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Trump Assassination Attempt; Threats Force Closure of Springfield, Ohio Schools, Hospital; Sean Diddy Combs Arrested in New York; New Concerns About Status of Ceasefire Talks. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired September 17, 2024 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: All of a sudden we heard shots, but Secret Service knew immediately it was bullets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Driver! Stop, stay back!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you operate alone? Did somebody send you down here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would be extremely difficult if either one of the candidates came to our community right now. This is not a time to campaign in our community at the national level.
SEAN DIDDY COMBS, RAPPER AND MUSIC PRODUCER: Young, black and famous.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sean Diddy Combs was arrested on a Monday night in Manhattan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a federal racketeering case involving multiple charges and multiple defendants.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Christina Macfarlane.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, a warm welcome to our viewers joining us from the U.S. and around the world. I'm Max Foster.
CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Christina Macfarlane. It's Tuesday, September 17th, 9 a.m. here in London, 4 a.m. in Palm Beach County, Florida, where we're learning new details on the apparent Trump assassination attempt.
FOSTER: Yes, a suspect is under arrest after a Secret Service agent fired shots after spotting a man with a rifle hiding in the bushes outside the Trump International Golf Club. Here's Donald Trump recounting what happened.
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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: All of a sudden we heard shots being fired in the air. And I guess probably four or five. And it sounded like bullets. But what do I know about that? But Secret Service knew immediately it was bullets. And they grabbed me and we got into the carts and we moved along pretty, pretty good.
I was with an agent and the agent did a fantastic job. There was no question that we were off that course. I would have loved to have sank that last putt, but we decided let's get out of here.
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MACFARLANE: Authorities caught up with the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, a short time later, thanks to the help of a witness. The moment of Routh's arrest caught on body cam video. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two steps to your right! Take two steps to your right! Driver, walk straight back.
Keep walking.
[Speaker 16] What's your name? Ryan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: The second apparent attempt on Trump's life is raising new concerns about whether the Secret Service can adequately protect the former president. The acting director of the agency is commending the agents for their actions on Sunday and says Trump had the highest level of protection.
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RONALD ROWE, ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. SECRET SERVICE: So this was an off the record movement. It wasn't a site that was on his scheduled. It wasn't part of his schedule. So there was no posting up of it because he wasn't supposed to have gone there in the first place.
What I go back to is yesterday was an off the record movement, off the record. And the president wasn't even really supposed to go there. It was not on his official schedule. And so we put together a security plan and that security plan worked.
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MACFARLANE: Well, Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden spoke by phone Monday and what the White House describes as a cordial conversation. The call comes as Mr. Biden condemns all political violence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is no, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, those of you who know me, many of you do. No place in political violence for political violence in America. None. Zero. Never.
In America, we resolve our difference peacefully at the ballot box, not at the end of a gun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MACFARLANE: And as the investigation into the incident continues, the Martin County sheriff says there's one key question he'd like to have answered.
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SHERIFF WILLIAM D. SNYDER, MARTIN COUNTY, FLORIDA: I think the question is, did you operate alone, Routh? Did you engage in some conspiracy? Did somebody send you down here?
That would be the biggest deal, because if that's not the case, we have the only person involved. Former President Trump can go back to his activities and know there's not a lone wolf out there that got away from law enforcement.
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FOSTER: CNN's Randi Kaye is following developments from Palm Beach County, Florida, and has this report for you.
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RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ryan Wesley Routh may have been laying in wait from his spot in the bushes at Trump International Golf Club for nearly 12 hours.
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That's according to court documents unsealed today showing Routh's phone was in the vicinity of the area starting as early as 2 a.m. Sunday morning. Prosecutors also revealed in court documents that the serial number on the rifle recovered from the area where Routh was spotted was unreadable to the naked eye.
Just before 2 p.m., Secret Service noticed the barrel of a rifle poking through a fence at Trump International Golf Club. Trump was somewhere between the fifth and sixth hole at the time.
CHARLES RAMSEY, FORMER PHILADELPHIA POLICE COMMISSIONER: When you look at the map, you see a roadway very close to holes five and six, which it would make sense that that would be a location. If you were going to try to take a shot, it would be closer and would give you an opportunity to do so and also give you an escape route.
KAYE (voice-over): The Secret Service fired on the man with the gun before he fled. A quick thinking witness at the scene provided authorities with a description of the suspect, as well as a picture of the car and license plate. Martin County deputies detained Routh a short time later.
CNN obtained this body cam video of Routh's arrest.
SHERIFF WILLIAM D. SNYDER, MARTIN COUNTY, FLORIDA: The witness from the incident at Trump International was flown to the scene by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, and he was able to make a positive ID.
KAYE (voice-over): In the bushes at the golf club, authorities recovered an SKS style rifle with a scope, two backpacks equipped with ceramic tiles for a makeshift bulletproof vest and a GoPro.
Since then, a complicated picture has emerged of Ryan Routh, a 58 year old small business owner from Hawaii. CNN has learned that Routh supported Trump in 2016, but later dismissed him as a buffoon and a fool.
Routh also mentioned Trump in his book titled Ukraine's Unwinnable War. Routh traveled to Ukraine in 2022 and encouraged others to sign up to fight. He did an interview with AFP news agency from Kyiv in April that year.
RYAN WESLEY ROUTH, MAN DETAINED IN APPARENT ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON TRUMP: Putin is a terrorist and he needs to be ended.
KAYE (voice-over): Court documents also detail past run ins with the law, including felony convictions in North Carolina. In 2002, he pleaded guilty to felony possession of a weapon of mass destruction and carrying a concealed weapon. Other charges over the years included possession of stolen goods, driving without a registration and failing to pay his taxes on time.
Still, unanswered questions remain, including how safe is Trump and others given the current political environment?
ANDREW MCCABE, FORMER FBI DEPUTY DIRECTOR: Everywhere the former president goes and the current president and the other candidates go, they're going to have to start thinking differently about the threat assessment.
KAYE: And a bit more information from that press briefing. We did learn that the FBI interviewed seven civilian witnesses at the scene, so they're trying to gather more information. We also now know that they are processing the suspect's items found at the scene.
That would include that SKS rifle with the scope, also the two backpacks and the GoPro. They collected DNA from those items and have sent that to Quantico. They're also processing his vehicle.
But questions do still remain. So far, the FBI says there isn't any indication that he worked with anyone else on this. It does look like he acted alone, but they couldn't say that for sure. And the FBI is still trying to figure out just how long he was in the state of Florida before this.
Randi Kaye, CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.
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MACFARLANE: Well, Donald Trump is blaming President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the apparent assassination attempt. Speaking with Fox News, Trump claimed the suspect believed their, quote, rhetoric and acted on it.
FOSTER: His running mate, J.D. Vance, echoed Trump's claims, telling Georgia voters that Democrats are solely responsible for the current political violence.
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SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), U.S. REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You know, the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that we have no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months. And two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric and needs to cut this crap out.
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MACFARLANE: Well, Trump took his complaints even further on social media, posting in part: Because of this communist left rhetoric, the bullets are flying and will only get worse.
CNN's Kristen Holmes has more on how Trump is handling the recent threats against him.
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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Former President Donald Trump reacting that apparent second assassination attempt during an event on Twitter spaces on Monday night. He praised law enforcement went through the events of what happened that Sunday on his golf course. He also blamed political rhetoric for the events.
TRUMP: It worked out well. And Secret Service did an excellent job. And they have the man behind bars.
And hopefully he's going to be there for a long time. Dangerous person. Very, very dangerous person.
But I appreciate the comments very much.
Well, there's a lot of rhetoric going on. A lot of people think that the Democrats, when they talk about threat to democracy and all of this.
And it seems that both of these people were radical lefts.
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HOLMES: Now, in addition to talking about what happened on Sunday, he also went into extraordinary detail about the events of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, talking about local doctors, talking about a man giving CPR to someone who had been hit by a bullet.
Now, I've talked to a number of sources close to the former president who describe his mindset since that second apparent assassination attempt as in good spirits, that he has been joking around.
At one point, he said that it interrupted a great or wonderful game of golf at the time of the that there was gunfire exchange. I talked to another source who spoke to him and said they was asking about the media coverage around the event. A third source who was briefed on a conversation with Donald Trump said that he was defiant about winning in November.
But one thing is clear, he is handling at least part of the response differently to this second apparent assassination attempt than he did to what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania. He has gone all in on attacking the Biden administration, Democrats and saying their political rhetoric is what led to the events on Sunday.
Kristen Holmes, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.
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FOSTER: The governor of Ohio stepping up security around schools in the city of Springfield following a string of threats over the baseless conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants are stealing and eating people's pets.
MACFARLANE: Mike Devine is deploying state troopers to monitor all of Springfield schools after officials reported 33 bomb threats in the past several days.
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GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): These threats have all been hoaxes. None of them have panned out. We have people, unfortunately, overseas who are taking these actions.
Some of them are coming from one particular country. We think that this, you know, is one more opportunity to mess with the United States.
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MACFARLANE: Well, Springfield police say they received several calls this weekend reporting members of the Proud Boys, the paramilitary group that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, were marching through town. The mayor of Springfield spoke with CNN about the havoc these threats are causing.
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ROB RUE, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO MAYOR: We've been having continuous threats since five days now. And it's just it's disconcerting that, you know, these they keep doubling and tripling down with what we're asking them to stop talking about. Springfield is a good place where a wonderful people are not imploding on each other.
As far as a community, we're doing you know, we're really for each other in this community. You know, we need help, not hate. And that's what we need from those that have the national stage.
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FOSTER: All of this comes as Donald Trump and running mate J.D. Vance are continuing to push baseless conspiracy theory about Haitian immigrants. Brian Todd has more, including why Vance says he'll keep telling the story.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Two elementary schools in Springfield, Ohio evacuated on Monday. Two college campuses there, Clark State College and Wittenberg University, shut down. Classes being held virtually because of bomb and shooting threats. Some of the threats targeting the Haitian communities at the schools and in town.
DAVE YOST, OHIO REPUBLICAN ATTORNEY GENERAL: A bomb threat, particularly one that disrupts something like a school is a very serious crime. It's a felony.
Whoever's responsible, knock it off. You could go to prison on this.
TODD (voice-over): Government buildings in Springfield have also received threats in recent days. The threats come in the wake of a disturbing sequence of falsehoods about the Haitian community in Springfield. Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance, who's from Ohio, picked up on Internet rumors that Haitian immigrants in the town were eating people's pets. Then former President Donald Trump amplified those rumors at last week's debate.
TRUMP: In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating. They're eating the pets of the people that live there.
TODD (voice-over): In an interview with CNN on Sunday, Springfield's mayor again had to knock down the rumors.
ROB RUE, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO MAYOR: And we just have no verifiable claim that this has actually happened.
TODD (voice-over): Still, J.D. Vance, in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash, doubled down on the false claim but provided no evidence for it. Then Vance said this.
VANCE: If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do, Dana.
TODD (voice-over): But then, pressed by Bash on whether he created the whole story, Vance said this.
VANCE: I say that we're creating a story, meaning we're creating the American media focusing on it.
TODD (voice-over): Neither Vance nor Trump have moved away from the false claim of pets being eaten in Springfield, even when Trump was asked over the weekend if he would denounce the recent threats.
TRUMP: I don't know what happened with the bomb threats. I know that it's been taken over by illegal migrants, and that's a terrible thing that happened.
TODD (voice-over): Trump has threatened to conduct large deportations from Springfield if he's elected. Thousands of Haitians, the vast majority of whom are in the United States legally, have settled in Springfield in recent years, many of them to take jobs in new factories. Officials there say the local economy has improved, but there has been a strain on the town's infrastructure.
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So far, there's been no actual reported violence toward the Haitian community in Springfield, but one hate speech monitor worries about what's ahead.
IMRAN AHMED, CENTER FOR COUNTERING DIGITAL HATE: There are some people that still can't tell the difference between the lies they see on social media and reality, and the fear is that one of them will take real violent action against the Haitian community.
TODD: Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, said in a recent interview that the rumors of Haitian immigrants eating pets was, quote, a piece of garbage that was simply not true. DeWine expressed support for the Haitian immigrants in Springfield and said the discussions of them eating dogs and cats have to stop.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
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MACFARLANE: Now, rapper and music producer Sean Diddy Combs has been arrested in New York, according to his attorney.
FOSTER: The Manhattan U.S. attorney released a statement saying, quote: Earlier this evening, federal agents arrested Sean Combs based on a sealed indictment filed by the SDNY. We expect to move to unseal the indictment in the morning, and we'll have more to say at that time.
MACFARLANE: Now, it's unclear what the charges are against Combs. CNN's chief law enforcement analyst, John Miller, shares what the sources are saying.
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JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: We are told by law enforcement sources who have been following this case that this is a federal racketeering case involving multiple charges and multiple defendants. The example that probably is the legal architecture in terms of prosecutions that this investigation and now this upcoming indictment is likely based on. And that's the prosecution of rapper R. Kelly for events that occurred in New York, but also Chicago. Who was prosecuted by the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn in a similar racketeering charge with multiple instances of alleged forced sex, drugs, in his case, alleged underaged women. He was sentenced after being convicted to 20 years in prison. So these can be very serious charges with very serious penalties.
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FOSTER: The arrest comes after multiple civil cases and a federal human trafficking probe against the musician. CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister has more.
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ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Major breaking news regarding embattled music mogul Sean Diddy Combs. He was arrested on a Monday night in Manhattan and was then brought in for processing. Charges are currently unclear, but this comes after months and months of civil allegations against Combs and also a long grand jury process.
This grand jury indictment comes after we had exclusively broken back in May that a grand jury may soon hear from some of those civil accusers.
Now, our viewers may remember a few months ago when we broke a disturbing video of Sean Diddy Combs violently abusing his ex- girlfriend, Cassandra Ventura, who is better known by her performing name, Cassie, back in 2016 at a Los Angeles hotel. Now, that came after Cassie was the first accuser to sue Diddy back in November, roughly 10 months ago.
That began this domino effect against the rapper and businessman who is now facing 10 civil suits, nine of which directly accused him of sexual assault. Now, Diddy is maintaining his innocence.
His attorney telling me tonight, quote: We are disappointed with the decision to pursue what we believe is an unjust prosecution of Mr. Combs by the U.S. attorney's office.
They say quote: He is an imperfect person but is not criminal.
Now, his attorney also says that he has been cooperating with the investigation and that he got to New York last week in anticipation of these charges. So much more to come. We will see what the charges are when the indictment is unsealed. Back to you.
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MACFARLANE: A lawyer for three of the women accusing Combs of sexual assault says this is just the first step towards justice.
FOSTER: He writes in a statement: The long-awaited arrest of Sean Combs is the first step for our clients receiving justice. We knew this was coming. The evidence is very clear and it was only a matter of time.
MACFARLANE: All right, still to come, the death toll from Storm Boris rises in Central Europe in some of the worst flooding in the region for decades.
FOSTER: Plus, why there are new concerns about the ceasefire and hostage release talks involving Israel and Hamas.
MACFARLANE: And later, American gymnast Jordan Chiles has filed an appeal to Switzerland's Supreme Court in her dispute over an Olympic bronze medal.
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FOSTER: Historic amounts of rain fell in parts of North Carolina on Monday. Streets and homes were flooded in a matter of hours. In one part of Carolina Beach, 18 inches of rain fell in just 12 hours. The National Weather Service calls it a once-in-a-thousand-year rainfall event.
MACFARLANE: Well the torrential downpours wrecked roads and snarled traffic. Crews had to rescue people from their cars, homes and businesses. The storm is expected to let up by Wednesday.
FOSTER: Meanwhile, in Central Europe, at least 17 people have been killed in some of the worst rain and flooding the region has seen in decades. Police in the Czech Republic had to rescue people trapped in their homes on Monday after a barrier between two rivers broke open.
MACFARLANE: Thousands more are without hot water and electricity. CNN's Melissa Bell has more now on the severe weather impacting several countries.
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MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The death toll continues to rise across parts of Central and Eastern Europe. As storm Boris continues to cause devastation, extreme rainfall in some parts have caused rivers' levels to rise, banks to burst and extensive damage to infrastructure with tens of thousands of residents having to be evacuated.
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The death toll continuing to climb and whilst along the hardest-hit region between the Czech Republic and Poland, some of the water levels appear now to be receding, there are fears that it is a widening circle of damage that threatens even further south towards Hungary, Budapest and Slovakia.
With weather experts predicting that this kind of extreme weather could be something the European continent needs to be better prepared for and to get used to. Europe now the fastest forming continent in the world. Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
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MACFARLANE: Now there are new concerns about the status of a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.
FOSTER: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to return to Egypt this week, but he won't stop in Israel. The State Department says that Blinken will discuss efforts towards a ceasefire whilst in Egypt, but it's unclear if a deal can be brokered before President Joe Biden leaves office.
CNN's Paula Hancock joins us now. Blinken not going to Israel on this visit. Why is that?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Max, it's very telling the fact he's not, for the first time that he's been to the Middle East since October 7th, he's not going to have a stop in Israel. The assumption is that even after meeting with Egyptian officials, key mediators in this hostage ceasefire deal, he's not potentially assuming there will be something to take back to the Israelis to be able to push the deal forward.
And we've also seen in recent visits, just in the hours or days after Blinken has been on the ground in Israel, the Israeli prime minister has thrown doubt on the hostage deal. Just earlier this month, he said there's not a deal in the making.
So what we're seeing is a lot less optimism when it comes to this hostage deal. We've heard from two Biden administration officials saying that the national security chiefs have no imminent plans to put forward a hostage deal and a final bridging proposal to the U.S. President Donald Trump in the near future.
Now, that's very different to what we had heard earlier this month when officials said that they believed that a deal could be very close. We're also hearing that they don't want to put this final bridging proposal to the president until they have some idea that Hamas would say yes to it eventually. And according to these officials, they're not there at this point.
We understand from the officials that Hamas is now pushing for some of the Palestinian prisoners that would be released within this deal that are serving life sentences to be in return for civilian hostages. Now, in the previous deal, that had been just for the soldier hostages.
But then even on the Israeli side, there is growing skepticism in Washington that the Israeli prime minister does want a deal, as he is still pushing to have Israeli troops on the border between Egypt and Gaza, the Philadelphi corridor, something which Hamas will not accept and something which appears to be stalling a deal.
So all of this tells us that the talks appear to be far more stalled than previously believed. Secretary of State Blinken will be in Egypt and they will be talking about the hostage deal and the ceasefire deal itself. But there doesn't appear to be any optimism of an imminent breakthrough -- Max, Christina.
MACFARLANE: Paula, separately, we are hearing reports that Benjamin Netanyahu may be set to replace his defense minister, Yoav Gallant. What more do you know about that? And what might be motivating such a move if it were to take place?
HANCOCKS: Yes, Christina, it would be remarkable, given the fact that Israel is in the middle of a war, to replace the defense minister. But we have seen this increasing disagreement and becoming ever more public between Gallant and Netanyahu. We have been hearing, really, from many Israeli media reports as well, that the defense minister does not support the prime minister's push to have these Israeli troops along the Philadelphi corridor, saying that Hamas would not agree to it, so there won't be a deal and that means that the hostages will not be coming home.
So what we've heard from the prime minister's office at this point is that there were reports he was talking to Gideon Saar, who is another former ally of Netanyahu, now a rival, that he had been in talks with him to replace Gallant. The prime minister's office said that's not true, the talks haven't taken place, but have not mentioned Gallant himself.
So we really are hearing this ever more public disagreement between what the prime minister thinks should happen and what the defense minister thinks should happen. So really quite unusual public disagreement at a time of Israel fighting on a number of fronts.
MACFARLANE: Yes, it really would be an extraordinary move in the middle of a war, as you say. Paula Hancocks there, live from Abu Dhabi. Thanks, Paula.
FOSTER: There is new information about the suspect in the apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump, including what authorities believe he was doing in the hours before the incident.
MACFARLANE: And Facebook and Instagram hauled a plug on a Russian state media over claims of trying to interfere in the U.S. election. Those details just ahead.
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