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Biden: 'No Place in America for This Kind of Violence'; Former Congressman Joe Kennedy Weighs in on Tragedy. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 15, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Monday, July 15. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING, Donald Trump, just days away from becoming the Republican nominee, rewrites his speech in the wake of Saturday's assassination attempt.

[06:01:04]

And questions unanswered about how the attempt on the former president's life unfolded and the potential motive of the gunman.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know, the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It's time to cool it down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: "Cool it down." President Biden with an Oval Office plea to the American people for unity.

And then, at a time of crisis, how Americans can look to advice from past presidents about how best to come together.

It is 5:01 a.m. here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is 6 a.m. on the East Coast. A live look at the Fiserv Forum, the home of the Republican National Convention, where later on this week, Donald Trump will accept the Republican nomination for president of the United States.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It is wonderful to have you with us as we, as a nation, are grappling with something awful. A candidate, a convention, and a campaign all fundamentally shaken by a senseless act of violence.

Donald Trump will wake up this morning here in Milwaukee for the opening of the Republican National Convention. And for the third time, Donald Trump will become the Republican presidential nominee, less than two days after he narrowly escaped death.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I really see something that's sad. Take a look at what happened --

(GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get down, get down, get down, get down!

(GUNSHOTS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone, how are you doing?

(SCREAMING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Those bullets fired from a rooftop approximately 150 yards away, where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks lay as he aimed at the former president.

Secret Service agents quickly shot and killed Crooks, but not before one person was killed, and Trump and others injured.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SCREAMING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've got to move! We've got to move!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: USA! USA! USA!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: USA! USA! USA!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: USA! USA! USA!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: That show of defiance in the face of death. Donald Trump telling the Secret Service agents protecting him to wait before raising his fist in the air, telling the crowd, "Fight, fight, fight," and giving us this now iconic photo taken by Evan Vucci of the Associated Press.

Trump sustained a wound to his right ear, his life saved by a matter of inches. And the former president is aware of just how close he came to death. He told "The New York Post" last night, quote, "I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be dead. By luck or by God -- many people are saying it's by God -- I'm still here."

One person in attendance at the rally was killed in the attack. Pennsylvania's governor said that Corey Comperatore, firefighter, died a hero as he used his own body to shield his wife and daughters.

Two others were critically wounded but are in stable condition.

In an address from the Oval Office last night, President Biden said America cannot allow political violence to become normal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BIDEN: We cannot -- we must not go down this road in America. There's no place in America for this kind of violence. For any violence ever, period. No exceptions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: It's a sad reality that we do, indeed, have a history of these kinds of events. But hopeful that we can come together in this moment.

Joining us now on this critical Monday morning, Matt Gorman, former adviser to Tim Scott's presidential campaign; Jason Osborne, former senior adviser to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign; Stephen Collinson, CNN senior politics reporter; and Shane Goldmacher, national political reporter for "The New York Times." We're also joined by Bakari Sellers. He is CNN political commentator and former South Carolina state representative.

Welcome to all of you this morning. Thank you so much for being here.

Stephen Collinson, I would like to start with you. As our viewers who have gotten to know you a little bit understand, you are someone who here at CNN kind of thinks about the world in which we live, takes the sweeping kind of point of view about what this means for our country. And you know, I'd kind like to -- to just set the stage with you on this morning.

Donald Trump is going to be here. We're expecting his speech later on this week. The tone, the tenor, everything about this campaign has changed this morning.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I think this is a foreboding moment for the country. Things can go a number of ways.

The trauma of an assassination attempt against a presidential candidate is something that we haven't had to deal with for 40 years or so. None of us, obviously, remember the -- the trauma of the 1960s, the political assassinations.

But I think I'm beginning to understand a little bit now about how that throws the country off its axis and opens potential paths to a dark future.

I think the -- the most important line of the president's speech from the Oval Office last night was when he talked about how the founders provided a framework for reason to triumph over brute force.

I think that's the choice now before the country. A lot is going to depend on its leaders. In particular, how former President Trump responds to this moment. He's at a crossroads, personally, politically, in his life.

And the country is looking for stability and not a path that begets more violence. And I think that is the backdrop of this convention right now. HUNT: The reality, Shane, is that Donald Trump does have a chance to

unify the country. He said so himself in some of these -- and he did these two interviews, "The Washington Examiner" and "The New York Post."

There are going to be people now who are going to be willing to watch his speech at the RNC, who maybe weren't watching it before. And, you know, Peggy Noonan wrote about that moment, as well, for him. That became an iconic photo.

She says this, quote: "When they trundled him off, and he threw up his fist, pumped it at the crowd and shouted, 'Fight,' my relatives" -- she's called a relative to talk about it. The relatives says, "'Well, that's over,' meaning the election, meaning you don't give America an image like that and go on to lose. You give America an image like that, and it enters political mythology forever. It was epic." She writes, "Whatever you feel about and whatever your stand, grant him one of the greatest gangsta [SIC] moves of American political history."

She then goes on to call a journalist to talk about, about President Biden.

But the reality is, I mean, this is a remarkable political moment for so many reasons.

SHANE GOLDMACHER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Yes. I think we're going to learn a lot about Trump even before he takes the stage this week. And we are going to see what kind of convention he's going to hold.

And they've said it's going on as usual, but there are definitely going to be some changes here.

And you've seen just in the rhetoric that he's taken, the fundraising messages that he's sent out, he's using the word "unity." This is not a word that has defined the Trump 2024 campaign. He's running on a whole set of different issues, but unity certainly hasn't been one of them.

And so, it's a real question, what -- what he's going to do this week. Because that's not -- that has not been the tenor of the Trump candidacy. Right? He has been a divisive figure since his emergence on the national stage, and he has painted a dark picture of America.

And so, he has a chance as people are going to be looking at it, renewed, to change that picture a little bit. I think it's really interesting to see just how many times Joe Biden has come out in the last two days to speak to the country about this.

He spoke in Delaware that evening. He spoke again from the White House in the middle of the day, and he doesn't give a lot of Oval Office addresses, and he did so again on Sunday night.

HUNT: Yes. GOLDMACHER: So, I think both of them, there's the potential for both of them to come together at this violent moment and say this isn't the way we need to be.

HUNT: Well, certainly, Biden facing his own political crises that I'm sure well touch in -- touch on later on in the show.

And Bakari Sellers, actually, let me bring you in on that point, just in terms of President Biden's role here and kind of the way he framed this.

I will say he didn't shy away in his address last night from saying he's going to continue to contrast his plan for the future with Donald Trump's plan for the future.

But at the same time, it was -- it was a clarion call for us to turn away from what we saw happen in Butler, Pennsylvania.

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, first, I mean, I think that many people, including myself, thank God that President Trump is still alive today. And we always would -- would echo the same sentiment that President Trump -- I mean, excuse me, that President Biden relayed last night, which is that political violence has no place in American discourse.

You know, I do want to reframe the conversation a little bit, though.

I mean, this country -- this is not as if we just forgot the things of the 1960s or '70s, or '80s. This country has seen so much pain. This country has seen so much violence. This country has seen so much bloodshed.

[06:10:10]

And there are entire generations of voters that are still -- remember when King was assassinated. Or 1968, where in February you had the Orangeburg massacre; in April, you at King being assassinated; then six weeks later, you had RFK being assassinated. And so those are still voters in the country who feel that, who remember that.

I mean, we still recall Gabby Giffords. We still remember Steve Scalise. We still remember just recently that -- the plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. And we still remember -- yes, we still remember what happened to Nancy Pelosi's husband.

And so, what we see, though, and what I'm proud to see is that this president stands up during those times where, instead of mocking or ridicule, and he tries to bring this country together and does what a president should do.

But you still have to prosecute the case. And you still have to win this election. And you have to show the -- the American public what the difference would be between a Joe Biden presidency and a Donald Trump presidency.

Because this race, regardless of whatever imagery is shown -- HUNT: Sure.

SELLERS: -- as we saw yesterday, is still extremely close.

HUNT: Very close.

And Jason Osborne, you have worked for President Trump in the past. One thing that -- you know, I think that is different from some of the eras that -- that Bakari Sellers was referencing. Yes. Voters remember Martin Luther King.

But the speed with which information moves in our era, the fragmentation of the way people think about it. And the "Wall Street" editorial -- "Wall Street Journal" editorial board has -- has a message out this morning that I thought was interesting coming from them. I think it's also correct.

They write, "You'd like to thank members of Congress know enough to not indulge in conspiracy theories without evidence, but then democracy doesn't always produce the brightest bulbs." OK. "The latest, though, to meet the public's lowest expectation for our supposed leaders is Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican from Georgia's 10th District, who sent a tweet on Saturday that Joe Biden sent the orders. It is hard to imagine a more incendiary message in the wake of an assassination attempt."

And he goes on -- they go on to say, "It's hard to imagine more incendiary -- Mr. Collins was retweeting and amplifying a tweet that quoted President Biden's remark last week, 'I have one job. That's to beat Donald Trump.' And he, of course, used the word 'bulls-eye.' Mr. Biden," "The Journal" says, "was employing a metaphor, however inept given our political -- current, political distemper. He wasn't giving orders to anyone to shoot Mr. Trump. And if he wanted to do so, he wouldn't do it in public. Mr. Collins is among those who think Mr. Biden lacks the mental acuity to be president, but then he accuses him of masterminding a conspiracy."

Now they also go on to say, people on the left also should not engage in political conspiracies.

JASON OSBOURNE, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO DONALD TRUMP'S 2016 CAMPAIGN: Right.

HUNT: But that is going to be the baser impulse that all of our politicians are going to have to resist in this moment.

OSBOURNE: Yes, and this is my ninth convention that I've worked. And what I can say is, over the last several days and particularly, well, the last 48 hours, we have seen a completely new convention platform, right?

And the direction that came down from Trump is, this is his convention. So that kind of speak (ph) from Mike Collins is not -- hopefully is not what we're going to see on the stage over the next four days. The scripts are being written as we speak. They've been thrown out and redone. And folks are going to get onstage, and they're going to talk about unity. They're going to talk about the vision that Trump has moving forward.

And I think Trump's talks yesterday or his interviews yesterday set the stage for, hopefully, what we'll see for the next three, four months, right?

I don't think you're going to see a lot of the Mike Collins type rhetoric that comes out there. Or if you do, you're going to have a lot of folks tamping it down and dismissing -- dismissing it. Whereas two weeks ago, you may not have.

MATT GORMAN, FORMER ADVISOR TO TIM SCOTT'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: I think it's a rare moment where each Biden and Trump, it's their -- both of their political interests to do what they're doing right now.

Biden being the kind of consoler, if you will, having the national leadership role, consolidating his part on the -- as the left, the Democratic nominee, which is -- was in doubt for quite a while now.

And for Trump, who's winning this race, ostensibly, being the uniter. You don't have to throw a hail Marys. You're up three or so points nationally in a lot of swing states. You can be a little bit more conciliatory.

HUNT: Yes, very interesting.

All right, we're going to continue this conversation over, of course, the next hour. We're going to show you a little bit more of President Biden trying to set the tone in that Oval Office address.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: There's no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence, ever. Period. No exceptions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Plus, the latest on the investigation into the gunman behind Saturday's assassination attempt.

And Trump ally, Congressman Byron Donalds, will join me live later on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:19:03]

BIDEN: A former president was shot, an American citizen killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing. We cannot -- we must not -- go down this road in America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: President Biden, using a rare Oval Office address to address the nation last night in the wake of Saturday's assassination attempt against former President Trump, Biden asking Americans to lower the temperature in politics while acknowledging the incredible division in the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Yes, we have deeply felt, strong disagreements. The stakes in this election are enormously high. I've said it many times: that the choice in this election -- we make this election is going to shape the future of America and the world for decades to come. I believe that with all my soul.

Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy. It's part of human nature. But politics must never be a literal battlefield or, God forbid, a killing field.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: "Never be a battlefield."

Bakari Sellers, you mentioned Martin Luther King Jr., and you know, it's -- maybe it's an Instagram cliche, but the words that he offered to us: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that." I thought was resonant in the wake of what we saw.

And you mentioned the lessons that we, as a country, learned throughout that period in history. And I'm wondering kind of what your view is about what we know, about how we emerged from that, if you feel like we emerged from that, and what that can tell us about what we need to be doing now.

SELLERS: I'm not sure we emerged from that. I still think we're kind of in that period of uncertainty, trying to figure out how we have these very difficult discussions.

I mean, for -- for the panel that's there, I do want individuals that recall right after King was assassinated, RFQ [SIC] -- RFK was assassinated, and Democrats still lost that election. I'm not sure that the sympathy vote that individuals think exists in this country actually does.

But even more so, when we're having these discussions about how we move forward, I'm not sure that looking to Washington, D.C., I was listening to that -- you recall and recite "The Wall Street Journal: op-ed piece. I'm not sure looking to "Wall Street" -- to Washington, D.C., or to state capitals is where you should actually look.

Most of this leadership is going to come from within our own communities. It's going to come from the barbers and the beauticians. It's going to come from the people who pick up your trash, the teachers of the day.

Because we realized that there is no world where we take lessons from people like J.D. Vance, who tweeted just nonsense yesterday. Or Marjorie Taylor Greene, who did the same thing. Or Mark Robinson, who's speaking at the RNC, who said that people really need to be killed sometimes.

And so, I would ask viewers, particularly during this moment, to find that leadership within yourself, to find that love within yourself, to find that light within yourself. Because if you're looking to pick it up from those individuals you see on TV or Washington, D.C., or whatever state capital you may reside in, my fear is that we'll continue to go down this path of disdain. Because we're just too fractured in this political celebrity culture that we live in.

HUNT: Yes, well, and look, I will say that the "Journal" -- I found the "Journal" editorial relevant, because they were calling out those -- those D.C. people and saying these are not the kinds of voices.

SELLERS: Correct.

HUNT: So, your point, Bakari, is -- is taken.

Jason Osborne, briefly, Mark Robinson -- I mean, Bakari raises that point. What do -- what -- what should the bar be for the RNC in saying like, hey, we cannot accept this kind of rhetoric right now?

OSBOURNE: Well, I think the message is getting down, hopefully slowly, but surely, that you know, this is Donald Trump's week. This isn't about any individual running for their race. This is about Donald Trump and the vision that he's going to put forward for the next four years of his presidency, should he win.

And I disagree that there's this sympathy factor aspect of it. I think there is -- what Donald Trump showed the other night, and what he's continuing to show now, and what hopefully he will be able to show the rest of this week, is that there's a strength behind him, and there's a -- there's the ability -- he recognizes he has an ability to change the path forward for his campaign, that there is a unity aspect of this.

He identified a few different issues where there is discourse in this -- in this country about different issues are clearly defined lines that folks on the Republican side and Democratic side have disagreed.

How do you bridge that gap? And I think he wants to do that. And I think we'll see that in his speech, you know, maybe today or -- or on Thursday.

HUNT: We'll see about that. OK.

Coming up next here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH MEYN, RALLY ATTENDEE: I think a lot of people in the crowd just thought it was fireworks going off. I knew immediately it was gunshots.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The latest on the investigation into the attempted assassinated assassination against former President Donald Trump.

And former Congressman Joe Kennedy is going to join us with his perspective on this moment in history. Don't miss it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:28:32]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The women here in shock. Some have fainted. Lone men. Secret Service men standing by the emergency room, tears streaming down their face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: This morning, a nation in an all-too familiar shock, reeling from an assassination attempt against a president [SIC] and a presidential candidate and mourning the victim of the attack, 50-year- old Corey Comperatore, who was -- who died shielding his wife and daughter from the bullets.

For some, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump was a rude awakening to just how polarized American politics have become.

But for others who have watched the recent rise in threats to lawmakers, the violent attack on the Capitol, say that it was just, unfortunately, almost a matter of time.

Joining me now is someone whose family has been devastatingly affected by America's painful history of political violence, the former Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy.

Sir, very grateful to have you here today.

JOE KENNEDY, FORMER DEMOCRATIC SENATOR: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

HUNT: I'd just like to first ask for your reflections. You lost your grandfather and your great uncle. Of course, they both meant a lot to the country. The country lost them, as well.

But you have a unique perspective on this. How do you take in what we saw? And what is your message for the country in this moment?

KENNEDY: Look, these are hard times, I think, for all of us. It's hard times for our country. I think, oftentimes as understandable, Americans are seeing what's playing out on our television screens and think of this as, you know, politicians are people far away. They don't -- they don't see the human side of this.

I talked to a number of my former colleagues.