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Trump Safe as FBI Investigates Apparent Assassination Attempt at His Golf Course. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired September 15, 2024 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:01:10]
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett in New York on this Sunday night. Our breaking news continues at this hour.
The FBI, as I speak, is investigating a second assassination attempt of former president Trump just about two months to the day after Trump was shot at a rally in Pennsylvania. Now the former president was not harmed during the incident this afternoon, but there are so many mounting questions tonight about how another gunman was able to get so close to Trump. This time, it was this afternoon, Trump was at his club in West Palm Beach. He was playing golf.
He was somewhere between holes five and six, as you can see on your screen, when a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel peeking through a fence. And the Secret Service agent then opened fire on a suspect who was hiding in the bushes. That suspect ran away, got in a car and escape for a while. He is now in custody. At the time of this, though, Trump was 300 to 500 yards away, at least twice the distance that he was in Pennsylvania.
But we understand that the suspect had this long rifle, an AK-47, with a scope, which of course would make 300 to 500 yards certainly a shot. Officials say the suspect also had two backpacks and a GoPro with him in those bushes as you can see here. That GoPro, the sheriff said, set to film what the suspect thought would be an assassination of a former president.
We are learning that a witness then took a picture of the getaway car and the plates after that Secret Service agent fired and the suspect ran. And it was that witness, though, taking that picture of the car that was so crucial to the suspect's capture. He drove north but is now detained in connection to the incident, and he has been identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, according to sources.
A lot more details unfolding as I speak about how this happened and who he is. Initially, we understand that he was not answering questions, but that may have changed here in these past few minutes. So let's start with Kristen Holmes, obviously covering the Trump campaign.
And Kristen, you have some new reporting from your sources. I know you were just on the phone talking to people inside the Trump campaign. Campaign manager just releasing a letter to the staff moments ago. What are you learning?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, there are a lot of questions right now, particularly around what exactly happened and how exactly this happened. As you had mentioned, he was on the golf course, he was with his donor, an ally, a good friend of his, Steve Witkoff. He was between holes five and six. There was an advanced Secret Service team ahead of him. We're not sure entirely how far ahead of him they were. They are the ones who were kind of scouting out as they were rounding the corner, as they were waiting for Donald Trump to come to that hole.
That is when they saw this rifle and that is when they engaged with this suspect who, as you said, ran away. Now there are questions of course not necessarily just around the security of the perimeter. We know that there has been enhanced security since that first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, that has included particularly around his Mar-a-Lago home. Of course, this didn't occur at his Mar-a-Lago home, but roughly 15 minutes away at his international golf club, which is in West Palm Beach.
You can see there that there is a lot of trees. It's a very dense area. It's also wide spanning. It is a golf course. They are notoriously hard from our law enforcement sources to completely secure, but we are in an unprecedented time where there was just a recent assassination attempt on the former president as well. Now the questions are how exactly that person, one, got onto the property, but two, more importantly, how he knew that Donald Trump was going to be there at that time.
We were told, I was told by one source who said that it was a change of plans for Donald Trump to be playing golf that day and at that time, that I spoke to a number of people who are very close to the former president who actually weren't aware that he was even in Mar-a- Lago.
[20:05:05]
They've had a hard time keeping up with his schedule because he has been between multiple properties, including Trump Tower, Bedminster, and Mar-a-Lago, as well as on the campaign trail. So there are questions about how exactly this person, one, got access and two, knew his schedule and was apparently lying in wait for the former president.
Now in terms of the campaign, as you mentioned, we just learned from sources inside the campaign that the heads of the campaign, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, put out an e-mail to staff, partly which reads this, says, "Today for the second time in two months, an evil monster attempted to take the life of President Trump. Thankfully no one was injured at the golf course. This is not a matter that we take lightly. Your safety is always top priority. We ask that you were remain vigilant and your daily comings and goings be observant and maintain a constant level of situational awareness." Earlier today, we know that they did at least for some time put those
West Palm Beach offices -- Donald Trump's campaign headquarters have moved to West Palm Beach -- on lockdown as well as that golf course that Donald Trump was on. It's not that surprising after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, they put all of the campaign headquarters outside of Washington, D.C. as well as in West Palm Beach onto a lockdown.
They encouraged people not to go into work as they were trying to figure out exactly what the scope of all of this looks like. Now in terms of where Donald Trump is, we know he was held at the West Palm Beach Golf Club for several hours. That scene was cleared. He was put under security surveillance. They made sure everything was safe, then they moved him for at least some period to Mar-a-Lago.
Now, there are questions as to whether or not he remains at Mar-a- Lago. It does seem to indicate, we saw a motorcade or at least parts of a motorcade leaving that Mar-a-Lago property, but I have been told at least few hours ago that he was expected to be at Mar-a-Lago until he left for Detroit. He has an event there, excuse me, in Flint, Michigan, on Tuesday. So unclear right now whether or not he remains at Mar-a-Lago, but of course, as we know, it is not uncommon to be unaware of a principal's movements at a time like this.
There were moments in Butler or at least hours went by when it appeared he was leaving the hospital to go to the airport. And then we didn't see him at the airport for quite some time much longer than the drive would have taken. That is what I'm told by Secret Service protocol to make sure that he is safe, that he is secure, that there are no other outstanding factors in terms of a potential second gunman or a second location that could have been under attack.
Obviously, we are still learning more details about the person behind that. I believe our law enforcement experts will weigh in on that, but this is still the campaign learning in real time where Donald Trump is right now, where his head is, and what exactly happened today on the golf course at a time when they really would have let their guard down because it's not, you know, official event and he's surrounded by so much Secret Service.
BURNETT: Right. All right. Kristen, well, thank you very much. And we do know obviously he posted on social media that he's OK and, you know, we know obviously he was not shot.
HOLMES: Right. Yes.
BURNETT: But we haven't heard from him yet. And interesting from your reporting that at least the current public schedule was that he would have been in Flint, Michigan, on Tuesday, so we'll see what happens, whether that shifts tomorrow, which of course it would seem it very well may.
HOLMES: It could.
BURNETT: All right. Kristen, thank you very much.
Let's go to Randi Kaye because she is there outside Mar-a-Lago right now as new details are coming in.
What's the latest you're learning, Randi?
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Erin, we're actually outside Trump International Golf Club where all of this happened today. So we're about 15 minutes from Mar-a-Lago but right now, I can tell you we are learning just a little bit more about this suspect. I know our John Miller will share certainly more on that. But we know that he lived in Hawaii. This is the man who was detained today. He lived in Hawaii. He's 58 years old, and the car that he was picked up in was registered to his daughter.
We also know from law enforcement that he was very calm when he was detained and he didn't show much emotion, but let me just set the scene here in terms of the law enforcement a picture. I live here in Palm Beach County and I'm used to law enforcement when Donald Trump is in town, roads are closed. There's a police presence. I've never seen anything like this following this incident today here at Trump international golf club.
We are here on Summit Boulevard. That's the main road that runs right in front of the golf club's entrance and when we talk about holes five and six, which is where this incident apparently happened as he was turning the corner between five, six, that area that is right at the corner, those holes are right at the corner of Summit Boulevard behind me and Congress. So just down the way here, so that explains a lot about why Summit Boulevard behind me, Erin, would be shut down. It has remained shut down since this occurred earlier today.
The other heavily trafficked roads around the club are also still shut down. That would be Kirk Road and Congress Avenue as well. So there is a lot of activity here still. There's a big police presence, there's been crime scene vans coming in and out of the club.
[20:10:02]
Apparently, they are still collecting evidence processing the scene. As I mentioned, Mar-a-Lago is just about 15 minutes from here, and that is where we know that the former president was taken following this, after he was detained here for several hours to make sure that all is well. And I can also tell you that CNN has learned that Speaker Mike Johnson visited Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago after this incident occurred.
So that was also something -- someone who was checking on him today, but we do know that, as you said, he was not shot. He's doing well and that is the report from the Trump team -- Erin.
BURNETT: Randi, thank you very much, outside the golf course, of course, where this happened just hours ago.
Let's go to our senior justice correspondent, Evan Perez, along with John Miller, our chief law enforcement intelligence analyst.
Thanks to both of you, and I know that you both have more information about the suspect because, as I've been saying, Evan, unlike in the Pennsylvania situation and in many shooter situations often the shooter is killed. That's not the case. This man is in custody and he will be brought to account and we are learning a lot about him because it appears that there is a lot to learn about him, which again there really wasn't so much in the Pennsylvania case.
What are you learning?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erin, this is going to be obviously a full-scale investigation, and we expect obviously that he is going to face charges. The FBI is working to try to make sure that, you know, whatever charges are brought against him that they can try to make sure that they have all of the evidence before that happens, but in this case right now, you saw at the press conference there, there was the state prosecutors.
They say they're holding him for now with the anticipation obviously that the fed, the federal -- the Justice Department, the U.S. attorney's office down there in the Southern District of Florida is likely to bring some federal charges. And as you heard earlier, the FBI is treating this as an apparent assassination attempt. And one of the things that they're doing at this moment is obviously they're trying to go back and see what information they can get from family members, from any social media accounts that the person may have from obviously their devices, their phone.
All of that is going to give the FBI a better sense of how long this person has been planning this. And any, of course, any motivation which is something that because you have a suspect or a person who has been arrested, someone who's alive at this point, there's a lot more to learn from that in comparison to the Butler, Pennsylvania, suspect where to this day the FBI still going through some of his devices trying to gain any information they can because that person didn't leave behind any intention.
So that's where things are at this hour and we expect that certainly in the next day or so the charges will begin. You'll begin to see these charges from federal prosecutors there.
BURNETT: And John, what are you hearing from your sources about the suspected would-be assassin?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: So they're developing a picture of who it is they're talking to. Ryan Routh, 58 years old, as Evan said, and as Randi said, from Hawaii, but was a construction worker in North Carolina. He is an individual who's been living out loud on the social media platforms that we all use. But most interestingly, has been his continual postings about efforts to recruit fighters to go to the Ukraine.
He has called out for people to send him their passport copies, their military experience, their resumes, and what other battles they have fought in. He has provided a link for fighters to, you know, populate this information. He has indicated that he's been in theater in Ukraine. So as we kind of cast about for a motive that doesn't mean that the motive is connected to Ukraine, but it is an issue where Donald Trump has been accused of dodging the question about whether he would support Ukraine or Zelenskyy. So it's something that they'll be curious about.
As far as him talking and Randi said that might be changing, this is an individual who's been out front on social media, who went to what appears to be an attempted assassination with a GoPro camera attached to the fence indicating he intended to film that. Film it to post where? Film it to stream live? Film it to stream to somebody else or to do something with it later? He is probably not the kind of offender who is going to be able to not want to talk about this.
So I think in the coming days we'll learn not only what we find out about him, but what he says. Also the remarkable thing is all the way back in 2002 in North Carolina, he has an arrest. One of his eight arrests, but it stood out to me because the charge was possession of a weapon of mass destruction.
BURNETT: Right.
[20:15:05]
MILLER: When you go back through that case, what you see is he was stopped by police, he took off in the car, he barricaded himself in an office building for three hours, but he was charged with possession of a concealed weapon, the pistol, and the weapon of mass destruction charge related to the other weapon, which wasn't a bomb. It was a machine gun that was fully automatic so when you see him today with this -- allegedly with this AK-47 and talking about having been in warzones, his familiarity and comfort with these weapons starts to emerge.
BURNETT: It certainly appears that way. And as you point out, you know, there was a case in North Carolina, a man by the same name, right, who was arrested in 2002. Weapon of mass destruction we hear with an AK-47.
Evan, also, we find out that the Secret Service agents shoots when they see the barrel of the gun, you know, protruding from the shrub. OK. He has ceramic tiles in his backpack. He had not yet put them on, right, but it would indicate that he was ready for a firefight and would have wanted to survive. He had a getaway car. He gets in it. It's only because there's a witness who takes a picture of that getaway car. It's like something happened. This guy just ran and gone in and here's the license plate.
That's our law enforcement. They credit this witness with how they were able to track him down as he drove north. Do you know anything about that, anything about that situation? The car or the getaway or the importance of this witness from your reporting?
PEREZ: Well, the witnesses is very key because once the person, once he -- the alleged shooter here gets away from the scene, you know, certainly the Secret Service and the Palm Beach sheriff, everybody who's providing the security there doesn't know exactly where he is. And so having that witness who not only helpfully said what they saw, but they also took a photograph apparently of the -- showing the license plate. They were able to then start looking for that person and they found that person very, very quickly in the highway nearby. And so, you know, Erin, this area where this golf course is located,
though, I mean, those streets that surround the golf course are very, very busy in the middle of West Palm Beach. And so it's very hard to have 100 percent coverage if you have a functioning golf course, when the former president is there. I mean, it's very, very difficult to secure because, you know, he is a candidate for president. He's not the sitting president United States.
And so that's one of the things that now obviously I think you're asking important questions about, you know, does maybe something needs to change? Because they've clearly added security to the former president. They have a bubble essentially that goes in front of him, making sure the holes ahead are clear, and this appears to still have happened.
BURNETT: John, you know, obviously we heard in the wake of what were clearly many failures in Pennsylvania, right, we heard that one of the rules of engagement is you don't shoot someone unless you know they're going to shoot, but there's all this question about that. Now obviously in this case, maybe because of Pennsylvania, that Secret Service agent didn't even think twice, right. Saw a thing protruding and shot. OK. And that's -- you know, who knows what would have happened if that had not happened.
But nonetheless, that's part of why we are -- now, Evan talks about a golf course. We know that it's really hard to secure a golf course even for a sitting president, it's almost impossible. It's one of the most complicated things because it's so big. But I'm curious, John, as to what you're hearing about how much security Trump is going to get. I mean, it would appear after the fact that he actually got shot in Pennsylvania then they would have really escalated it, but it's still, from what we're learning today, it still was not at the level of a current president.
MILLER: So you've got a couple of things working here which is, one, his protection has been elevated almost to the level of a current president. Probably just below the level of a sitting vice president, which is much more than a former president or even a party nominee for president would normally get. That said, you know, you also have a candidate who, he doesn't like indoor rallies. He likes outdoor rallies.
He likes to play golf, not pickleball, not pickleball on the court, so his -- Donald Trump being Donald Trump add some complications and pressures to the Secret Service. There is no such thing as total security. If you're not controlling basically an indoor location where you've got four sides, you can lock down. So I think as Evan talked about, you know, moving forward with this bubble, looking at that detection, and as you mentioned, immediately engaging that.
We don't know even as we speak now whether or not they're still analyzing shell casings as to who's with whose, whether or not that gunman got off a shot, it appears he didn't.
[20:20:02] But the Secret Service is still saying they're still interviewing people to determine whether he fired a shot or they just engaged him, saw a man with a rifle, and fired because he was pointing in their direction. So we still have some things to learn but, you know, they were certainly, they certainly did not do anything but move forward the minute they saw that.
BURNETT: No, and of course, Evan, we don't know why the shooter was there, right. I mean, there was no --
PEREZ: Right.
BURNETT: Trump changed his plans. No one would have really known Trump was going to be there. So either been casing it being, sitting there every day, he was like, we don't know the answer to that question at this point.
PEREZ: Right. Not at this stage, I mean, that's one of the big, big questions and certainly one of the big concerns, Erin. You know, I think Kristen Holmes, people who cover the campaign might have a better sense of this, but I don't get the sense that there's a lot of advanced notice of Trump's plans when he's doing rallies and so on. But when he's at the golf course, I'm not sure that there was a lot of advanced notice, so I'm not sure where this person might admit it's possible they were just sitting there waiting for him and waiting for the target of opportunity to emerge.
And so we'll learn a lot more, as John points out. We'll learn a lot more in the coming days about exactly how he tried to pull this off and, you know, to John's point real quick, I was going to point out, you know, when President Obama was in office, he played golf, but they almost always took him to Andrews Air Force Base and I remember playing there at the golf course and what they would do is not only would there be a bubble ahead of the president, but they also would be adjacent holes on, you know, on the other side.
They would make sure they would hold the golfers to make sure that you are never anywhere near in proximity to the president of the United States. And so maybe that's the next thing that you might see emerge with to protect Donald Trump, especially because as John points out, this is part of what he does. This is life.
BURNETT: Yes. Yes, it does. And of course, the psychological impact on anyone, you know, and now somebody who has somebody who has someone who's tried to kill twice in nine weeks is impossible to truly understand. We don't yet know. We have not heard from him directly yet tonight other than a social media post.
Thank you both very much. We take a brief break. Our breaking news coverage continues after that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: And welcome back. Let's turn now to Tim Clemente. He's a former FBI counterterror agent. So, Tim, here we are again, talking about an attempted assassination
against the former president. From all the reporting that has come in here up to this point, what are you most focused on?
TIM CLEMENTE, FORMER FBI COUNTERTERRORISM AGENT: I'm focused on finding out how he knew Trump's movements and where he was. Nearly every type of attack is preceded by what's known as pre-attack surveillance. Terrorist attacks, bank robberies, almost any credible criminal tries to gain intelligence on their target and then uses that to plan the attack.
As we saw in Butler, Pennsylvania, the kid put the drone up in the air to see where the security was weakest, took advantage of that, getting up on that roof where there was no protection at all and use that to take the shot at Trump.
[20:25:11]
Now, this guy may have been watching Mar-a-Lago, may have seen the motorcade move, watch where they went, saw they went to the golf course and figured at some point in time he'll be coming by hole five and six. We don't know. And that's something we definitely need to know.
BURNETT: So we don't -- we're piecing together more about him. John Miller was talking about a North Carolina arrest in 2002 for a weapon of mass destruction, which was an automatic rifle for the same man that we're talking about tonight, Ryan Routh.
Now we're learning more. But obviously this was an AK-47 and it was equipped with a scope. We understand, Tim, that the reason that the Secret Service agents saw it was because it was protruding a bit from this chain link fence at the shrubbery, right? And that obviously -- a normal situation where you are setting up to observe a target, you would obviously not have your rifle protruding.
So what does the fact that it was protruding say to you about his level of preparation or ability or anything like that?
CLEMENTE: Either there was another target he was going to take a shot at at that moment. And that's why he had the barrel protruding or he's just an absolute amateur. You know, if you're a station sniper like we saw in Pennsylvania, where the counter sniper teams are up there, they're behind their guns the whole time. Their presence is known and they want it to be known because it's a deterrent but for a guy like this to be sitting behind his rifle with the muzzle pointing through the fence. He's obviously not very skilled in the arts and thankfully he wasn't.
And also thankfully, the Secret Service took the threat very seriously and promptly reacted to it with shots.
BURNETT: Now, we understand, Tim, in terms of distances because, you know, you've seen these situations before. The distance in Pennsylvania was about 150 yards or so. This was at least double that. But can you put that in context in terms of having a weapon like this with a scope. Would that be a distance where you could effectively take out a target?
CLEMENTE: Very easily, Erin. And the effect of range of an AK-47, if it was in fact an AK, which is a 762 by 39 round, the effective range is about 600 meters. And so Trump, even where he was far away from the shooter, was still within that effective range. I don't know if he was in eyesight of the shooter so he may have been preparing to take a long shot at Trump rather than wait for him to get closer primarily because he's surrounded obviously by more security, and the closer the target gets to the shooter the closer that security gets.
And so that 300, 400, 500 yards, whatever it was, is well within a 600-yard range on a rifle like that, and with a decent optic, it's an easy shot to take.
BURNETT: What do you read into the fact that he clearly wanted to survive? I mean, first of all, he didn't take his own life. He got in a car and fled. There was a getaway car. He got into it, he fled. He didn't then take his own life. He's now in custody. He had those ceramic tiles ready. What does the fact that he wanted to survive say to you?
CLEMENTE: It says that he's not suicidal apparently. He wasn't going to take his own life if he was almost being captured. Clearly, we saw that he was captured without that. And it tells me that he's probably much more politically motivated. The last shooter in Pennsylvania, I don't want to say his name because I don't want to promote him in any way, but he was clearly the guy that was looking for the notoriety of taking that shot.
I would think we're going to find that this guy is extremely politically motivated and that he probably was spurred on by much of the political diatribes that are going on these days. Talking about Trump equating him to Hitler and things like that. So I don't think this is the last we'll see of crazies out there trying to do this.
BURNETT: So, all right, now, can you put in context this moment which I feel like sometimes in this country we've all become immune and numb for so many reasons, to so many things that we shouldn't be. But, Tim, we're talking about the second attempted assassination of a former president in nine weeks. When the first one happened, I think the entire country was in complete shock and then today there'll be more numbness by people.
But can you just put into context what it is like to see something like this? It says just to state the obvious this has never happened before. It is unprecedented.
CLEMENTE: You know, Erin, it's unprecedented in a civilized society. And I think we're becoming more and more uncivilized, sadly, with the political diatribes that are going on and the political new indictments of either candidate. And sadly, the finger-pointing at Trump has led to, you know, the line about the bloodbath, talking about the auto industry being used as if he's going to create a bloody coup if he loses.
That kind of the verbiage is something you use in a third world country when you're talking about a dictator. And that sadly has led to I think these attempts on Trump's life and I don't think it's going to end.
[20:30:06]
And I think we just have to realize, look, we're political opponents. You and I might not agree on 50 percent of what we care about politically. It doesn't matter, it doesn't mean we can't be friends, neighbors, relatives, and have a regular dialogue every day. We have to get back to that. Talk about our differences, but not in a way that makes us feel like you're the enemy and I'm all good.
BURNETT: All right. Well, Tim, thank you very much. I'm glad to speak to you tonight. Thank you.
And we will take a brief break. We'll be right back with our breaking news coverage. We've got some new reporting coming in.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:35:26]
BURNETT: And back to our breaking news what the FBI says is an apparent second assassination attempt on the former president Donald Trump. Here's how it was described earlier this evening by the Palm Beach County sheriff. Listen for yourself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHERIFF RIC BRADSHAW, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA: 1:30 this afternoon a call came out, shots fired. That was called in by Secret Service. Because we're in constant contact with them all the time, we were notified of that and we had units here that immediately sealed off the area. Fortunately, we were able to locate a witness that came to us, and said, hey, I saw the guy running out of the bushes.
He jumped into a black Nissan and I took a picture of the vehicle and the tag, which was great. So we had that information. Our real-time crime center put it out to the license plate readers, and we were able to get a hit on that vehicle on I-95 as it was headed into Martin County. We got a hold of Martin County Sheriff's Office, alerted them, and they spotted the vehicle and pulled it over, and detained the guy.
After that, we took the victim, I'm sorry, the witness that witnessed the incident, flew them up there and he identified as the person that he saw running out of the bushes that jumped into the car. Now, in the bushes where this guy was is an AK-47 style rifle with a scope, two backpacks, which were hung on the fence that had ceramic tile in them, and a GoPro, which he was going to take pictures of.
So those are being processed right now. The Secret Service agent that was on the course did a fantastic job. What they do is they have an agent that jumps one hole ahead of time to where the president was at and he was able to spot this rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediate engaged that individual at which time the individual took off. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Juliette Kayyem is with me, our national security analyst, Steve Moore from the FBI, and Charles Ramsey, formerly of the Washington, D.C. Police, and of course police commissioner in Philadelphia.
So thanks very much to all of you.
So, Chief Ramsey, when you hear the sheriff there going through what they saw, the fact that they're in constant contact with the Secret Service, you know, what did you hear when you heard his presentation there, you know, on the national stage today?
CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I mean, there's a great deal of coordination that took place in this particular case, and that's not unusual. You know, there is good cooperation between the federal agencies and local and so forth. And that was critically important. But the most important thing of all I believe was that witness that happened to see that individual leave the bushes, get in the car and had the presence of mind to take a photograph of the SUV and the license tag.
What that allowed police to do was quickly run that tag, put out a BOLO, be on the lookout, to make sure that all law enforcement were aware that that was a suspect vehicle and sure enough, it didn't take long before it was identified through a license plate reader. And units were able to find the vehicle and pull it over.
But as far as the police go and the cooperation, it worked the way it should work but there are still questions like how did he get in there. He obviously had a car parked nearby. You know, how did that happen? Well, the outer perimeter is really where a lot of questions are still unanswered in terms of security.
BURNETT: I mean, you know, to be honest, Juliette, when you listen to Chief Ramsey speak, in a sense, you know, and obviously that Secret Service agent was incredible in the work he did. It was incredible, but we sort of got lucky, right? That the barrel was sticking out enough that somebody could see it. That the guy was dumb enough to think nobody would check his license plate when he was -- you know what I mean?
There was a lack of sophistication in many parts of this by the person who was the would-be assassin, where just one or two of these things were marginally different you could have been talking about a successful assassination attempt.
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, I think on the scale of things we're going to find him to probably be more sophisticated rather than not, you know, he didn't succeed and that is great news.
And I just want to say like we should all be outraged. I don't care what your politics are. This is just outrageous. I don't know who to blame. I don't know. [20:40:02]
But if you are against political violence, it is -- this is -- we should not be at this moment right now with this kind of election ahead of us. And I think one of the things that shows how different things are, Erin, in terms of we just got lucky is to me the most interesting things is he has a live stream camera. He is, as I just wrote in "The Atlantic," this is a performative assassination attempt.
He wants the kill to be documented. We don't know where. He also presumably wants his escape and-or engagement with law enforcement also to be filmed. This is, you know, this is not, this is someone who, as John Miller is reporting, is very active on social media. He views violence as performance and we just got really lucky today.
BURNETT: Steve, do you -- when you hear Juliette say, you think as we learn more, we may find him to be -- more sophisticated, I'm sorry, rather than less? Do you think that could be the case?
STEVE MOORE, RETIRED SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT, FBI: Yes, I agree completely. The way he was going about this. He just made a simple but basic mistake in this. He had his body armor, he had all of his equipment. He had his rounds. He was -- the camera was set up. It looked to be affixed to the fence. And I think he probably put the gun somewhere in view and he didn't realize he had done it. I think his attack was going to be much shorter range and they'll be able to find this out because you zero the scope, you adjust your scope for the distance that you're going to fire.
And so what they're going to be able to do is take that rifle with the scope and find out where it was zero, where the point of aim is the point of impact. And that will give you a distance that he expected to engage his target and so I believe that we're going to find out, as Juliette said, that this guy is much more sophisticated than we would have hoped. And he was sloppy. You see that football teams today lost because, though they're very good football teams, they made mistakes. He did the same. We are very fortunate.
BURNETT: And Chief Ramsey, interesting that they're talking about, you know, you look at his history and there is a very large social media presence, but also there's an arrest history. It appears it could be multiple. We know going back to at least 2002 when someone by the same name was arrested for a weapon of mass destruction in North Carolina, which was an automatic rifle.
What does that history say to you, Chief Ramsey?
RAMSEY: Well, my understanding, according to John's reporting, it was a fully automatic weapon, a machine gun to put it simply. Here's an individual when you couple that with the fact that when going through his social media and his emphasis on Ukraine claiming he was on the ground in Ukraine at one point, he's recruiting individuals allegedly to go to Ukraine to fight. When you put all this stuff together, you're talking about an individual who, one, is familiar with those types of weapons, and apparently, you know, prefers to use that style. I mean, it's an AK-47 which is typically used in that particular
theater in Ukraine, Russia, and so forth, not an AR-15, which is what we normally get here. So, I mean, it's putting all these pieces together. But the key is going to be whether or not he's talking to investigators to really kind of find out exactly, you know, what he was doing, why he was doing it. How did he know the president would be on the golf course? Does he -- I mean, I don't know if this is a routine where he frequently does it.
Was he maintaining surveillance of some kind on Mar-a-Lago and looking to see where the motorcade went? We don't know any of that yet. And maybe we'll find out as time goes on, but there are still awful lot of unanswered questions about him and about his motive and the security.
BURNETT: Yes. And I should say, you know, there was no public schedule and yet the president had changed his plans so, you know, while as you know, he likes golf, Chief, right, so when he's home or in Mar-a-Lago, would often play on a Sunday, nobody knew whether it would be there and his plans have changed so that surveillance question obviously becomes incredibly crucial.
Juliette, though, you're talking in nine weeks, two assassination attempts, one of which the bullet actually hit the former president. Obviously today it didn't, and we don't know if he was even able to get any sort of a shot off when Secret Service shot at him. But the former president is supposed to be in Flint, Michigan, on Tuesday. That's his schedule and we could hear from him tomorrow and most likely we will, right.
But what does this mean for him? You know, psychology is an important part of this, but this is in the most important days of the campaign.
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He's got to be in public, in situations where something awful could happen multiple times, every single day.
KAYYEM: Yes. So and part of it is going to be what advice is he getting and then what advice does he want to follow? I mean, this is -- I don't know him personally. I don't know, you know, if I were him, I would be pretty angry right now and scared. But I think that a couple of things. One is a recommendation that he doesn't have open events so that the -- and, two, that the Secret Service expands the security zones to ensure that people cannot get close.
You're going to have more use of aerial surveillance, probably closed downs or lockdowns of areas where he is having rallies and maybe have them take it or more indoors. All of those things are recommended. But let's be clear, he was playing golf today. This is not a political event. Candidates deserve to have time off. I really, you know, I don't care what you feel about him or who -- or Harris, I mean, you know, this is the expectation that he will be safe.
And the reason why this is, you know, in some ways you said how close the election is, the promise, this is a safety issue that is being thrown into a very intense political environment in which the very fact of an assassination, a constitutional moment because it's going to, it would, could have impacted voters, will be used for political purposes and that to me is just -- not as, you know, exceptionally unfortunate because whatever your beliefs are we do deserve to have campaigns that are not part -- where violence isn't being used as either a sword or a shield in terms of what's ahead. And it's, and it will be. We saw it in the last one. And we'll see it now.
BURNETT: All right. Well, all, thank you very much.
We do have some breaking news right now. Our Carlos Suarez is outside Mar-a-Lago where we believe the former president is tonight.
And Carlos, I know you are now learning something from family members of the suspected would-be assassin. What are you learning?
CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right, Erin. So just a few minutes ago, CNN was able to speak to the son of the man that's been detained in this incident. Oran Routh said of his father, quote, and I'm going to read some this right now. "Ryan is my father and I don't have any comment beyond a character profile of him as a loving and caring father, and a honest, hardworking man."
He said that he does not know what's happened in Florida, and I hope that things have just been blown out of proportion because from the little that I have heard it doesn't sound like the man I know to do anything crazy much less violent. He is a good father and a great man and I hope that you can portray him in an honest light.
Again, those words from Oran Routh. That is the son of the man who has been detained in this incident, Ryan Routh, speaking to CNN just a few minutes ago.
Now, we are about 10 to 15 minutes from the golf course where all of this happened. We're just outside of Mar-a-Lago where there has been an increase in the visible security around this property. The Southern Boulevard, which runs -- connects the mainland out to Palm Beach, it remains open at this hour. But if you can make out in the distance behind me here, you can see a number of police lights out here.
We're told that folks are not being able to cross over onto the Palm Beach side. There is a small island that you have to cross over that is normally open to the public and so folks are able to park their cars there and get a look at Trump's Mar-a-Lago property. However, that has been closed.
Again, Erin, much of these security measures that we've been seeing out here were put in place long before what happened earlier today. In fact, these security measures were put in place after the first attempted assassination of the former president in Pennsylvania.
BURNETT: Carlos, thank you very much. And that statement from the son of the suspected assassin is very important because now we know that he has a son and a daughter because we know that the car that he fled in was registered to his daughter, so we know that he at least has a son and a daughter. We don't -- at least I don't know their exact ages, but important context here as we're trying to learn more about this individual, that statement from his son Oran that Carlos just broke right there.
We do have a new statement coming out from the White House here just before 9:00 Eastern on this breaking news coverage here. We'll be right back with that from the White House after this.
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[20:54:20]
BURNETT: And welcome back. We are following the breaking news tonight. One person currently detained after what the FBI says appears to be an assassination attempt targeting former president Donald Trump.
Let's go straight to Sunlen Serfaty. She's at the White House tonight.
And Sunlen, I know you've got some new reporting here, new statement coming out from President Biden.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Erin, a new statement just released in the last few minutes from President Biden and the White House team. And Biden again repeats his relief that former president Donald Trump was unharmed in this incident, but providing a more fulsome response to this incident, of course, as it has grown in the last few hours.
The statement in full from President Biden reads, "I have been briefed by my team regarding what federal law enforcement is investigating as a possible assassination attempt of former president Trump today.
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"A suspect is in custody and I commend the work of the Secret Service and their law enforcement partners for their vigilance and their efforts to keep the former president and those around him safe. I'm relieved that the former president is unharmed. That there is an active investigation into this incident. As law enforcement gathers more details about what happened, as I have said many times, there's no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country. I've directed my team to continue to ensure that Secret Service has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former president's continued safety."
And that last part, Erin, certainly notable. This is a larger response than we've seen from President Biden today. He was here in D.C. at the White House behind closed doors today. The first statement that they sent out earlier in the day was in the immediate aftermath when we were first learning the first few details. So I think it is significant. A much longer response from the White House tonight and notably directing him directing his team to direct the Secret Services to give all resources necessary to continue to keep the former president safe -- Erin.
BURNETT: Sunlen, thank you very much. From outside the White House on this Sunday evening.
We will take a brief break and our breaking news coverage continues after this.
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