New Info About Trump Assassination Attempt
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for every life-saving treatment, for every next step, for every care in the world. Cleveland Clinic. It's Tuesday, September 17th, right now on CNN This Morning. The 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. First-hand account, Donald Trump talks about the apparent assassination attempt against him, plus... Driver! Walk straight back! Keep walking!

The suspect charged. New details as the man accused appears in court and... In America, we resolve our differences peacefully. The ballot box, not at the end of a gun. Calls for unity. President Biden condemns political violence as Republicans point the finger across the aisle. And Diddy in custody. Months of scandal for the embattled music mogul leads to his arrest in Manhattan.

6 a.m. here in Washington, a live look at West Palm Beach, Florida, where, of course, this morning, that investigation into the apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump will continue. Morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. We are just now seven weeks away from Election Day on this Tuesday.

But the conversations that we're having are, of course, not about polls or policy. Instead, for the second time in almost two months, one candidate is giving a firsthand account of the moment that shots rang out near him. I was playing golf with some of my friends. It was on a Sunday morning and very peaceful, very beautiful weather. Everything was beautiful. It was a nice place to be. And 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. I would have loved to have sank that last putt. But we decided, well, let's get out of here. We now know that each of those shots were fired by the Secret Service to try to neutralize the threat posed by a gunman spotted in the bushes.

The suspect, Ryan Wesley Ruth, now believed to have been lying in wait near Trump's golf course for about 12 hours. That's according to a court filing that's based on phone records. He faces two weapons charges and could face more serious charges as the investigation proceeds. Speaking yesterday in Philadelphia, Biden addressed this apparent second attempt on the life of his predecessor.

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. America suffered too many times the tragedy of an assassin's bullet. It solves nothing and just tears the country apart. We must do everything we can to prevent it and never give it any oxygen.

President Biden also called Trump yesterday to discuss Trump's Secret Service protection. The White House describing the call as a cordial conversation. In a statement to CNN, Trump said it was, quote, very nice, end quote. Still, Trump not shying away from blaming his opponents for this second attempt on his life. In a social media post yesterday, Trump claiming that Harris's words during last week's debate, in addition to his own ongoing legal cases, have, quote,

Taking politics in our country to a whole new level of hatred, abuse, and distrust because of the communist left rhetoric. The bullets are flying and it will only get worse. Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, made this argument yesterday.

I'm not going to say we're always perfect. I'm not going to say that conservatives always get things exactly right. But you know the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that 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. Somebody's going to get hurt by it.

So on the point of rhetoric, Trump regularly calls Kamala Harris a fascist. And in May, he said Biden runs a Gestapo administration, referencing the Nazi secret police. Some Democrats arguing Donald Trump's language is contributing to the problem. This was Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell.

He plays to people's fear. He plays to people's anxiety. He divides us with hate and fear. This violence has to stop, period. But we also need to understand who and what he is and how much he is contributing to it.

Wow. All right. Joining us to discuss, Jonah Goldberg, CNN political commentator, co-founder of The Dispatch. Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios. Karen Finney is CNN political commentator, former senior advisor to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. And David Urban, CNN senior political commentator and former senior advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. Welcome to all of you. Thank you for being here. It's another...

week of difficult conversations about violence in our politics when we should be covering polling and ads and other things instead we're talking about bullets and assassinations. Jonah Goldberg, we were obviously struck by what J.D. Vance said there about how well no one is shooting at Kamala Harris. I'm curious what you hear in that because at a time when we are getting bipartisan calls to tone down the rhetoric, I'm curious if you think that that lines up with it.

I think JD Vance has a gift for phrasing things in such a way as to enrage the very people he's claiming to try and calm down. And look, I don't find this a difficult conversation to have. I find it a difficult conversation to listen to. I think this whole thing has gotten really dumb. And you have Donald Trump saying in his Fox News Digital interview yesterday that,

What's outrageous is that they're using extremist rhetoric about him when they should be using it about Kamala Harris, right? So his objection isn't about the demonization of political poem and opponents and insightful rhetoric His problem is is that they're the insightful rhetoric is being rained at aimed at the wrong person and he thinks it would be better placed and His enemies because they're the ones who will destroy the country That's really a stupid position to take

um as are most of these things i'm one of these conservatives who has been consistent on this for 20 years you shouldn't blame the actions of madmen on politicians who use rhetoric it was wrong when they did it sarah palin it's wrong when they're doing it to harris it's wrong when we're doing it to trump only one of these two shooters right which is a very small data sample do we know had very serious political opinions the other one the one from butler it's kind of a black box still

In a country of 337 million people, I could talk right now about how vests have no sleeves and make someone violently angry. We cannot order an entire political system around that. - David Urban. - Yeah, look, I agree with Jonah. You can't ascribe

or at least I wouldn't ascribe any motives to either of these gentlemen for what they did, lying in wait. They're obviously both probably have mental illness issues. But then again, I similarly, you know, we're talking about blame and incendiary language. I think there's a level of personal responsibility in America.

I think that if Democrats and Republicans want to agree that Democrats aren't inciting Republicans to violence, Republicans aren't inciting Democrats, it has to be across the board. You can't just say, well, Trump did it on January 6th by telling people to go to the Capitol and do these things. But when we talk about Trump being a threat to the democracy and our union will end, it doesn't really matter. Do you think it's equivalent, David? Yeah, I do. I actually do. Because, I mean, think about this.

When in American history, I mean, press the way, way back button. And you remember when Sarah Palin, excuse me, Sarah Huckabee Sanders kind of like chased out of a restaurant that her family was kind of being yelled at and physically, I don't want to say physically threatened, but she said to me, they felt physically threatened. Do you remember when Maxine Waters said, did you see a Trump official? Go get in his face, make him uncomfortable. That's not normal. We crossed a line there.

It's like, do you remember back in New York City when those kids were throwing buckets of water on the police and things in the police garbage cans? And I said, that is not acceptable behavior. And it's a slippery slope from there. So it's a slippery slope from protesting. Nobody during the Obama administration chased Obama officials out of restaurants or chased people down or said, go find somebody and chase them out because we don't like their politics.

Okay, Secretary Tony Blinken and his wife, I mean, their children are terrorized because they have people outside of their house screaming 24-7. Let me finish 24-7. You have the Democratic mayor of Boston having the same thing. Karen, how about you say this? It was wrong. Just say it. It's wrong. How about let me finish my sentence and then you get to talk? Okay.

- Right, so the point I'm gonna make is, I think it's not about Democrats or Republicans, it's about understanding that there are crazy people out there who may take whatever you say, as Jonah just said,

do something crazy. I mean, and that's where the level, no, I'm not doing that. Oh, come on. You want to agree with me? It is. It's the truth. That's the level of responsibility, though, that they all have. And I will just bring this back, particularly to J.D. Vance, two things. He's such a, just a jerk because the thing is, we, you don't

know that no one has tried anything against President Biden or Vice President Harris because guess what? Usually we never know about it. We shouldn't be talking about whether or not there are, you know, is that the measure? Oh, well, nobody shot at you. So that means your rhetoric is OK. Now, how about also, J.D. Vance, don't perpetuate on this very network racist rumors that are false about

people who are immigrants in a town in your state in south Springfield Ohio, to let their children o this weekend because the p showed up. How about use to stop spreading this i accurate information and t people who live in your s

the bottom line here and and Alex I can put this one to you is that at the the we have reached a point our politics I actually this morning was thinking about Mike Gallagher he's a congressman I who was considered a rising star a young very conservative Republican I had a significant role in trying to take on China and he left Congress right and when he knows he's gonna retire there are a lot of questions about why why would you abandon this really promising career

and then David Ignatius wrote a column a couple weeks ago that basically said his family got swatted right which is where somebody calls the cops and you know alleges there's something going on in the house and these you know men with giant guns show up and it can be very dangerous situation and this was part of why if not exactly why he bailed out of politics our politics entirely

The reality is that the temperature at which the country is living right now is causing good people to bail out of the system because they don't feel like they can operate in it safely. What are the implications of that for all of us?

Well, the last 24 hours, I think you're just seeing, and even this roundtable discussion is evidence that there's already finger pointing going on. So the temperature is actually going up, not down. And you're six weeks away from, you know, what everyone is saying is an existential election for the country. Both sides are saying that. So essentially, you know,

we are tiptoeing closer and closer to political violence becoming normalized. And, you know, it didn't just start in Butler, Pennsylvania. You also had, you know, the shooting of Steve Scalise just a few years ago. You've had January 6th, obviously. Like, the fact is that both sides, and both sides feel embittered and entitled to their anger. You saw that from J.D. Vance last night. And Democrats, you saw from Debbie Dingle that she feels that

hey, Trump was the one that lit this fire or at least Stokes and pours gasoline on it. And as a result, we're basically just in this sort of, you know, cyclone where everything gets hotter and hotter and hotter. I mean, David, the bottom line is this is a Trump era thing. Yeah, it started with the Trump era, right? It started with

- It's actually not true at the start. - Oh, come on. - It got pretty bad under Barack Obama if you were a black person in this country. - Okay, I can't speak to that. - There were two assassination attacks against Jerry Ford within two days. In 1972, there was like five domestic bombings a day for 18 months. We've had more violent periods in our life. - Of course, we had the Civil War, we had the race riots in the 60s, we had Vietnam, people got shot at campuses. I mean, it's been around for quite some time. - Yeah, my point is just we have a lot of recency bias.

Look, the only place where I'm going to disagree a little bit with David is I think any statement that has a truth claim in it, a factual truth claim in it, is a defensible statement, right? So that's why the lies about Haitians are outrageous and demonizing.

And that's why I think there's a colorable argument to say that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy because of what he did on January 6th. And to say that when Donald Trump says America will be over if Kamala Harris will be reelected, that is just gassy hyperbole. When you say Donald Trump tried to steal an election, I think that's a

actually true claim and therefore it's easier to defend. But it's easier to defend, but America will not cease to exist if Donald Trump is the president of the United States. Oh, I agree with that. But the Democrats don't agree with it. Democrats say it every day. They say he's going to end your rights, he's going to do this, he's going to do that. We're going to end abortion in America when Donald Trump says I'm not going to do it. He said I'll veto a ban. Karen, just be factual. He said I'm not going to sign a ban. He said I'm for the exception. He said I'll never miss my test.

No, he said he won't sign a ban. He said it numerous times. Democrats talk about Project 2025 as if it's Trump's DNA. He said I've disavowed it numerous times. The vice president stands up and talks about it. She stood up the other day and talked about how Donald Trump said there are good people on both sides in Charlottesville. Clearly not said. She talked about the bloodbath statement. Clearly he didn't say that. So she's repeating lies to inflame things just as bad. But she said it, Karen. She said it in a context that was...

She knows the truth. She knows what she's doing. And so the other side, your guy should say, yeah, she needs to dial it back as well. So exactly, both sides need to dial it back. Someone's got to be first. To Alex's point, it's a cyclone right now. We're in the cyclone. Who's going to step back and say,

This is really bad for our country. You know who's sitting back and laughing? The Chinese, the Iranians, the Russians. All our enemies right now are saying, "Bravo, this is great. This is exactly what we want. We want to see our America torn apart." Yeah, and one quick example of that is that yesterday, Ohio's Governor DeWine said that a lot of those bomb threat calls were coming from overseas in Springfield, Ohio. Yeah, really difficult reality.

Thank you all for kicking us up with a good conversation. You guys will be back in a minute. Coming up ahead here on CNN This Morning, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris ready their campaigns in critical battleground states and the Secret Service's latest fallout on Capitol Hill as lawmakers raise concern over the protection of the former president. How can you have faith? It's 60 days. We've had two assassination attempts. That doesn't mean there's not great men and women working there. It just means at this moment, they've had two fails in 60 days.

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Look, I think both the Secret Service and the FBI have to get out of this paradigm of you get this when you're the current president and you get this when you're a former. I mean, I think that makes sense if maybe you're Jimmy Carter or W. Bush that is painting and living a retired life, but it needs to match the threat.

That was Florida Republican Congressman Michael Waltz calling for greater protection for Donald Trump after that second apparent attempt on the former president's life. Waltz, far from the only member of Congress down in the alarm, with the Secret Service now a bipartisan focus. The service is at a breaking point. Something has to change. The paradigm has to shift, but resources have to be given as well because we can't continue to ask the Secret Service to do all of this in this particular threat environment.

All right, let's bring in CNN senior law enforcement analyst, former FBI director Andrew McCabe. Andy, wonderful to see you. Thank you so much for being here. We were actually talking in the break about what exactly is the solution here. Obviously, there's bipartisan calls for more money for the Secret Service. What should that additional money buy for them, in your view? I mean, how do you do a better job of honestly having the imagination to prevent things like this?

- Sure, so just to clarify one thing from that piece you were playing just before we came in, contrary to what the Congressman was saying, the FBI doesn't have anything to do with determining what sort of protection Secret Service protectees receive. The FBI doesn't do protective work.

What they do do is support the Secret Service by providing intelligence of threats. And that's super important because it gets right to the heart of your question. What the service needs to do is rethink their methodology to adapt a more nimble approach to designing a package for each protectee, no matter who they are or what position they currently occupy,

based on the threat picture they face, not based on these kind of predetermined stratifications of you're at this level, so you get X, Y, Z package.

As far as resources are concerned, the service has been under-resourced for decades. If you look back over each of their near misses in the last three, four, five decades, each one of those can be tied in some way to a shortage of manpower. They are a very small service and they push their people to extreme lengths in terms of hours and travel and things like that, mandatory overtime, all that sort of stuff.

the best thing we could do at this point is to provide them with more people but casey that is a long-term solution that does not happen overnight it takes a while to recruit identify hire and train those folks so they are going to be really under the gun and in this elevated time of threats to be able to provide the sort of protection that the country expects

I was going to say, I mean, what can they do in the next seven weeks? Because clearly, I mean, this election is a tinderbox.

It is. And I think the DHS has done a few things to address that immediately. I've seen it reported that they allocated 1,500 additional Homeland Security investigators. They've basically assigned those people over to the Secret Service to assist with protective operations. They need to keep leaning in that direction. There's really nothing that they're doing right now.

that is more important than guaranteeing the safety of these candidates and these protectees. So they need to really kind of reach out across the federal law enforcement community to tap into personnel resources, tactical resources, technological resources that can augment their current capabilities. That's something that the president and the administration could demand tomorrow if they wish to do so, and you would see results of that right away.

All right, Andy McCabe for us this morning. Andy, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I hope to see you soon. Great to be here. All right, straight ahead here on CNN this morning, Diddy arrested in New York. The possible charges that he is facing and what his legal team is saying about the prosecutors. Plus, two assassination attempts in two months. Why some say it's important, it is important, to tone down the rhetoric on both sides. All right, historic rain levels from so-called potential tropical cyclone 8.

causing life-threatening flooding in parts of North Carolina. More than 10 million people still under a flood watch today. Let's get straight to our meteorologist, the weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Derek, good morning. What are we looking at? Yeah, here's the thing, Casey. This is why we never want to underestimate these tropical systems. Even though it was never given a formal name called Potential Tropical Cyclone 8, it sure left its damage

in its wake and these tropical feeder bands created the most flooding in and around Carolina Beach, North Carolina yesterday where a state of emergency was declared and you can see the flooding that was left in its wake of this non-named tropical entity. Now some of the rainfall totals here just incredible to see well over a foot for many locations including Carolina Beach

an unofficial measurement of 18.32 inches, kind of centered just south of Wilmington. There it is right near Carolina Beach and a lot of the heavy rainfall from the system still working its way inland as well as along the outer banks of North Carolina. So this is the area that we're watching out for the potential of flooding.

The potential here for another two to four inches of rain, especially across Virginia and into the northern sections of North Carolina. There's a flash flood warning for Morehead City as we speak. So that's the flood threat ongoing with this system that continues to move inland. Then we're focusing our attention on severe weather that will bubble up across the nation's midsection. This is really between two cooler air masses. This is where the heat will take place today and then the possibility of severe storms for portions of Nebraska.

Look at these temperatures skyrocketing to 91 in Rapid City today. Casey? Wow. All right. Derek Van Dam for us this morning. Derek, thank you very much. All right. Still to come after the break on CNN this morning, he spoke with nearly every living president about their time in office. We're going to speak live with David Rubenstein on his new book, The Highest Calling, and what he learned about those who have served in the Oval Office. Plus, Georgia Democratic Congresswoman Nakima Williams joins me live to discuss how heightened rhetoric is impacting today's politics.

This week on The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish. We can make more housing. Like, it's not alchemy. Sonia Trouse and her organization, Yimby Law, sued a town in Ventura County in Southern California, not far from where we're sitting down for this interview. We don't have to just accept limits and fight with people. The language of that movement has spread to the presidential campaigns. Listen to The Assignment with me, Adi Cornish, streaming now on your favorite podcast app.

In Washington, we have our disagreements, but we all agree that we are here to serve this nation we love and the people who call it home. It's a good reminder that maybe we can bring the temperature down across the country and the Congress and everywhere else. We don't dislike each other. We work together all the time. Senator Schumer and I do on a daily basis. We have our political arguments, but at the end of the day, we're all Americans.

So in the days after the shooting that nearly killed Congressman Steve Scalise seven years ago, the message from both sides of the aisle, you saw it there, was clear. Tone down the rhetoric and try to come together. It was also, of course, the initial message two months ago after the first attempt on Donald Trump's life. But in the two days since the second apparent assassination attempt against Trump, the calls for unity have already given way to partisan finger-pointing.

I know it's popular on a lot of corners of the left to say that we have a both sides problem. And I'm not going to say we're always perfect. I'm not going to say that conservatives always get things exactly right. But you know the big difference between conservatives and liberals is that no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months. 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. All right, joining me now to discuss this and more is Democratic Congresswoman Nakima Williams of Georgia. Congresswoman, good morning. Thank you so much for being here. I'd like to start just with what J.D. Vance said there and your reaction to how he talked about Kamala Harris.

So it's no secret that I'm not a Trump supporter, but when I heard the news, I don't want that for anyone, regardless of their party. And what I heard from J.D. Vance is no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris. Would he want that? Why would you say that in a time when we're talking about bringing down the temperature and changing the rhetoric and bringing the country together? Unity.

moving forward. We can disagree on policies, but we don't want anyone to have an assassination attempt. And so hearing some of the conversation on the other side after these attempts is

I don't get it. We should be, number one, members of Congress should be working on passing a budget that we should be doing, but we also are in the middle of this campaign cycle where talking about threats to democracy is not saying that I'm calling for someone to have threats against them. I'm a black woman in politics from the deep south.

I understand the threats that I get when I had to very early on in my congressional career get personal security that I had to figure out how to pay for because I wanted my family safe. And so to hear something like this is something that we need to address in a way to get our leaders, especially running for the highest offices, to understand that they, too, are a part of the problem.

Congresswoman, what do you, and I'm glad you raised your own personal experience because this has become something in modern times that is a much more acute issue for members of Congress, not just people at the highest offices. Obviously, we've seen political violence throughout our nation's history, but the tenor right now seems to be particularly acute. What is your diagnosis for why that is?

So I feel like there have been conversations that have given people permission to say the quiet things out loud, to act on those things. And there are a lot of people who will hear code words and they'll act on them. That's why it is important for leaders to understand that their words have power. So saying something like no one has attempted to assassinate another candidate, it's not okay because that shouldn't happen to any candidate. It shouldn't happen to anyone running for mayor, for city council, for Congress.

or president of the United States. This is the United States of America, and if we can't have leaders who at the bare minimum are understanding that no one should be the subject of political violence, then that's a problem.

congressman you have been on the campaign trail with kamala harris in your home state of georgia which is of course battleground georgia battleground georgia a critical swing state she has put it more in play than joe biden had when he was at the top of the ticket one of the issues she's really been campaigning on and i know is something you've worked on as well reproductive rights and abortion care i'm curious uh your diagnosis of how that is going to affect

voters, particularly women voters in Georgia. Georgia is also known for having conservative religious bedrock in many places. Are there any downsides or challenges for Democrats in how they run on this issue? And what are the things that women in Georgia are facing under the current six-week ban? There are some exceptions, but it's still a six-week ban. So, Casey, I understand what it's like to be a Christian, but also understand that the government should have no place in my personal medical decisions.

And that is where we are in the state of Georgia. I hear from women all the time that while they might not choose abortion for themselves, they don't think the government should be involved in these decisions for any woman. And that's where we are. Just yesterday, we had a report coming out of Georgia of a young woman who was seeking abortion care. It was the week that the Georgia decision came down, six weeks before most women even know that they're pregnant.

That's the Trump ban that we're under in Georgia right now. And so she traveled to North Carolina to get care. She got back and had complications, needed a DNC, something that is a standard procedure, and the hospital, afraid to give her the care that she needed because of the laws that were in place and doctors fearing prosecution. She stayed in a hospital bed and died from these complications.

something that could have been avoided had this Trump abortion ban not been in place in Georgia. That's what women are hearing about. That's the fear that we're living under. When these bans went through in Georgia, I was in the state senate. I spoke on the floor and read stories from women, my constituents, who understood what they would be up against had these bans gone into effect.

And now we're living with that nightmare. These are the things that we warned Republicans about when they passed these laws, and they didn't care. They thought we were Henny Penny, the sky is falling. But now here we are, and we're seeing women dying. Georgia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, mirroring that of third world countries for black women. But yet,

half of our counties don't even have an OBGYN and we're living under an abortion ban. All right, Congresswoman Nakima Williams, thank you very much for your time this morning. I really appreciate having you on the show. Thank you. All right. Still ahead here on CNN This Morning, we are in a sprint to the finish of this presidential election. Coming up next, we're going to talk with David Rubenstein about what he learned in his interviews with most of the living presidents about their time in office. Plus...

Flames shooting into the sky in Texas, a natural gas pipeline burning for hours now. In our roundup, what caused this to burst into flames? It's been my responsibility, my duty, and very much my honor to serve as commander-in-chief of this nation's armed forces these past eight years. I owe my deepest thanks to you, to the American people.

because you gave me this extraordinary opportunity to serve. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve as your president. It has been the honor of my lifetime to be your commander in chief. It's been the honor of my life to serve as your president. The honor of my lifetime. At the conclusion of their terms, it's been how nearly every U.S. president describes their experience in the single most important office in the world, the American presidency.

In a new book, The Highest Calling: Conversations on the American Presidency, aims to shed light on just what it takes and what it's like to hold that office. Through interviews with nearly every living president and the scholars who've studied them, author David Rubenstein paints a portrait of these men, how they differ in background, personality, and approach as they attempt to leave their mark on history. And joining me now is the author of The Highest Calling, David Rubenstein. He's also the host of The David Rubenstein Show, co-founder of the Carlisle Group, and of course,

the owner of my beloved Baltimore Orioles. David, I'm so grateful to have you on the program this morning. Thank you very much for having me. This book, I've started really digging into it, and it is just fascinating what these presidents have had to say to you as they have sat down and discussed what it's like to hold this office. And your own reverence for the presidency really comes through. One thing that I think stuck out

stuck out to me as you were talking to these men was about what brought them there as people and their parents in particular and what they might feel. Tell us a little bit more about what you learned.

Well, each of these people become president of the United States because they have some ambition. They worked their way to get there. When you think about it, since Woodrow Wilson, this has been the most important job in the world. You've got about six or seven billion people on the face of the earth. But the most important person on the face of the earth, many people would say, is the president of the United States. And what he or she decides to do affects the lives of almost everybody. So I try to go back and interview some of the former presidents.

and some of the current presidents as well. I mean, I interviewed Joe Biden, I interviewed Donald Trump, and their view and reverence for the office is quite amazing. Even though they have political spats from time to time, they really agree that what they can do as president of the United States really can change people's lives for the better. And that's why they're really in the business of being president.

Yeah. So you spoke with George W. Bush, actually, and he's a little bit more distant from the office than some of the others. Obviously, you spoke with Biden and Trump, who are Biden currently president, obviously Trump vying to be president again. Bush's interview with you was in some ways...

I thought in some ways more revealing than some of the others in part because of that distance that he has. And he said this when you asked him, you talked about populism. He said, quote, you wonder why populism is on the rise. It starts with taking taxpayers money, giving it to the powerful. It really irritated a lot of Americans and they haven't gotten over it yet. He is talking about the bailout for banks here. And then he goes on to say we've had candidates say you're mad. I'm going to make you madder as opposed to you're mad. I have solutions to make you less mad.

We're in kind of the matter stage where people are exploiting the anger as opposed to dealing with it like leaders should. What did you make of W. Bush's reflections here? Well, President Bush has stayed out of politics largely since he left office. Some presidents stay involved. They campaign. He's largely staying out of it. And I think he hasn't even said who he's going to vote for this time. He reflects on the fact that when he had the bailout, so-called TARP bailout, he really was shocked when the

came to him because he said, I've been against bailing out banks. I'm not Mr. Wall Street. And now you're telling me we're going to bail out Wall Street. And I can't really do that. But in the end, Ben Bernanke and his secretary of treasury, Hank Paulson, convinced him there was no economy coming around tomorrow if we didn't do it. So it did get done. I don't think he, in hindsight, it wasn't something he would have wanted. But I think in reflection, he realized it was necessary, just something he didn't really like. Yeah, very interesting. You did also speak, of course, to Donald Trump.

for the book. And you also spoke with Maggie Haberman, who's a CNN analyst here, obviously the New York Times chronicler of Donald Trump. And she said to you that there are two main influences in his life. One was Roy Cohn and the other was Fred Trump, Fred Trump being Donald Trump's father. What role do you think Fred Trump played in shaping Donald Trump and Donald Trump's presidency?

Well, I didn't ask him about that when I interviewed him. I've interviewed him a few times, but I didn't ask him about his father. But from what I've read from others and from Maggie Haberman, it seems as if his father was a domineering figure and really instilled in him the importance of always winning and not admitting defeat. Donald Trump is an unusual person to become president of the United States, the only person who had never had any government experience who became president of the United States.

And so he didn't have a background that some other people had. But the amazing thing about Donald Trump, when you think about it, is he's been the nominee of his party three times in a row. And no other person's ever been nominated three times in a row by the Republican Party. So while you can make fun of many things he's done and people criticize him, and I understand the criticism, he does have the ability to rally his troops and he does have the ability to be the nominee of the party three times in a row. And I think even now we don't know what the outcome of the election's gonna be.

But the main thing I really wanted to do with this book was to say to people, vote. We have 80 million people in this country who could vote legally but don't vote. We have about 160 million people who do vote, but 80 million people don't vote. About a third of the electorate don't vote. And I just hope that people will learn more about the presidency, get interested in it, as I have been, and vote. Because it's 49 days away, and I want people to really go out and vote. Yeah, I will say, I think, in reading the book,

Our times have been so turbulent and oftentimes our discourse so petty that having a chance to kind of step back and think about kind of the grandeur and the historic nature of this office was something that I've been really enjoying as I've been reading it. One question I guess I do have for you. Did you read what W said here that our candidates are saying? You're mad. I'm going to make you madder. Is he talking about Trump? Is he criticizing Trump?

He has resisted talking about President Trump for a lot of reasons. And Jeb Bush ran against Donald Trump in the primaries years ago. And I think the Bush family is probably not that close to the Trump organization. I think it's fair to say. And I think last time, I think President Bush said that he voted a write-in, which was Condi Rice. And I think so far he hasn't said who he might write in. But I think it's pretty clear that he's not likely to vote for Donald Trump, rightly or wrongly. That's his position. All right, David Rubenstein. Are we going to the World Series?

It's my hope we get there. I hope you'll come and watch it. Are you kidding me? I wouldn't miss it for the world. All right. Well, thank you for having me. I know Baltimore is so thrilled to have you. All right. Thank you. Truly. Thank you very much for being on the show today, sir. I appreciate it. All right. Don't forget to grab your copy of The Highest Calling. Proceeds are being donated to the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and the Harlem Park Elementary and Middle Schools in Baltimore. So it's all for a good cause.

All right, 52 minutes past the hour. Here is your morning roundup. Sean Diddy Combs arrested last night in New York. A source tells CNN that Combs was arrested in a Manhattan hotel. But the charges are unclear. Combs has been at the center of an ongoing sex trafficking probe and has also been hit with several lawsuits accusing the music mogul of sexual assault.

The Coast Guard revealing the first image of the Titan submersible sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean during a hearing into the implosion that killed five explorers last summer. The tail cone of the Titan was severed from the rest of the vessel, which was found several hundred yards from the Titanic wreckage.

Donald Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, is not getting his Arizona 2020 election criminal charges moved to federal court. A judge ruled that the alleged crimes fall outside of his official duties as White House chief of staff, meaning that the case can be tried at the state level. Meadows has also failed to get a similar case in Georgia moved to federal court.

Live images from Texas this morning where flames have been shooting into the sky for hours now after an SUV crashed into a natural gas pipeline. At this point, no air quality issues have been reported, but several nearby homes have been evacuated. One woman recalled the moment the fire started.

I hear a big boom and then I felt the house shake and I was like, what was that? So I immediately ran out of my bedroom and everybody's like freaking out. I looked out the window, I ran downstairs, I opened the front door, there was this fire and I seen the fence was on fire. And I was like, we got to go.

U.S. gymnast Jordan Chiles appealing the decision that cost her an Olympic bronze medal at the Paris Games this summer. A score review team that the USA asked for is at the center of the controversy. Chiles is appealing the decision to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, where the Court of Arbitration for Sport is located.

All right, let's turn back now to our conversation about the impact of political rhetoric. The Secret Service is now being asked about one of the world's wealthiest men, Elon Musk, the owner of the platform formerly known as Twitter. Of course, it is now called X. Following the apparent assassination attempt on Sunday, one user of his social media site asking, why do they want to kill Donald Trump? Musk then responded saying this, quote, and no one is even trying to assassinate Biden slash Kamala.

Musk added the thinking face emoji. After a swift backlash, Musk deleted that post and followed up saying basically it was just a joke. He said, quote, well, one lesson I've learned is that just because I say something to a group and they laugh doesn't mean it's all going to be, it's going to be all that hilarious as a post on X. And, quote, turns out that jokes are way less funny if people don't know the context and the delivery is plain text, end quote.

Yeah. Okay. The White House called Musk's deleted post irresponsible. Asked by CNN, the Secret Service said they were, quote, aware of the social media post made by Elon Musk. And as a matter of practice, we do not comment on matters involving protective intelligence. We can say, however, that the Secret Service investigates all threats related to our protectees. David Urban, is this productive from Elon Musk? No, of course not. Why is he doing this? Listen, I've got to spend a little time with Elon Musk one-on-one.

and he's a different kind of guy. And so I would say that, like he said, he thought it was funny at the time and he tweets it out that it's not funny. It's not funny. - I'm not gonna lie, I think, I mean, I don't know, I figured out that jokes don't translate in plain text. Like when I first got an email address and like, I mean, I don't know what year that was. - You think the guy, he owns the platform, maybe he figured it out. - Who could have guessed that an Asbury engineer

who does a lot of late night weed smoking somehow doesn't quite grasp that some tweets, some jokes don't translate. - Let's be a little careful about how we characterize the spectrum. I know there are a lot of people who deal with that in their own lives and people who have their own children. But I take your point about engineers and the social, whatever's going on here with Musk. Alex Thompson, I mean, this guy has become the center of the campaign in many ways.

Like, he's really firmly at the center of it. And he put himself there. I mean, the reason why he is now tweeting his group text, which I would not advise anyone to do, is that he does it for the lulz. He does it for the attention. He wants to be at the center of the attention. And he, you know, he has amplified in some ways a lot of crazy things in this election cycle. Karen Finney, again, part of this is

And the question that I keep coming back to is how much of what happens online, and Elon Musk is probably one of our most online, he's very offline too actually, but he's very online, one of our citizens, it manifests in actions offline.

Absolutely. I mean, he should at a minimum be aware that he has millions of followers. He has a platform. And I think there's a level of responsibility and accountability when you have a platform, how you use it and being aware that

You may think it's funny, but there will be people who don't think it's funny and maybe joking about people getting shot is not ever really that funny I'm sorry. He's a genius I mean clearly a genius in terms of what he's done in Starlink and space lab means revolutionized space travel I mean, he's incredibly good at certain things and obviously terrible at other things, right? So maybe stick to the lane of things you're really good at Well, that's sort of my point is that you know, here's a guy we all talk about how Twitter is a terrible distraction for us or X or social media or whatever, right and

And here's a guy who literally has done more than anybody else to make humanity an interplanetary species. And he does all these incredible, straight out of Ayn Rand, engineering feats and marvels.

and he gets so distracted by Twitter, he actually buys it and then spends all of his time on it. And it's a huge waste of time and money for the guy. It's a must-scale distraction by Twitter. Yeah, it is remarkable. Just watching the SpaceX astronauts with new space. NASA couldn't build new space in 40 years. The government couldn't do that.

for a hundred years, right? And Elon Musk does it like in a blink of an eye, transforms space travel, transforms satellite technology. I mean, he's an amazing character, but obviously sucks at this one aspect of his life, right? So maybe stay off the...

political tax. But, I mean, Alex Thompson, we're wrapping up here. But, I mean, his decision to go all in on Trump this time has also potentially jeopardized some of his businesses, including particularly Tesla.

Absolutely. But I will say, if Trump wins, the fact is Trump has already said that he's going to appoint him some sort of czar to look at government efficiency. Do you know who has some of the biggest government contracts in the entire government? Elon Musk. Right, around all of these various things we were just discussing. He basically runs it. He is NASA now. The large instead.

If we didn't have Elon Musk, we wouldn't have a space program to a large extent. Well, I guess we'll see. Thank you guys for being with us this morning. I really appreciate it. Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

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