking moment for even her taking sort of that adversity and coming out of it.

01:16:59.000 But yeah, it was a crazy time.

01:17:01.000 But like we sort of opened up with, I think it also changed not just his, but everyone's faith in God.

01:17:12.000 Whether 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.

01:17:23.000 So it was a pretty amazing time, pretty crazy.

01:17:27.000 I 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.

01:17:37.000 You said you told your dad that was a badass moment with the fight, fight, fight.

01:17:43.000 What he told me, does that now make like even can you?

01:17:47.000 Yeah, no, totally.

01:17:48.000 He's that, you know, that guy.

01:17:51.000 At first I was like, was this just like the greatest publicity stunt ever?

01:17:54.000 Like, you know, look at, again, he's still Trump.

01:17:57.000 I 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.

01:18:03.000 I didn't think about it in those times.

01:18:05.000 I 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.

01:18:14.000 And it was really one of those moments.

01:18:16.000 And it's funny, the people I hear about it most from are actually soldiers.

01:18:22.000 they'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.

01:18:27.000 You never know until you actually have it happen to you.

01:18:31.000 And they said that same thing, which is like, that was badass, man.

01:18:35.000 I know a lot of serious guys that under that circumstance just break a little bit.

01:18:41.000 And the fact that he didn't tell me everything I needed to know.

01:18:44.000 So it was, I think, a big learning experience for a lot of the country, right?

01:18:49.000 Especially the way they try to vilify him.

01:18:50.000 It'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.

01:18:56.000 Yeah, no, that was totally a badass moment.

01:18:58.000 It changed, it contributed to changing everything.

01:19:02.000 And you see that today.

01:19:04.000 Yeah.

01:19:04.000 So, Sala, where can people find the book?

01:19:06.000 When's it come out?

01:19:08.000 How do we get this going?

01:19:11.000 Yay.

01:19:12.000 Nice.

01:19:12.000 My daughter took that photo.

01:19:14.000 That's great.

01:19:14.000 That's amazing.

01:19:15.000 I love that because it conveys that he's looking at them and they're looking back at him, that connective tissue.

01:19:22.000 You can get it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, small bookstore.

01:19:26.000 But right now it's on sale on Amazon.

01:19:30.000 for prime days.

01:19:31.000 Well, Selena Zito, thank you so much, guys.

01:19:33.000 Make sure to check out her book, Butler, on Amazon and everywhere else that you get books.

01:19:39.000 You know, someone that's truly, actually had access to all of the people involved.

01:19:43.000 If you want to see all of the details, you know, truly an incredible story.

01:19:48.000 And I mean, I think whether it's that photograph or the fight, fight, fight photograph, you know, I thought, you know what?

01:19:53.000 You're not going to get many photos as good as the mugshot in an election cycle that will sort of become a part of Americana.

01:20:01.000 But I think that one certainly did it and actually blew the other one out of the water.

01:20:07.000 So an amazing time.

01:20:08.000 So Selena, thank you so much.

01:20:10.000 Really appreciate your time.

01:20:11.000 The 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.

01:20:22.000 I think it's really incredible work.

01:20:24.000 So follow Selena as well, guys, you know, on all the social channels.

01:20:28.000 And we appreciate it.

01:20:29.000 We'll have you back soon.

01:20:30.000 That sounds great.

01:20:31.000 Thank you so much.

01:20:33.000 Guys, thanks so much for tuning in.

01:20:36.000 Remember to like, share, to subscribe.

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01:20:44.000 Do it right now.

01:20:45.000 Okay.

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01:20:58.000 You can see us on Apple podcasts, Spotify podcasts.

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01:21:12.000 I hope you have an awesome weekend.

Triggered - Donald Trump Jr - July 10, 2025

Butler: The Untold Story, Interview with Salena Zito | TRIGGERED Ep.257

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