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Trump Recounts Shooting on Call with RFK Jr.; GOP Convention Focus on Crime and Immigration; Law Enforcement Experts Answer Questions on Rally Shooting. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired July 16, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:30:00]

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- Tyler Pager.

Thank you, guys, both for joining me this morning from Wisconsin.

So, Jim, I want to start with you as a son of Wisconsin of sorts and someone who has been watching the Republican Party for so much, so long and seeing this transformation that we've seen really take place in the GOP, in the time of Donald Trump.

Watch Mitch McConnell, who is once the embodiment, really was the -- has been the embodiment of the establishment Republican Party. Have been the leader longer than any Senate leader in history. What happened yesterday when he was on the floor of the convention hall?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MINORITY LEADER: Madam Chairman, the Commonwealth of Kentucky proudly cast 46 votes for the next president, Donald J Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And those were boos, as you can hear. But also, the fact that, you know, McConnell is someone who had sharply criticized Trump after January 6th, barely could say his name in the months and months ahead. Trump had a whole back and forth with him, attacking his wife, and ultimately McConnell endorsed him. But what do you think this moment means for the GOP, for that wing of the party, with J. D. Vance's ascension as the number two, for people like in the Republican establishment like Mitch McConnell?

JIM VANDEHEI, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, AXIOS: Yes. I mean, Manu, we've been at this for a while together covering it. I don't think we've in our lifetime witness any political figure who's been able to take over an entire party, one that he wasn't part of when he came in in 2016 and reinvent it, literally reinvent the party, changed its entire agenda, changed how it talks, how it approaches politics. Add a rougher edge to it that did not exist in the past. And then, systematically, basically dismantle anything that stood in opposition, whether it was Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell, you look at the state parties, you look at who's elected to the House, you look at the Senate, you now look at J. D. Vance, this is Donald Trump's party, and it's going to now last for a generation. Like, there's no going back to Mitch McConnell. There's no going back to Mitt Romney. There's no going back to Paul Ryan. The future of the party is J. D. Vance, because that's where you see all of the activity at the local level, the state level, in the media ecosystems that are being created, and the money that's being generated, the new parties that are being formed, and that's their orbit.

And now J. D. Vance has the chance if they were to win. And if he were to run himself, you could have, you know, Republican rule, Trumpian rule well into the 2030s. Again, that requires them to keep winning. No certainty of that.

RAJU: Yes. And, Tyler, what do you -- how do you see the significance of the J. D. Vance pick? I mean, it's not clear what politically this adds to Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump has the base already. They are firmly with them. J. D. Vance is, in some ways, very much a base pick. He didn't pick Nikki Haley or a Glenn Youngkin, someone who could potentially appeal to someone who are the suburban voters who are not there as with Donald Trump. But how do you see the, this pick impacting the ticket come November?

TYLER PAGER, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, WASHINGTON POST: Yes. Look, I think it shows a level of confidence that Donald Trump has and his ability to win and the feeling that he does not need to expand the base or bring in disaffected Republicans or moderates or independents. J. D. Vance is not the person that would do that. And I think it's also a stark contrast to what we saw when he picked Mike Pence in, you know, 2016, where he wanted to shore up support among evangelicals, a more mainstream Republican in Mike Pence. Donald Trump has dispensed with any notion of that wing of the Republican Party, and as you and Jim just talked about, has fully remade the party in his own image and putting his imprint on the future of the party.

So, this pick is one in which he, you know, clearly feels most comfortable and has the best relationship with J. D. Vance, and also a sense of confidence in his ability to win and not need to go outside, you know, the base that he is so animated with someone like a Nikki Haley or a Marco Rubio.

RAJU: Tyler, I just want to keep it with you for one quick second because you have some new reporting out about the efforts to try to convince Joe Biden out of the race. You write about how Democratic lawmakers and strategists inside the effort to re-elect President Biden have grown concerned in recent days that That he is listening to a small number of aides who are limiting the data he receives. What do you -- what is your takeaway from this reporting?

PAGER: Yes, some of the most striking reporting we have in this story is a conversation that Joe Biden had with lawmakers over the weekend as part of these listening sessions he's doing with lawmakers concerned about his presidential campaign. And in one of those calls, he said that he has -- you know, if you look at the last a few national polls, he's leading by four points. There's no national polls in recent weeks that show him leading by four points.

[10:35:00]

And so, it's unclear who is telling him whether he misspoke, but the campaign could not provide us with any polls that show that. And so, there's this growing concern, not just among Democratic lawmakers, but also people inside the effort to re-elect the president that he doesn't have a complete picture of the situation he's in. And we saw polls come out yesterday that show him trailing in every single battleground state, raising the alarms that Democrats have as they hurdle toward renominating him to run for president.

RAJU: Yes. And that could happen actually sooner than the Republican -- Democratic Convention in August would be a virtual roll call vote, which will be much harder to, of course, get him off the ballot. So much of that is playing out. Really remarkable to see Republicans the way they fall in line behind Trump. Democrats not behind the top of their ticket. That is something that will continue to play out.

Jim and Tyler, thank you guys both for joining me just now. I really appreciate the discussion.

And Jim Acosta, back to you in Washington.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Manu Raju, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Coming up next, law enforcement experts from the Secret Service, FBI, Homeland Security, they will all join me as we talk through the investigation and the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. That's next.

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ACOSTA: It's been almost three days since the attempted assassination on Former President Donald Trump. We still have no motive at this point, and we still have no real explanation for how a man with an AR- 15 rifle was able to get into a roof position and fire shots, despite shouts from the crowd. We showed you that video just a short while ago. There are still dozens of unanswered questions this morning.

We're going to try to spend some time to get some answers with an expert panel. Juliette Kayyem is former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. Andrew McCabe is a former FBI assistant director. Darrin Porcher is a former NYPD lieutenant. And Kevin Chmielewski has decades worth of experience working with campaigns and helping coordinate with the Secret Service.

Let me start with you first, Andrew. You're here in the studio with me. The fact that we have no motive at this point, what are your thoughts on that? It's strange.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST AND FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, FBI: It is a little odd, but there are a couple things that play here, Jim. One, I think to some extent we're used to understanding a motive right away from our many experiences with mass shooters, many of whom relieve some sort of writing behind and they leave it somewhere that it can be found quickly. That's obviously not the case here.

This this is going to take longer. They have made some progress with the cell phone and with his computer. I understand that none of those are really giving him a very clear indication of what his motive is, but there's always the possibility that we won't know. Of course, the most famous example of that is Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter. After years of investigation, we have really no clear motive as to why he did that.

ACOSTA: And, Juliette Kayyem, let me go out to you because, I mean, you and I have had so many conversations over the years about mass shootings and so on. The fact that we don't know what the motive is here. And also, I mean, we need to get into the discussion with the full panel about this, just operational breakdown that took place with the Secret Service.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST AND FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: That's exactly right. There's sort of two pieces to this. As Andrew was saying, there's the why, the motive what brought him to this moment. And it maybe that we are in a situation where the motivations are mixed. They're not clear. There's no singular narrative that we can understand or that we will ever understand about him.

The second is this security breakdown. Look, there's going to be -- there's no way this was a security success. There are going to be lots of reasons for the security failure. The one I'm really focused on is the decision at some stage, a determination that that building was outside the security zone. Looking at it now, it's just awfully close. Other buildings that were as close were more protected. So, we need to figure out why that designation was made because that then -- what unfolds after that is a series of openings, loopholes, vulnerabilities that are taken advantage of by a -- you know, not a terribly sophisticated attacker.

ACOSTA: And Darrin Porcher, let me go to you on that. A source telling CNN that a local sniper team was stationed inside the building where the gunman was, but they were on the second floor. Why would a local sniper team be on the second floor? I mean, it just seems to me you would want a team on the roof with eyes on all the rooftops in that area.

DARRIN PORCHER, FORMER NYPD LIEUTENANT: That's the million-dollar question, Jim. It's not uncommon for the Secret Service to deploy local law enforcement for certain areas such as the building, but the security or I should say those police officers should have been on the roof.

Now, one of the questions was the roof was slope. Therefore, they felt that there was a level of danger. But we're at a stage whereas we can now use drone technology, and that should have been deployed if they felt that there was a security risk to the safety of the officers if they were on that vaulted roof.

But bigger than that, the question remains as to when there was an identification made by people on the ground that there was an individual on this roof, why was there not a radio transmission? You had an officer that deployed and attempted to get to that top of that roof. However, there should have been a radio transmission that would have availed both the Secret Service sharpshooters and the other officers to the propensity for danger because you would have had a much quicker interdiction that way as opposed to the officer climbing to the roof. And as we see, he panicked and he came down.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Kevin, I -- you and I know each other from being out on the campaign trail together. You worked on Republican campaigns in advance and a body guy capacities for many years.

[10:45:00]

I mean, Kevin, what do you think about the fact that -- I mean, there was a minute and 57 seconds between when the rally goers were noticing the gunman on the roof and when the shots were fired. I mean, Kevin, I know you have a lot of experience working with Secret Service as they're moving around these campaign rally sites. It just seems like a, a major gap in the security there that they weren't covering.

KEVIN CHMIELEWSKI, FORMER TRUMP 2016 ADVANCE STAFFER: Well, let's also remember too, obviously, we know what side of the fence I'm on. It's -- President Trump is not the current president. If it was the current president, the assets and resources are a thousand times more than what a nominee, the presumptive, even a former.

So, if this was the current president, the assets and resource, it would've never happened. It has nothing to do with Biden or Trump or Republican or Democrat, it has to do with the acting president and continuity of government. If President Biden was here, it would be thousands more Secret Service agents, law enforcement, quite frankly, you know, the military and everything else.

So, I think that's what we've kind of missed in this entire thing is President Trump isn't the current president and there's a massive difference between a current president and a presidential nominee.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Andrew, I mean, one of the questions moving forward is what should happen, I mean, from an accountability standpoint? I mean, we saw the Secret Service director saying the buck stops with me. But, you know, just have -- you have to wonder is there going to be some accountability over at the Secret Service after all of this? Typically, after something like this, that's what happens?

MCCABE: There certainly should be, right? And that starts with an investigation. And I don't mean the FBI investigation of the event, that will provide crucial facts to the inspectors who come in to look at the Service's performance. But nevertheless, those independent investigators need to sort through this, figure out the times, the radio calls, who was where, understand the entirety of it to expose failures in the security plan and in the execution of that plan. This is not to hold individuals, you know, to point our finger at somebody call them a bad guy and fire them. This is to ensure that the Service performs better the next time because --

ACOSTA: Well -- and you have the Secret Service saying well, we thought local police was handling that. And you have the local police saying, well, the Secret Service, you know, they're the ones who are in charge of the site. I mean, ultimately it comes down to the Secret Service. They're the ones who are supposed to bring in the plan, execute that plan, make sure something like this doesn't happen.

MCCABE: And part of that plan -- a big part of it is working with local law enforcement. Working with them means explaining to them exactly what you need, how they should react in every situation. You know, if there was a failure in communication there of what their responsibilities were or how we expected them to react, that's on the Service as well.

ACOSTA: All right. Andrew, rest of our panel, thanks very much. We're going to continue this conversation on the other side of the break. Stay with us.

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[10:50:00]

ACOSTA: My panel of law enforcement campaign experts back to discuss the questions around Trump's attempted assassination. Juliette, let me go back to you. I mean, bottom line, should this building have been inside that perimeter? And I guess, what was Kevin saying earlier, I mean, if this had been a sitting president, might you have had a larger, you know, array of law enforcement officials there on site and perhaps that might have made a difference?

KAYYEM: Yes, on both. I mean, obviously, in hindsight, it seems clear that it should have been in the security zone. So, the question that we have to answer in this review is why not? Who made that security zone? Because we're looking at it, it's just clear that an assassin would have a line of sight to the protectee in terms -- whether -- whoever the protectee was in terms of what -- look, we've never had a former president also on the campaign trail for a very long time. The Secret Service has to rethink -- is -- how it deploys in light of that.

I want to say a third thing to Andrew's point. You know, look, the Secret Service was created in 1865, out of the Treasury secretary -- Treasury Department. It may be time that it focuses only on one mission. It does a lot of financial investigation, cyber, counterfeit, that may need to go somewhere else and that they should focus on protectee services only. You know, just given the threat environment in the kind of country we live in now.

ACOSTA: And, Kevin, you and I have been to so many of these outdoor rallies over the years. I mean, how -- are you comfortable with these outdoor rallies? I mean, it seems to me there's just so -- there's so many gaps and such a potential for something to happen. CHMIELEWSKI: Not at all. Once again, Jim, if this was a seated presidential event, it would either be inside. I've even seen where they take three and four layers of cargo ship containers and put them up.

And so, while we're on that, Jim, you've known me a long time. I'm not going to make this political. But what people don't realize is the Secret Service relies heavily on local police departments all over the country, all over the world. And with the defund the police movement, this doesn't help. I can't tell you how many times I've physically been handed from a chief of police, a mayor, a bill for $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 to pay for the police resources for those events.

And this is everybody from Trump, Romney, McCain. It's not just Republican. It's the defund the police. I'm not saying that's could have stopped it but this definitely could have helped.

ACOSTA: And some of that is just local municipalities and how they fund their local law enforcement agencies. And, Darrin, I mean, what do you think about how to make these events safer? Is it possible?

PORCHER: It is possible. We want to look at the teachable moments of when JFK was assassinated. Law enforcement established something that was above and put ourselves in a superior target on top of a building. We refer to that as overwatch.

[10:55:00]

The U.N. General Assembly happens here on a regular basis, in New York City, and no one does it better than the NYPD. But at the same token, we always extract the teachable moments of how things went bad. And I think moving forward, we can be in a better place, but it's just unfortunate we had a former president that was wounded based on an error on the part of law enforcement not preparing properly.

ACOSTA: And just very quickly, Andrew, do you think these outdoor rallies should continue like this? I mean, especially in this campaign cycle with the-- I mean, I'm sure the FBI is picking up on new threat chatter, that sort of thing, and you know, for what may happen in the days ahead.

MCCABE: You're always better off in a controlled interior space. You can control access. You can mag everybody that comes within range of the protectee. I don't think outdoor rallies are going to go away as a result of this, but I think it may change the perspective on how many resources we need to devote to protect them adequately.

ACOSTA: All right. Well, thanks to everybody on the panel. Really appreciate that conversation. And coming up, we'll head back out live to Milwaukee for day two of the Republican National Convention now that the nominees are set. Stay with us

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