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Trump Says He Rewrote RNC Speech In Wake Of Assassination Attempt; Secret Service: Agency Will Participate In Independent Review; GOP Convention Begins Today After Trump Assassination Attempt. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired July 15, 2024 - 07:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[07:30:00]

SALENA ZITO, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON EXAMINER, COLUMNIST, NEW YORK POST (via Skype): So, it's really interesting. He called me yesterday.

I was there with my daughter who is a photojournalist. We were to interview President Trump after the rally on a flight to Bedminster. I had talked to him just a couple of minutes before he went out onto the rally in a holding room behind the stage.

So he called me yesterday morning to make sure myself and my daughter were OK. And my initial reaction was, "I wasn't shot, you were."

So his mood was good. He was in -- he was in a good -- a good mood. He projected someone I think very -- well, he said this -- very appreciative and very cognizant of what just happened and, sort of, the meaning behind it. So that's how I would describe his mood.

And then I asked him if I -- you know, if we could just have a few minutes to talk about the moments after he was shot, when he was shot, and how that changed him. And so, that's how the conversation began.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: What did he say that sort of stood out to you?

ZITO: There's a -- there was a recognition -- there were several things that he said to me. That there was a recognition that there was a divine power that saved him. If you've ever covered a Trump rally or if you've ever gone to one, he's always facing forward. Now, he may turn this way or turn that way. He never turns his neck, ever.

And so, he just wonders why in that moment when he's going to look at -- he gets a chart that puts up -- also, rarely puts a chart up. It's just -- you know, usually, Trump rallies are all about that relationship between himself and the people that are attending. But he puts -- someone puts a chart up. He turns his head to point to it. Again, something he rarely does if you look at the different speeches that he gives. And in that moment that is when the bullet grazes his ear and he -- and, you know, I saw the blood immediately.

And so, he saw that moment as something pivotal -- something powerful that -- not that he was shot but that he had made a decision that he doesn't traditionally make. Even is it really sort of conscious that he's doing something different. So he saw that moment as a way to rethink and regroup.

And I also talked about that decision to make sure that he stands up and lets people know he's OK.

And he talked about not it just really being about him being OK, but he thought it was really important to project strength. That the country is OK. That he knew he -- he said he was very aware not just of the people that were there but also that the whole world was watching. And he wanted to project that the country is going to be OK. We move forward.

So that's what he said to me.

SIDNER: Salena Zito, thank you for sort of describing what Donald Trump was like right after this shooting -- within 24 hours. And also, to you and your daughter, I'm so terribly sorry that you had to witness this and sort of be there in this terrible moment in American history. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time.

ZITO: Thank you so much.

SIDNER: All right -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, Sara, thank you so much for that.

Joining us right now is David Urban, former senior adviser to the Trump campaign. And CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Paul Begala as well.

I mean, David, we were sitting here listening to this together. I've literally never heard Donald Trump in that way that Salena Zito was describing.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Yeah. Listen, I've never heard the president that way either.

Salena and I are good friends. We've worked together for a long time. We've known each other since the late '90s.

I spoke with her yesterday about her conversation with the president because she and I -- we've talked to the president. We've been together with the president in the past in Pennsylvania and at Pittsburgh.

And what Salena says just rings true. You get shot and it misses his -- the president never puts up -- I've done probably 40 rallies with the former president. He never uses graphics. He never says let's go to the PowerPoint.

BOLDUAN: Right.

URBAN: And he had a big slide up about immigration. And so, he looks to that slide, turns his head, and in that moment, the bullet nicks his ear. Just nicks his ear.

The photojournalist who took that picture for The New York Times was here yesterday. And ballistics experts say that bullet was the one that nicked his ear because it slowed down enough to be photographed.

And I think that you can't help -- if you're the - if you're Donald Trump standing there and you see that photo and you see that bullet that could have taken your life if your head was turned just another -- you know, an inch -- a few millimeters --

[07:35:04]

BOLDUAN: Yeah, exactly.

URBAN: -- his life would have been over.

So I think in that moment you recognize that there's some divine providence involved here and that -- and that maybe you get -- you get another opportunity to kind of think about what you should be doing and what you should be talking about on the stage in this arena --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

URBAN: -- moving forward, and the message of uniting the country. And it's a moment now to say look, maybe we should kind of dial it back and talk about our better angels and be more Reaganesque in my delivery.

BOLDUAN: Here's -- Donald Trump also spoke to the New York Post, David. I want to read this -- one of -- about how he's now scrapped his speech. And this is how he put it.

"I had all prepared an extremely tough speech -- really good -- all about the corrupt, horrible administration, but I threw it away." And Trump said his new speech -- about the new speech, "I want to try to unite our country, but I don't know if that's possible. People are very -- people are very divided."

And you -- look, what you say is absolutely -- a near-death experience changes people. How do you -- how do you avoid being cynical that this is 24 hours and not -- and not more of uniting --

URBAN: Right.

BOLDUAN: -- of a message of unity from the podium, from the stage, and from -- and from people gathering?

URBAN: Well, the proof will be in the pudding, right? We'll see -- we'll see in the next few days. We'll see when the former president gets up here and speaks. We'll see what his demeanor is. We'll see how he comes across.

America will see just like we saw the debate with Joe Biden and people said something's up there.

BOLDUAN: You'll see -- yeah. URBAN: No matter what everybody tells me, right, something's up with Joe Biden.

We'll see if something's up with Donald Trump. You'll see --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

URBAN: People have seen his delivery. They've heard him talk before. They -- I promise you America will be able to tell if he's genuine or not. And I think he's genuine in this moment. I mean, I find it hard to believe that you almost get killed, you're spared by literally divine providence, and it doesn't impact you in some way.

BOLDUAN: Yeah. It's -- it could not have been closer. It is so -- the more you think about it, the crazier it is --

URBAN: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- and how close it came.

URBAN: I mean, absolutely.

BOLDUAN: It really was.

Paul, let me ask you. I want to read for you what Politico is saying kind of about the campaign and the -- how this adjusts. Can really -- I don't know if it's a reset or it adjusts how the Trump campaign is going to be approaching things going forward with the -- Politico has put it as they're -- the Trump campaign -- "They're upset about the shooting -- more than upset: shaken, angry, worried. But they also know the moment that they're in. Right now, Trump has the potential to become a much more sympathetic figure in the eyes of undecided voters."

You've been around politics for a long time, Paul. How hard is it to -- how hard is it to do this if that is the goal right now with the group -- every -- all of the -- all of the party loyals coming to this convention this morning?

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST (via Webex by Cisco): Well, first actually, let me say Salena is an old friend of mine, too. I've been doing this a long time. And I'm so heartbroken for what she and her daughter went through. And Urban, I know, had a lot of friends there. I've worked a lot in Pennsylvania politics. And David, I know you've had friends who were right there. And my heart and my literal prayers -- I'm a person of faith -- go out to them.

It's almost impossible to answer your question, Kate. That someone this well-defined can be redefined. But this country is always open to it. You know, we are a really big-minded country.

Mr. Trump has the opportunity now to be both strong and sympathetic. That's kind of not -- the latter half of that is not Trump's brand, OK? He's never been brand unity, OK? Joe Biden is. But he is brand strength. So if he can combine those, that would be really formidable. And I do think even I, as a Democrat -- I can't stand him, OK, but I

wish him well and I would love to see him try to redefine himself. Because there's so much division in this country and a whole lot of it is fostered by Donald Trump. So if he can change that, that would be a wonderful thing for our country and, frankly, for Mr. Trump politically.

BOLDUAN: One thing I thought was really interesting. Axios is reporting -- has new reporting, David, that Trump has actually ordered aides not to allow the convention's primetime speakers to update their remarks to dial up -- the way they wrote it is dial up the outrage. To stop them from dialing it up and changing their remarks. They -- that seems -- that's a real step if that is what happens. That is a real step towards maybe what 48 hours ago would seem the impossible.

URBAN: Well listen, we'll get a sense of things today when things kick off later today -- tonight. Everything that's being said from this podium has been vetted and scrubbed by the campaign and so you'll get a sense of that. If it's really -- conventions are all about red meat, right?

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

URBAN: Red meat for the base.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

URBAN: But I think in this moment and this instance in time the people on the podium aren't speaking just to those here in the arena, right? They're speaking not just to Americans but to the world that America's strong. That we're a resilient country, right? That there -- we're hopeful -- we're hopeful -- absolutely.

BOLDUAN: There's going to be a lot more people listening than there would have been, right?

URBAN: Absolutely. We're optimistic as a nation.

And as Paul said, former President Trump has always projected strength. Standing up there after he gets shot just pumping his fist and saying -- he's showing that he's OK. That's his brand. If he could convert that to the point Paul makes -- to be a unifier and be a little more sympathetic, I think we'll do much, much better in the fall and have much bigger coattails.

[07:40:12]

BOLDUAN: Yeah, and maybe a real step towards the broadening of the base that has been --

URBAN: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- elusive to this point -- right.

URBAN: And it's also just good for America, right? It's good for citizens. It's good for our country to talk about issues. To have a debate on issues.

BOLDUAN: Taking down the temperature. I mean, that should be everyone's brand right now. That's definitely the clear message we heard from Donald Trump, we've heard from his campaign now, and we've also heard from President Biden.

Thank you for being here, David and Paul. Thank you, as always, as well.

Still ahead for us, we're keeping a very close eye for -- on the developments coming out in the investigation into that tragic shooting. What happened that allowed that man to get on that roof and what happened in the moments just before the shots rang out at Donald Trump's Pennsylvania rally?

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:45:15]

SIDNER: Uh, we literally just got this statement from the Secret Service director. And in it, she talks about the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump. The director, Kimberly Cheatle, says the agency understands the "importance of an independent review announced by President Biden, and they plan to participate fully."

This is after, of course, a 20-year-old gunman was able to get on a rooftop within a line of sight to Donald Trump and come within centimeters of assassinating him.

President Biden has ordered a review of security at the rally and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are demanding answers this morning as the FBI leads the investigation into the attempted assassination. All eyes are on the Secret Service.

Joining us now, former senior FBI profiler and special agent, Mary Ellen O'Toole. And CNN law enforcement analyst and former Secret Service agent, Jonathan Wackrow.

I have to go to you first. This is about the Secret Service. This is about scrutiny of the Secret Service. Did they make a huge mistake here?

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST, FORMER SECRET SERVICE AGENT: The Secret Service needs to be held accountable for the actions on that day. They were responsible for the security plan for that event. When you take it at a high level, man with a gun had an elevated position and shot the former President of the United States at a political rally.

That's not what the Secret Service is known for. They're known for mitigating those threats and coming close to guaranteeing that they never happen. So the fact that this happened is catastrophic for the agency. This is a major lapse in security. Some are calling it a catastrophic failure. I'd probably lean more towards that right now based upon the information that we have.

That location was so close. That's, you know --

SIDNER: It was a little more than a football field away, right? It sort of --

WACKROW: Yeah, 130 yards --

SIDNER: Yeah, 130 yard -- yeah.

WACKROW: -- or so. I mean, that's a -- that's a par-3 golf course, right? Like, that's -- you know, we're getting into that close range. And everyone is like well, it was outside of the secure site. That was within the threat envelope.

SIDNER: Right.

WACKROW: The basic tenet of a Secret Service agent doing an advance is mitigating line of sight. It doesn't matter if you are a brand-new agent -- you learn that in the academy -- or have been in the agency for 25 years. This is what we do as protection agents. We mitigate that risk.

The fact that it wasn't needs to be answered and it needs to be answered quickly. Because what they have to assess was this an isolated incident? Was this just a mistake on that day or do we have a systemic problem within the agency in our model?

Now, think about -- like, I've talked to you about the protective methodology --

SIDNER: Um-hum.

WACKROW: -- the proactive advance. Is the Secret Service missing something? They have to get to that answer quickly because we are in the middle of the political season.

SIDNER: Yeah.

WACKROW: We have a lot of rallies -- outdoor rallies.

SIDNER: We do, yeah.

WACKROW: This is political season. We have to answer that quickly.

SIDNER: Yeah. I think that's a really good point. I think everyone that was looking at this -- there were people -- witnesses saying hey, there's a guy on the roof right before it happened.

WACKROW: Um-hum.

SIDNER: And they were telling police about this.

The Secret Service, obviously, in your mind and in most people's minds, should have known about that area there and cleared it. Maybe been on it. We always see the Secret Service on top of these buildings --

WACKROW: Um-hum.

SIDNER: -- generally speaking.

WACKROW: Well, they already knew it was an area of vulnerability - that direction broadly, whether it was the building or the area around the building -- by the fact that they had a counter-sniper team there.

SIDNER: Right.

WACKROW: So the vulnerability was identified. It was just on the event day, what broke down that that vulnerability was not mitigated at the point --

SIDNER: Right.

WACKROW: -- that then relied upon the C.S. team to neutralize the threat.

SIDNER: All good points.

All right. I want to go to you, Mary. The shooter is 20 years old. It's been sort of difficult trying to get information on him. Not a lot of social media footprint.

What do you glean from the fact that he was a registered Republican, but he had made this small donation of I think around $15.00 to a Democratic-aligned PAC? How do you look at this person and sort of give us a profile when you have very little -- although they have found his parents as well, and the gun I think belonged to his father.

MARY ELLEN O'TOOLE, FORMER SENIOR FBI PROFILER AND SPECIAL AGENT (via Webex by Cisco): Well, it's not easy when you have someone that doesn't want you to readily find about who they are. So it's going to take a little bit more digging. And with this young man, he -- he's really an expert with computers and so there's every reality that he has secreted his information -- his ideation -- in a way that's going to make it very challenging.

But that's the role of an FBI agent profiler is you dig very deep because there are issues that caused him to engage in this behavior and those issues include the motivations, and that becomes imperative to understand. And those motivations are going to be in the trail he left in the days, weeks, and months right before this event.

[07:50:10]

SIDNER: I don't think they've gotten into his phone yet. That will tell us a lot, I'm assuming, Mary Ellen.

O'TOOLE: The phone will say a great deal. The interviews with people will also be extremely valuable. And then they have to kind of cobble it all together. And what I mean by that is the people that knew this young man -- they're going to say I didn't see anything. I didn't recognize this behavior. But the agents know what to look for so that they can cobble together

the information in the phone. Contacts that he may have made with people 3,000 miles away that he didn't even know. People he had contact with in the retirement home where he worked.

They're very well-trained to put that all together. To have a puzzle that now begins to show what it was that exactly caused him to decide to do this, how much planning and how much effort they put into it, and what the motivation is.

The motivation, though, I will tell you will never satisfy your listeners. It just will never satisfy people that say are you kidding me? He did that to be famous? He did that to live in infamy? So I'm just preparing the viewers you will not be satisfied when you hear what the motivation is.

SIDNER: Yeah, that's a really good point. And certainly, no one is going to be satisfied with that one person is dead and the president has been hit with a bullet. It is unconscionable what happened there.

Mary Ellen O'Toole, Jonathan Wackrow, thank you so much. I wish I had more time with you guys today -- you're great -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Much more to come on that -- on that review on the investigation.

But also, back here in Milwaukee, the focus is will the message from this Republican Convention be all about unity? How have things changed, or will they have been changed from the events of this weekend?

We have the leader of the Republican Party of Wisconsin joining us next.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:56:31]

BOLDUAN: In a just a few hours, the Republican National Convention will be kicking off here in Milwaukee. Donald Trump arrived in Wisconsin just 24 hours after surviving an assassination attempt. And while the unprecedented moment in American history this weekend is sure to impact the tone this week and beyond, how is that tragedy going to change the program that we are about to see play out?

Let's find out. I'm joined right now by the chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, Brian Schimming. Brian, thank you for being here.

BRIAN SCHIMMING, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN PARTY OF WISCONSIN: Welcome to Wisconsin.

BOLDUAN: Thank you very much. It's been a very wonderful welcome so far.

This -- the stage is quite a bit different looking today than what we would have been talking about 48 hours ago, of course. Has the program changed at all?

SCHIMMING: It hasn't. And, of course, we're all praying for the folks in Pennsylvania. I mean, just an unspeakable tragedy. I just can't get over it, and it's still unfolding, right?

But as we head into this convention, I will say two things to you. Number one, the program has not changed. It hasn't changed a line that I have seen. I'm on the committee in arrangements for the convention, being the home state chair, and everything is set to as planned.

And I get asked a lot about the security as well, obviously --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

SCHIMMING: -- because of the events -- the unfortunate events in Pennsylvania.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, right now, is probably the most secure place on the face of the planet because we have thousands of law enforcement personnel from -- I saw somebody from Cincinnati a while ago on the way over, and from clear across the country. So this area is secure and the convention is going to go off as planned. But as with the whole nation, Pennsylvania is on our mind.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, absolutely.

I mean -- and Donald Trump said in this new interview coming in overnight that his whole speech for Thursday has changed. He tore it up. He's now focusing on calling for national unity.

What role can the Wisconsin Republican Party play in that so it goes beyond one -- a speech on a stage?

SCHIMMING: Yeah. Really, Wisconsin, as you know, Kate, is one of the closest states in the country politically. We've had 12 races in this state of six million people. In the last 24 years, we've had 12 races within 30,000 votes --

BOLDUAN: Wow.

SCHIMMING: -- statewide. So politically, Wisconsin is an important place.

But I think in welcoming here in the birthplace of the Republican Party in Wisconsin, walking over the sense of unity not just politically but for the whole country I think is very, very important. It's an important message for President Trump --

BOLDUAN: Do you think it's -- do you think it's challenging? Do you think it will be a challenge as everyone gathers here?

SCHIMMING: I don't think it'll be a challenge in the respect -- in a political respect.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum. SCHIMMING: Because this convention's unified. And I think that's the difference between the parties right now. We're unified and the Democrats are a part in disarray.

BOLDUAN: CNN reported last week that -- in terms of when you're talking about what we're going to see playing out here, Brian, CNN reported last week there are seven battleground states. One of them -- including Wisconsin -- that some of the delegates that are coming are fake electors who -- or fake electors or others who had worked to kind of upend the 2020 election results to represent state parties when they're here.

When I was looking at it, it's one fake elector as a delegate and one as an alternate for the Wisconsin -- I'm going to call it the delegation.

SCHIMMING: Right.

BOLDUAN: Are you OK with that? What does that say?

SCHIMMING: Yeah. What it says is that there are a lot of good Republicans that were involved in these elector situations in some of the states who didn't believe they were doing anything illegal at all.