cover of episode 7/15/24: Photos Expose Secret Service Breakdown At Trump Rally, Dems Give Up On Replacing Biden, Trump Rewrites RNC Speech For Unity, Dem Floats Wild Putin Trump Conspiracy

7/15/24: Photos Expose Secret Service Breakdown At Trump Rally, Dems Give Up On Replacing Biden, Trump Rewrites RNC Speech For Unity, Dem Floats Wild Putin Trump Conspiracy

2024/7/15

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

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Hi, I'm Katie Lowe's and I'm Guillermo Diaz. And we're the hosts of Unpacking the Toolbox, the Scandal Rewatch podcast where we're talking about all the best moments of the show. Mesmerizing. But also we get to hang out with all of our old scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes stories with Unpacking the Toolbox podcast.

Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years.

Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Angie Martinez, and on my podcast, I like to talk to everyone from Hall of Fame athletes to iconic musicians about getting real on some of the complications and challenges of real life.

I had the best dad and I had the best memories and the greatest experience. And that's all I want for my kids as long as they can have that. Listen to Angie Martinez IRL on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. ♪

Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have a great show for everybody today. Unfortunately, a couple of things. Crystal, actually, one of her kids is sick and she's not able to make it this morning. It was an emergency, so I'll be holding down the fort. Luckily, I do have some practice at this now, at this point. Now, of course, we have full spectrum coverage here at Breaking Points this morning of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday. We brought you two breaking news segments.

over the weekend, breaking some of that down. But we're gonna go a full through the timeline of the events, some of the fallout, what we know about the shooter so far, the FBI investigation, President Biden's response. We'll then dissect exactly what we know about the Secret Service's colossal failure here in preventing this attempted assassination, some of the holes that have opened up and some of the

into the problems inside of this agency that are now glaringly revealed after this incident. We're gonna talk a little bit about President Biden and his political future. His political future appears saved more so now by the attempted assassination and some of the news coverage and some of the planning going on now behind the scenes by the Democratic Party, how they think that they can

whether this and perhaps go all the way to election day without more calls from elected officials calling on Biden to drop out. We're gonna give everybody a preview of the RNC, which of course kicks off today and will go all the way to Thursday. Some news about Donald Trump and the speech that he's given and about also some changes that he's made to that speech in the wake of his shooting, how he's feeling exactly and how this will change the

the presidential election race going into 2024. We'll finally end this segment on a funny note. Somebody who you saw very recently here on this program, the advisor to Democratic billionaire mega-donor Reid Hoffman, has apparently been caught in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, who you saw in our counterpoints debate against Cenk Uygur about Biden staying in the race. Well, he apparently was caught telling journalists in the hours after the attempted assassination that

that the entire thing was apparently staged. So a real view into the Democratic elite mind and some of the conspiracies that harbor there. As we said at the top, this is a full spectrum Breaking Points coverage. Thank you to everybody, our premium subscribers, who enable us to be able to put out that breaking news coverage and to continue doing this show here every day. Our own Emily Jashinsky is on the ground at the RNC. So throughout the week, we'll check in with her about what's going on. She'll be doing interviews and

and other things. And then don't forget, we also, the entire crew will be on the ground for the DNC, which is in August in Chicago. So thank you to all of our premium members. You're the guys who enable us to continue doing this work. Let's start with the attempted assassination on Donald Trump. And I'll try and just start at the

very beginning of the incident. So let's go ahead and play some of the video here. This was in Butler, Pennsylvania, approximately 6:15 p.m. You saw Trump, he was in the middle of his speech, only five minutes or so. Immediately you see shots begin to ring out and Secret Service agents who jump immediately on top of the president. Most of the striking things is that you can see the incredible confusion going on behind Donald Trump. And unfortunately, that heartbreaking scream that you hear in the background is people realizing

that an innocent bystander, just a normal person who woke up

On Saturday, he was excited to go to the former president's rally, lost his life, and was shot. The ER doctor who was on the scene said that he was shot in the head and almost certainly a fatality immediately after it happened. We know a little bit more about that individual, and I'll bring you some news about him. But what you're watching, obviously, is just an incredibly chaotic scene. You have these Secret Service agents. We can actually hear them on the microphone.

that is being picked up there where they're saying, get down, get down. Then they realize that the shooter has downed. They say that the threat has been neutralized. As Trump begins to rise, they bring him up and they surround him and create a barrier with their own bodies around the former president

One of them is actually checking him for wounds while he is standing there. Trump, obviously, is both, he's a little bit confused in the immediate moment, but then he says, wait, wait, wait. And that is their, one of the most iconic moments where he shouts, fight, fight, fight to the crowd, puts his fist in his mouth,

up, also creating that iconic image that we have now all probably seen over the weekend where you can see the Associated Press photographer was right below him and was able to capture Trump with his fist in the air, blood on his face, and the American flag flying high in the background as he is rushed to his vehicle. Let's go to the next part here as well. Put that image, please, up on the screen. This is where a lot of the questions now are centering. What

the hell happened here with this response from law enforcement? So what you can see directly in front of you, this is

a map that's been put together. You can see the stage where Donald Trump was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania. You can also see where the wounded rally attendee was sitting. You can see behind where the law enforcement counter snipers were positioned on the rooftop. There's been a lot of discussion around the actions of those counter snipers. But then over to the left on that building rooftop was the location of the gunman's body.

So there's a lot of questions here about how exactly a gunman is able to walk on to a rooftop with a direct line of sight to former President Donald Trump. He's able not only to walk onto the rooftop, he's able to get into the prone firing position and then able to squeeze off some seven to eight shots

at the former president. Let's go and put the next graphic up, please. That is also very helpful in kind of discovering what happened here. This shows you actually on the ground image and also realizes just how close that this individual was able to get.

We're talking about 130 yards that this individual is able to get from the former president in one of the most obvious and direct lines of sight. Now, there's big discussions here about the failures of the Secret Service, but I think that image actually puts everything together quite well. You can see exactly where the shooter was. You can see where the Secret Service snipers were. And you can also see where Donald Trump was there on the stage. And unfortunately, in the path of that assassin's bullet, an innocent bystander was hit in the head while he was covering his eyes.

own family. Just absolutely tragic in the results that have happened here. What I think that this image underscores most for us is the failure and some shocking questions

that now have to be asked of the Secret Service and how exactly they allowed something like this to happen. Everything that we're beginning to learn now behind the scenes points to absolutely colossal incompetence. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen in terms of what we know about the shooter. They've released his name.

The individual's name here is Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, about a 40-minute drive from the Butler, Pennsylvania rally where Donald Trump was attending. There is very little known about Mr. Crooks. He was a 20-year-old man. He was killed by Secret Service counter snipers after he took shots.

at the former president. The thing is, though, is that all we really know about him so far is that he recently graduated from high school, 20-year-old, does not appear to have had a significant social media presence. Discord confirmed that he did have an account with them, but they claim, at least for now, that the

account has been taken down and that he was not known to have engaged in any political discussion or anything related to the investigation. The authorities say that they are fighting and searching, you know, for any clues to the motive of Mr. Crooks. But

In terms of what we know about him so far, it's just some smatterings that have begun to come out from some of his classmates. So we actually have here a student in class who was in the classes with Mr. Crooks, claimed that he was, quote, bullied almost every day and relentlessly because of his appearance and for being an outcast. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. He was bullied almost every day.

In what way can you explain? I mean, he would sit alone at lunch. I mean, he was just an outcast and you know how kids are nowadays. So they're going to see someone like that and they're going to target him because they think it's funny or whatever. So it's the best way I can describe it. And it's honestly kind of sad. Like, I don't want to say this is what provoked it, but you never know. You said he was a loner? Yeah. I want to say he was a loner more because he was just

He was quiet, but like he was just bullied. Like he was bullied so much, so much. - This was high school? - Yeah. - What did they, do you remember at all what they said to him or called him? - No.

He was just made fun of I guess for the way he dressed over his appearance made fun of for the way he dressed We can't surmise a lot. All we know really about mr. Crooks is also what he was wearing on that day He was wearing khaki I think it was pants and with a t-shirt that was tucked into it The t-shirt was of a gun youtuber very popular, but you know, he's not a political person

person and the shirt itself doesn't mean anything in and of itself. The FBI has now taken control of the entire investigation. They also cast a little bit of a shock at the secret service. They said, yeah, it's surprising that this individual was able to get in contact. Here's a little bit about what we know that's broken overnight. The FBI is now telling us that the gunman quote appears to have acted alone, but investigators remain unsure of his motives, political beliefs. They have not even been able to determine

what evidence might yet be on his cell phone. So there's some questions there. We also, apparently, according to them, they found, quote, rudimentary explosive devices in the gunman's vehicle and possible explosives were also found at his residence. We know that Mr. Crooks apparently lived in his home with his parents. Parents are two registered social workers and or counselors. In terms of his own political history, a lot has been made

Listen, you can make of this what you will. He is, quote, registered as a Republican, also donated $15 to a group allied with Democrats on the day of Joe Biden's inauguration. That appears to basically be it. He, quote, had an engineering degree from a nearby community college, probably associate's degree. He, quote, liked to play chess, video games, and was learning how to

code. Unlike most people in his generation, he seemed to have a minimal presence online, leaving no telltale trial of public comments or social media posts in and of itself, frankly, a bit suspicious. I don't know a single 20-year-old who isn't very, very active, or perhaps he had a pseudonymous username or something that has not yet been uncovered. We're waiting on discussions and information to

from the FBI. Didn't also, though, want to pass over the individual who was killed at the Trump rally, Corey Campatore. And here is Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who told us a little bit about Corey. Let's take a listen. We lost a fellow Pennsylvanian last night. Corey Campatore.

I just spoke to Corey's wife and Corey's two daughters. Corey was a girl dad. Corey was a firefighter. Corey went to church every Sunday. Corey loved his community, and most especially, Corey loved his family. Corey was an avid supporter of the former president.

and was so excited to be there last night with him in the community. I asked Corey's wife if it would be okay for me to share that we spoke. She said yes. She also asked that I share with all of you that Corey died a hero, that Corey dove on his family to protect them last night at this rally. Corey was the very best of us.

May his memory be a blessing. Yeah, I think that's very well said from the governor of Pennsylvania. That image was released by Corey's own daughters who say that he dived on top of them in the midst of the shooting. It's very likely, at the very least, that scream, that horrifying blood-curling scream that we heard in that video was people realizing that Corey had been shot, as well as some other individuals who were injured at this rally.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowe's and I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, unpacking the toolbox where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show to officially unpack season three of scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three mesmerizing, but

Also, we get to hang out with all of our old scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people. Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth-pulling scene that kicks off a romance.

And it was Peak TV. This is new scandal content for your eyes, for your ears, for your hearts, for your minds. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes. Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is.

I think he was like, oh, yeah, things come and go. But with me, it never came and went. Is she Donna Martin or a down-and-out divorcee? Is she living in Beverly Hills or a trailer park? In a town where the lines are blurred, Tori is finally going to clear the air in the podcast Misspelling. When a woman has nothing to lose, she has everything to gain. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words. Yeah.

That I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Cheaters and Backstabbers. I'm Shadi Diaz. And I'm Kate Robards. And we are New York City stand-up comedians and best friends. And we love a good cheating and backstabbing story.

So this is a series where our guests reveal their most shocking cheating stories. Join us as we learn how to avoid getting our hearts broken or our backs slashed. Listen to Cheaters and Backstabbers on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

President Biden has spoken three times now since the attempted assassination, but perhaps his most high-profile comments came last night from an Oval Office address in which President Biden urged unity. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Here in America, everyone must be treated with dignity and respect, and hate must have no safe harbor. Here in America, we need to get out of our silos where we only listen to those with whom we agree. Our misinformation is rampant.

where foreign actors fan the flames of our division to shape the outcomes consistent with their interests, not ours. Yesterday's shooting at Donald Trump's rally in Pennsylvania calls on all of us to take a step back, take stock of where we are, how we go forward from here. Thankfully, former Trump is not seriously injured. I spoke with him last night. I'm grateful he's doing well. And Jill and I keep him and his family in our prayers. But in America,

We resolve our differences at the battle box. You know, that's how we do it, at the battle box, not with bullets. You know, we're blessed to live in the greatest country on Earth, and I believe that with every soul, every power of my being. So tonight, I'm asking every American to recommit, to make America so, make America, think about it. What's made America so special? Here in America...

Everyone must be treated with dignity and respect. - So that's what we've gotten so far from current President Joe Biden. I'll save the politics for a little bit later in the show. Just note that he did still struggle through some of the sentence there in a mere six minute Oval Office address. That was the longest actually comments that he gave since the attempted assassination, a couple minutes.

in the immediate aftermath, then a couple of minutes yesterday on Sunday afternoon, and then finally his 8 p.m. Oval Office address urging unity. So continuing just in terms of the details, I want to make sure I give everybody that they can. There's a little bit that came out in a report now from the Wall Street Journal where they say that the AR-15 rifle that Mr. Crooks used, we know that it belonged to his father. Now, apparently the elder Mr. Crooks told

told investigators that he believed his son had gone to a gun range on Saturday. He became concerned when he could not reach him, and he called police after the news of the shooting. There's going to be a lot of investigation into the Crooks' parents, obviously, because not only was their gun used in the attempted assassination, but apparently there were explosive devices, alleged or rudimentary ones, that were left at the residence, and including in Mr. Crooks'

cars. So some questions, you know, exactly about what they knew and some possible negligence on their own part and what was happening. According to the FBI, according to them, they say Crooks was not known previously to law enforcement, which frankly is a little bit surprising having been covering a lot of these mass shootings and other types of incidents over a long period of time. That's almost always the case. They also claim that Crooks has no history of mental illness. Keep in mind, you know, however, he could have been

allegedly treated or whatever by his own parents because they themselves, social worker and counselor, licensed by the state of Pennsylvania. So it's possible that it was kept in-house. This is just speculation on my own part, just trying to piece together some of the details. But so far right now, I mean, all we can really say is just this is a shocking, insane event, right?

really, that happened. We should keep in mind, I mean, this is the first time that a bullet has touched a president, even a foreign president, at a rally like this since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 here in Washington, D.C. And there were a lot of people who were looking at that previous, you know, incident and thinking about how the Secret Service itself was supposed to reform. We should really keep in mind that was a very, very different time. You know, John Hinckley, the attempted

The person who attempted to assassinate President Reagan he was just mere feet away from Ronald Reagan there and he was somehow was able to get a gun there in the presence of the president there also were significant changes to security protocols in the aftermath of those two incidents of the JFK assassination and Also of the Reagan attempted assassination after JFK one that's when the Secret Service, you know was reformed at least, you know

for Congress, and they were supposed to do these sightline investigations. They were supposed to have counter-sniper teams. After the Reagan assassination, that's actually when they first started doing metal detectors and a lot of other policies implemented over at the White House and also at presidential events. And then slowly, the security umbrella has gone forward. And I can tell you that's part of the reason why

I was so stunned, and me along with many others believed because of the way that the shots were heard on the microphone that it could have been a small caliber bullet and rifle. This was even according to the people in the crowd is because the disbelief on everyone's part was how could anybody even possibly get a shot off

from outside of the security perimeter, from that sight line, just a mere 136 yards away from where the president is speaking directly at the president enough to get mere millimeters away from his face and have a bullet go through his ear. I'm sure you've seen much of this, but

We are literally living in a very lucky world where the former president was not assassinated. If he had not turned his head at that exact moment, he would be a dead man. And we would have, I mean, think about footage from the 1960s and then compare it to the high resolution of where we are today, not to mention, you know, the political and the

in just civic fallout from what that would look like just at what mere days before the Republican National Convention. So literally dodged a bullet. I think the nation and former President Trump, he himself apparently has undergone quite a change in the way that he's just looking at things. Who knows if it'll last or any of that, but-

At the very least, I don't think you can literally get shot in the head and not be a different person on the other end of this. And questions continue to remain about the Secret Service, about the failures in this investigation, about – or failures in the setup for everything that went down behind the scenes. There also is a lot of questions that continue now about the Secret Service's response to

potential cover up here. We haven't really heard a lot from the director of the secret service who herself, she was in Aspen, Colorado, whenever this all happened and apparently flew back to Washington. She's released only a very, very short statement. Um, we also, according to them, they said, quote, that they've made no changes to the security, uh,

procedures at the Republican National Convention. That itself seems absolutely insane to me. But to help me break some of this more down, Ken Klippenstein, the great journalist who's done some work and has now written a piece here about the Secret Service failures, tracing things all the way back inside of this agency, will join me now to break some of this down. Let's get to it.

Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling, as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is.

that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Angie Martinez. Check out my podcast where I talk to some of the biggest athletes, musicians, actors in the world. We go beyond the headlines and the soundbites to have real conversations about real life, death, love, and everything in between. This life right here, just finding myself, just relaxation, just not feeling stressed, just not feeling pressed. This is what I'm most proud of. I'm proud of Mary because I've been through hell and some horrible things.

That feeling that I had of inadequacy is gone. You're going to die being you. So you got to constantly work on who you are to make sure that the stars align correctly.

Life ain't easy and it's getting harder and harder. So if you have a story to tell, if you've come through some trials, you need to share it because you're going to inspire someone. You're going to you're going to give somebody the motivation to not give up, to not quit. Listen to Angie Martinez IRL on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining me now is independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. He is an authority and a good friend of the show. It's good to see you, sir. Hey, good to be back.

So, Ken, you and I were just talking a little bit. I think it would be very useful for the audience. I went over already the aerial photographs and others that show the stunning Secret Service sale failure at the Trump rally that led to the attempted assassination. But let's take a step back and actually go through everything that this agency has failed on.

just in the last decade or so, which really give us a picture. And you wrote a little bit about this. Let's put this up there on the screen. You wrote how the Secret Service missed the Trump shooter and why we are going to be blamed for it. So, Ken, let's go back a bit, a little bit in time. And just from your memory alone, tell us about some of the failures inside the Secret Service that set up a culture of incompetence that led to this incident.

Yeah, this is a culture that people that have worked in the agency have tried to draw attention to. There was a report just last night that a bunch of Secret Service agents got together and are trying to send a letter, I believe, to Congress to try to address some of these problems. I would encourage anybody curious about the agency and in disbelief about their ability to drop the ball on something like this, as indeed many liberals, at least on Twitter, were within hours of the shooting, one of the top trending news

terms on Twitter, if not the top trending term, was the word staged, the belief that the shooting was staged, which I think speaks to the lack of understanding people have for how many scandals that this agency has been embroiled in. In the course of my reporting on it, looking back at many of the scandals that I've just read peripherally from following the news, I stumbled across my own report about their deletion of January 6th

text messages that were unable to be obtained by Congress. And this was just something I forgot because I come across so many of these different things. And so, I mean, this is a scandal-plagued agency that has deep, deep cultural problems that precede by a long shot what happened in

this weekend, which was a shooter being able to get within several hundred feet of the president and able to situate himself on top of a roof with an AR-style rifle. And the fact that the Secret Service was unable to clear that, now it wasn't within the direct range that the crowd was. They're supposed to pass them all through a magnometer that checks for metal objects, weapons.

But, you know, there's a lot of, I've been seeing in the discourse, a lot of debate over, you know, oh, this was local law enforcement's responsibility. Well, that's just moving the goalposts because the whole point of an agency like this is to be able to anticipate problems like this so that you don't have to farm it out to local law enforcement, which isn't going to have the resources or training necessarily to be able to respond to these things. So that's kind of the context behind all of this. That's exactly right. We actually have a,

I mean, this is one of the craziest videos where you have an individual in the immediate aftermath, a witness telling the BBC about how he tried desperately to alert the police, local law enforcement, and others that there was a gunman on the rooftop in the two minutes or so before the shooting. He was not the only person who noticed him. There's multiple other video evidence of showing people begging law enforcement, saying that person is up there and he has a gun. Let's take a listen to that interview.

We noticed a guy crawling, bear crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us.

So we're standing there, you know, we're pointing at the guy crawling up the roof. And he had a gun, right? He had a rifle. We could clearly see him with a rifle. Absolutely. We're pointing at him. The police are down there running around on the ground. We're like, hey, man, there's a guy on the roof with a rifle. And the police were like, huh, what? You know, like they didn't know what was going on. You know, we're like, hey, right here on the roof. We can see him from right here. We see him. You know, he's crawling. Right.

And next thing you know, I'm like, I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, why is Trump still speaking? Why have they not pulled him off the stage? I'm standing there pointing at him for, you know, two, three minutes. Secret Service is looking at us from the top of the barn. I'm pointing at that roof, just standing there like this.

And next thing you know, five shots ring out. So you're certain that the shots came from that guy on the roof? 100%. 100%. And he was up there for a couple of minutes? He was up there. You saw him up there for a couple of minutes? Absolutely. At least three to four minutes. And you were telling police and the Secret Service? We were telling the police. We were pointing at them for the Secret Service who were looking at us from the top of the barn. They were looking at us the whole time when we were standing by that tree. Could they see?

Probably not because the roof, the way the slope went, he was behind where they could see. But why is there not Secret Service on all of these roofs here? Yeah, I mean this random guy sees a guy three to four minutes, he's saying, before the shooting can. So just take us through what that reveals about the failure in that, quote, middle tier of the perimeter. That's what's being described to us.

Yeah, so what's interesting is that this is not an urban setting. There were not a number of buildings that would have been difficult to clear. This was one of the only buildings in the vicinity, so it would not have been hard to clear. And in fact,

it's been reported that a member of local law enforcement actually climbed up a ladder and saw this guy and pointed it, but then the shooter pointed his weapon at him and then he fled. This is exactly the reason that you need a specialized force that can be trained to respond to high stress situations like this. You know, we can criticize that member of local law enforcement all we want, but they might not be trained for those kinds of

high pressure situations. And so that's why you and so if you look at the Secret Services response

Once the shooting began, then the response was very quick. What this was was an intelligence failure. And what's interesting about that is if you look at just exactly one week prior to the shooting, there was an interview that went pretty unnoticed with George Stephanopoulos of ABC who was interviewing the director of Secret Service, Kimberly Cheadle. And he brought up in a question that looks really prophetic now, and I would encourage people to look that up,

He brought up specifically the question of polarization and political extremism within the country in the context of the election and asked her if she thought that this was going to be something to be concerned about. And she gave the most just token answer where she said, quote,

It's definitely something we look into. And that was all she had to say about it. And this is an agency that we've allocated all this money to. Earlier this year, the intelligence community put out its first ever what's called open source intelligence strategy. And this was signed by both the CIA director and the director of national intelligence. And the document says that they want to make this the primary means of intelligence collection. And what's so interesting about this case is that it's a real stress test of that idea. And it fails because

As far as we know, this kid wasn't on social media. And so all this money that we're throwing into these gee whiz technology to try to hoover up all this information from social media platforms, use AI and all sorts of algorithms that private companies, frankly, can make a lot of money off of, failed to catch this guy and are going to fail to catch the next

lone wolf who's described as a loner because those people are not online. It's a failure of the system that we increasingly rely on to collect intelligence because there are all sorts of ways that threats behave that aren't going to leave that kind of digital exhaust.

Right, and to take it just again back is you don't need to do all of that. You could actually just do your job at a very basic level and then you could have prevented this entire thing. The only headline that should have come out is crazy guy arrested at Trump rally with a gun, not even at Trump rally, outside the Trump rally with a gun. Shouldn't have even been able to get anywhere near the rooftop, let alone break off shots. Now you're highlighting a very important thing here, which is that local law enforcement actually confronted the

this person on the rooftop. And then apparently the gunman pointed his rifle at him, the guy retreated, and in that moment of retreat is exactly when the shots broke off towards Trump. It could possibly have saved his life, Trump's life in that he would probably not, you know, he didn't feel like he was in the, or he was rushing the shots.

in that moment, at the very least, still a little bit of a Uvalde situation. Now, as you said, to be fair, perhaps not trained, probably shocked that something like this happened, but still very surprising. We also know a little bit about the failure here, is that allegedly this rooftop was known as a quote, well-known high priority vulnerability. Here's a quote, senior secret service source telling that to NBC News. Let's take a listen. I want to get your reaction.

And at this hour, we do have some new information for you. A senior Secret Service source familiar with the planning of yesterday's event tells NBC News that the roof where the shooter was located was a well-known high priority vulnerability. It was identified just the day before during a security walkthrough.

We've also just learned that there were two counter sniper teams on site and that the counter sniper did not need approval to shoot. One source telling NBC News that prior protocols were not followed.

The FBI now says the alleged shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, appears to have acted alone. This all provides new context for the shocking scene last night in Butler, Pennsylvania. So they're saying, Ken, that this was a well-known priority, vulnerability, that

There was nobody there. There was no barricade or anything. We also, Susan Crabtree over at RealClearPolitics, she's reporting that the Secret Service counter snipers only had some 24 hours to secure the scene, which is very contrary to procedure. So, I mean, the failures on this individual level are just stunning from what we're learning so far.

And what's particularly surprising me is how long standing the complaints on the part. I mean, I know former Secret Service that described the lack of resources, not as a whole, because as I was describing, there's investment in all kinds of fancy gadgets, but in the specifics of what they actually need. And you can find no shortage of

of op-eds and books and interviews of former Secret Service agents describing these problems. So in so many ways, this is almost like a 9/11 kind of event because we had so many warnings prior to it and a total failure, a bipartisan failure on the part of both parties to respond to this and not just surge resources, but surge resources specific to what the people that do the job need.

need. And, you know, a lot of these people on the, I'm criticizing the institution, the agency, because the people that take the oath, it's a very serious oath. They're willing to put themselves in harm's way. The ones that I know seem to take it seriously. And, you know, to the extent there are going to be efforts to try to throw individuals under the bus just completely misses the point, because this is an institutional failure that needs to be responded to in a way that ameliorates what

whatever the systemic failure was. Yeah, you're right. And let's be clear here. Like you said, there are people who literally stormed the stage and jumped on top of the president. You've got the counter sniper who immediately takes out the shooter with a couple of seconds notice. This is not in any way to denigrate their work. It's to say that at an institutional and leadership level, this was obviously a glaring failure. And let's talk a little bit of

about that culture now of incompetence just in the last couple of years. We had the news just, what, two months ago that the head of Kamala Harris's Secret Service detail had some sort of mental breakdown, apparently causing a lot of strife within the agency. In May, we had the news that a petition is circulating within the agency saying that people were not receiving adequate training and that they were worried about insider threats. Then you also talked about the January 6th

failure there and also the cover-up that happened with text messages from some of the agents. I mean, we're talking here, Ken, and that's just three things in the last year or a couple of years that tell us about what's going on.

Yeah, you can go back to the Obama administration. And as I recall, there was a case where they were soliciting hookers in Columbia. And so, yeah, and I was doing research on this. And we were joking about this before we went on camera. I just stumbled across my own reporting, which I had forgotten, which was the deletion of the January 6th text messages, which would have been central to providing a, you know, important window into what exactly happened that day. And so what's

frustrating to me about these national security failures from 9/11 to January 6, and all the things in between, is the extent to which the public ends up getting blamed for things. And in none of those cases are high level officials ever punished. In the case of 9/11, all the intelligence they had the failure to share it, nobody was fired for that, much less the kind of institutional changes that are going to prevent something like that. So I would, you know, I really hope that in the in the response and the justified outrage

on the part of the public that this is pointed at the right things and doesn't become the usual partisan football so that we can prevent something like this from happening again. One of the things I want to get your reaction to, we finally have the first statement from the head of the Secret Service. And in her statement, she says at the very end that she is confident. She says confidently

which I'm not sure how she can say this, in the security plan that our Secret Service RNC coordinator and our partners have put in place, which we have reviewed and strengthened in the wake of Saturday's shooting. And there's no taking responsibility inside of this, Ken. There's just, well, we take the responsibility of protecting him seriously. We're gonna do a review, et cetera, and all of that. But we have not heard from her.

And actually, yesterday, there was a press conference by the Secret Service about Milwaukee and the RNC. They wouldn't answer a single question about the attempted assassination. So it feels like there is a real cover-up, at least, being attempted of trying to move past this. But I don't think they can. I mean, this is too high profile of an incident that's happened here.

Yeah, this is going to be an impossible situation to ignore. But I think the important thing, as the saying goes, never let a crisis go to waste. And boy, was this a crisis. I mean, we may not get another opportunity like this, God willing. And if we do, it might look a lot worse.

So they're really going to need to respond in a way that is not what we've seen so far, which is immediately afterwards, even President Trump, the great critic of the so-called deep state, the national security community, immediately thanked them. Now, again, I have respect for the rank and file individuals, but to say nothing of the institutional failure is,

I think says a lot. And it goes back to a point I was trying to make at the beginning of the interview, which is that because of the mystique and because of Hollywood and because of people's impressions of the national security community, I think it's really hard for people to believe, much less understand, that these are fallible agencies just like anything else. And that it's a lot less like a James Bond movie than it is like any job that you're familiar with where things go wrong and people make mistakes. Yes.

and things are dysfunctional. So this is a really important moment not to just defer to, oh, what do I know about the national, well, let's trust the experts. No, you know what you saw here. Everybody saw it. Exactly. That was pretty much what happened. And that is actually the scary part, right? Because that could embolden some crazy individuals out there who are like, wait, it's this easy? Like you said, they believed Hollywood.

They believe this entire thing was just a crime of opportunity. Yes, you had a crazy person, but I mean, at the end of the day, he lived 40 minutes away. He says, "I'm gonna go and try and kill the president." At least from what we can see right now. In a normal situation, he gets arrested walking to that place.

with the gun and boom, he's going to jail. You're never gonna hear about his name again and everybody just gets to move on. But because of the systemic failure after failure after failure, being able to get onto the rooftop, being able to put shots off, then killing an individual in the crowd and almost killing the former president, now it is a national scandal and you think, how could something like this ever happen?

So that's really well said about how also I think that the eventual response here is going to try and shift the blame to the public. They're going to increase the national security state the same way that they did after 9-11, but without solving for the basics, which is everybody just here does their job the same way they did. And, you know, people were saying, oh, why weren't there any drones? You don't even need a drone to do something like this. Just barricade the rooftop up.

Now, sure, use the drone if you need to, but we don't need to blow hundreds of billions of dollars on expansion of technology. You just need to learn how to base a competence of what we're doing. And we'll look to you, Ken, in the coming days about some more news about the investigation and more, but we appreciate your analysis here, man. Thank you. Thanks, Sagar.

Hi, I'm Katie Lowes. And I'm Guillermo Diaz. And now we're back with another season of our podcast, Unpacking the Toolbox, where Guillermo and I will be rewatching the show. To officially unpack season three of Scandal. Unpredictable. You don't see it coming. It's a wild, wild ride. The twists and turns in season three. Mesmerizing. But also,

That I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Misspelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Cheaters and Backstabbers. I'm Shadi Diaz. And I'm Kate Robards. And we are New York City stand-up comedians and best friends. And we love a good cheating and backstabbing story. Oops.

At the same time, let's turn now to the political fortunes of President Biden. He appeared to be in a moment of at least crisis and shakiness after his disastrous debate performance. But Democratic insiders now believe that the attempted assassination on Donald Trump will cool the temperature and shift the story and attention away from those calls for Biden to step down. They now have a plan

that they are standing down because of the quote fragile political moment. Let's take a listen to Face the Nation where Bob Costa reports this. I've been speaking with some top Democrats. They believe that those Democrats who have the concerns about President Biden are now standing down politically, will back President Biden because of this fragile political moment. All of that talk about the debate faded almost instantly among my top Democratic sources.

As this unfolded, say it's time for the country to stick together and that means Democrats sticking together as well. Faded almost instantly and it appears now that the Biden campaign wants to use the current political moment actually to extenuate Biden's at least alleged political strengths. We should not forget though

that before that assassination, this was the attempted assassination. It was the biggest story in the country. And it was a moment of genuine crisis. In fact, the very day of the attempted assassination, President Biden had an insane interaction with members of the House Democrats. I'm gonna put this up there on the screen and I'll read from this entire thing. So there's this, you know, the New Democrats, it's a coalition on Capitol Hill. They decide to have a Zoom call with President Biden.

So Biden apparently showed up late to the meeting. He then referred to a congressman who has a bronze star, quote, somewhat unintelligibly, and then pulled back before saying more. Sources were telling reporters that they were, quote, aghast and they took it as deeply inappropriate. That was just the first of a crazy confrontation, basically insulting a congressman with a bronze star who was confronting him,

on his ability to continue running. Let's go to the next part here to just continue to look down a little bit. This was also a crazy moment, literally out of something like Veep.

During the Biden call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the president said that his staff passed him a note saying, stay positive. You are sounding defensive. Biden then read the note aloud according to the participants that were actually on the phone call. So literally reading the note aloud almost

almost like some sort of Ron Burgundy situation. And in every one of these congressional meetings, like I'm pulling up the details here in front of me, with moderate House Democrats, not only did that situation have with Jason Crow, but you had one lawmaker who said on the call, quote, that was a complete disaster. We saw the same Joe Biden from the debate. Another lawmaker says it was awful.

A third says members were not holding back. It got tense with Crow for sure. Crow was the person who told him that he should drop out of the race. At one point, two representatives grilled Biden on how he plans to turn his campaign around. In response, they asked Biden how you're going to win back disaffected voters.

Biden said then that part of his plan was that members need to do a better job advertising his administration's accomplishments. So he told them, you're the problem, actually. You're the ones who need to go out there and you need to show what I have done for you.

As another congressman highlighted his distressing polling numbers, Biden, quote, tried to interrupt, adding caveats, the congressman then having to interject to finish her question. Crowe's question, the Bronze Star recipient, prompted what two members were described as shouting from Biden, who went off in a tangent, challenged that congressman to, quote, name me a foreign leader who thinks I'm not the most effective leader, as if any of them are going to talk to a random House Democrat candidate.

He says, tell me who the hell that is. Biden continued. He says that it was dead wrong that foreign leaders didn't lack confidence in him. And he said, quote, I don't want to hear that crap. He then started continuing to shout at Jason Crow for no reason. Another source told Axios that Biden's answer stressed that the exchange ended then on a positive note where Biden cut things off at the end. He said, if you're really getting input that I'm not strong enough and I'd like to know more detail because I want to deal with

He then departed early from the call despite showing up late.

He said, I need to go to mass. Then another one of the congressmen who actually said, who was up next for wanting to have a question, he was cut off. His staff basically pulling Biden from the call, saying he has to go to mass before they got to another congressman who said that he thinks that Biden should drop out of the race. That guy apparently was very unhappy that that happened. So look, I mean, this is all crazy. And it's also very telling too,

that this was part of the new democratic coalition, the quote unquote moderates, not really people we would agree with much on this show, but to look to them and actually see that they apparently had a lot more courage in their confrontation with president Biden, as opposed to the so-called congressional progressive caucus, which barely confronted him at all. Uh,

That really does highlight kind of what the political dynamics here are, is that a lot of the people who have a lot on the line, maybe in terms of the swing state Democrats and others, they are the ones who are paying most attention to this. But this does appear to have smoothed all that over. I will say the craziest part, though, is this reaction. Let's go and put this up there on the screen.

A senior House Democrat is now saying behind the scenes, quote, we have all resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency. Now, keep in mind, senior House Democrat can only mean like 15, 20 people, people literally in leadership who are saying this literally on background.

I mean, that's just stunning. And what they say here is that, quote, congressional Democrats all consuming angst over President Biden's candidacy has now taken an abrupt backseat in the midst of the wake of an assassination attempt against former President Trump. Democratic lawmakers say that their immediate focus now is on the personal security and that of their staff, not on parties' political woes, helping to allow a crucial cool-down period for the embattled.

"We're all just expressing condolences, keeping our team safe." A senior House Democrat suggested that the atmosphere in the party is too chaotic for internal battles over leadership,

Obviously, they talk about the Biden campaign, you know, having these reach out sessions that happened over the weekend. Biden apparently met with Senator Chuck Schumer to shore up some of his support. You saw also that even that individual who I described, Jason Crow, he appeared on television on Sunday and he was even asked about some of the eroding support. And he says, look,

It's a tough business, there's a lot at stake. Emotions can run high. I think the president heard our message very clearly. And in fact, he promised to come back with more useful information to address our concerns and to answer all of our questions. So look, you can keep all of that in mind, but I mean, the most significant one to me

is how Biden is responding to this, which is he's done a couple very short messages. Now, as I said earlier, I didn't want to get too much into it, but in the span of six minutes, he said some crazy stuff just in that six minute Oval Office address. He said battle box instead of ballot box. He mixed up his words, stumbled over multiple times. The

These are short. These are basically off of a teleprompter. I mean, this is as layup as layup get, right? There's no crowd. There's no mitigating circumstances. You're looking straight at a camera the way I am right now, except he has a teleprompter in front of him. Now, as you guys can see from me doing monologues, that's probably the easiest thing to do whenever you are literally reading off of something and it's directly in your line of sight. You don't have anything that is distracting you. We do it here all the time.

And that's why it's so shocking that even in that, he finds it so difficult actually to continue. And this is a person who's been doing this now for decades. So it's not like you can even use the excuse that he's new to it or anything like that. We also know

that this whole allay our concerns, wait it out strategy, that's a winning strategy for Biden. Remember, next week after the RNC, that's when the virtual roll call is apparently scheduled to happen and Biden will be nominated basically officially on the DNC before you even get to the convention. So all you have to do

All you have to do is wait it out and survive a week. What's happening this week? The RNC, which we're about to get to, which means that this wait and see strategy by Biden is basically just the winning one, at least for now, because what it means is that all he has to do is just call for unity, use the attempted assassination for his own political survival, and then

House Democrats feel awkward calling for it or basically he's appearing presidential right now and they're not really allowed to talk about a few of these things. And in the midst of all of that, what does it mean? It means all he's got to do is make it to that virtual nomination and then boom, he's the nominee. There's not even a talk here.

about him dropping out or anything. And he is headed to a disastrous defeat in November. So that is the current Biden political fortune. We'll bring you some more news about that tomorrow if anything breaks. But it is pretty stunning that this event basically, not only did Trump was literally saved, but it appears to have saved the political fortunes of Joe Biden, at least for now. None of the calls that immediately happened

in the aftermath of his big boy press conference, you guys remember that, on Thursday. All of that appears to have fizzled out now and none of the attention is being focused on him and he's using it very much to his advantage. I will say on the campaign front, they've paused all their political advertising. They're not attacking Trump right now on the airwaves. Everybody's calling for unity. We'll see how exactly they're going to adjust. We do know that some of their fundraising had taken a massive hit

some $90 million or something in super PAC dollars were frozen from the Biden campaign, even though he was bragging about all the money at his disposal. So he could have a very, very difficult time now going into this, not to mention the political dynamics of having your opponent literally survive an assassination attempt, get bloodied and put his fist in the air and probably one of the most iconic photos of all time. So it's going to be a tough road, I think, there for Mr. Biden going ahead.

Also, we get to hang out with all of our old Scandal friends like Bellamy Young, Scott Foley, Tony Goldwyn, Debbie Allen, Kerry Washington. So many people. Even more shocking assassinations from Papa and Mama Pope. And yes, Katie and I's famous teeth pulling scene that kicks off a romance. And it was peak TV. This is new Scandal content.

content for your eyes, for your ears, for your hearts, for your minds. Well, suit up, gladiators. Grab your big old glass of wine and prepare yourselves for even more behind the scenes. Listen to Unpacking the Toolbox on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Angie Martinez. Check out my podcast where I talk to some of the biggest athletes, musicians, actors in the world. We go beyond the headlines and the soundbites to have real conversations about real life, death, love, and everything in between.

This life right here, just finding myself, just this relaxation, this not feeling stressed, this not feeling pressed. This is what I'm most proud of. I'm proud of Mary because I've been through hell and some horrible things. That feeling that I had of inadequacy is gone. You're going to die being you. So you got to constantly work on who you are to make sure that the stars align correctly.

All right, let's shift gears now to the RNC. We're learning some interesting news just this morning in a new interview that Donald Trump gave to the Washington Examiner. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. This was an interview given to Selena Zito. You guys may remember her. She was really gained fame in 2016 for covering Trump rallies. She actually was present at Butler, Pennsylvania and has an interesting interview here with the former president who is rewriting his convention speech quote to focus on unity, not Biden.

So I'm going to read a little bit from the interview, just because it is very Trumpian in its speech. Quote, he says,

of Joe Biden. Honestly, it's going to be a whole different speech now, he says. He has switched from planning to excite his voter base to one that demonstrates his belief that the attack on him at a rally had changed the election and campaign entirely. Most Republicans and Democrats have now acknowledged that in the aftermath. Trump said,

People across the country from different walks of life and political views have called him and noted that he was saved from death because he turned from the crowd to look at a screen showing data that he was using in his speech. Quote, that reality is setting in.

I rarely look away from a crowd. Had I not done that in that moment, well, we would not be talking today, would we? Talking as he boarded his plane, Trump then continued saying his speech will meet the moment that history demands. It is a chance to bring the countries together. I was given that chance.

And he said, God alone prevented the unthinkable from happening. And he said, fear not. And again, he continued to invoke God for his deliverance. He says, this is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world together. The speech will be a lot different. They asked him a little bit more.

about some of the events he hailed. Corey Contemboré, the former fire chief who was shot and killed at the Trump rally. Trump said that his decision to raise his hand when the Secret Service was leading him off the stage was to let people know that he was okay and that America goes on, we go forward, and we are strong.

Of the photograph, he said he believed it was an iconic image. He said that when he stood up and he saw the crowd had not moved, he needed to tell them that he and the country were going to be okay. The energy coming from the people in that moment, they stood there. It's hard to describe what it felt like, but I knew that the world was looking. I knew that history would judge this, and I knew I had to let them know that we were okay. And so that's very interesting there to learn about the rewriting of the speech. It is...

one of those things that demonstrates how much an event like this can shake things up, not only in terms of how we internalize it, but for the candidate themselves. I mean, I was reading just this morning, Tucker Carlson gave an interview to Axios about Donald Trump in which he said that, quote, getting shot in the face changes a man. I think you can really say that. So

Almost dying rocks perspectives. It says Trump has shown little appetite for changing his ways previously, but his advisors tell us Trump plans to seize the moment by toning down his Trumpiness and dialing up efforts to unite a tinderbox America. Quote, I think it's real, Tucker Carlson said, who is speaking, by the way, at the RNC, and says getting shot in the face doesn't

changes a man. That is apparently something also echoed by others who spoke to Trump, who said that he seemed almost spiritual in the aftermath. And that's something that is definitely not normal for the former president. Let's go and put this up there on the screen too, about the politics going into the RNC.

Trump currently is maintaining a major edge over Joe Biden in the battleground states on the GOP convention. So this is from CBS News. So amongst choice for president, battleground states, likely voters, Donald Trump, 50%, Joe Biden at 48%. Now, if you continue in battlegrounds, you actually look state by state.

This is, again, likely voters. Michigan, 51-49 for Trump. Pennsylvania, 51-49 for Trump. Wisconsin, 51-49 for Trump. These are all must-win states for Joe Biden. And in fact, their own campaign has basically admitted that's the whole ballgame. They're not even going after

Georgia. They're not even going after Arizona. They're basically sacrificing Nevada. And this will tell you why. If you look at the likely voters for the polls there, Arizona, 51-49 for Trump. Georgia, 51-49 for Trump. Nevada, 51-49 for Trump. North Carolina, 52-48 for Trump. Now don't forget,

uh, we've seen after in the aftermath, New York is possibly in play there for Donald Trump, New Hampshire, possibly in play. Uh, you've got other States, uh, that look like it could be total blowouts. My state of Virginia, uh, Virginia, it looks to be certainly in play for Donald Trump. You've got places like, um,

Colorado and others, places that previously were like red-ish, you know, 10, 12 years ago that are now being looked at. And if you look at the share of people who definitely will vote, this is another place where you see major enthusiasm. And that's one place, by the way,

A lot of people said, you know, Trump is going to get an approval bump from this assassination. Well, if you look just, look, I'm just talking history. If you look back, Ronald Reagan, he definitely got a major bump from his attempted assassination. But after about two months and he was healthy, it equalized out. What I really think this will lead to is a genuine sense amongst a lot of Republicans who are like, hey, they tried to kill this man. I am actually going to crawl over broken glass.

to vote for him. So if the enthusiasm gap wasn't big enough already, I think what we're going to see is huge amounts of registered Republicans and others who, it may not even be swing voters, but all you need is for the Democrats to be depressed because their candidate is incredibly old, feeble, and barely capable of acting as president now, let alone five years from now.

But you also have your candidate who they literally tried to kill. Somebody tried to kill him, and he barely survived. Well, in that situation, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that a lot of people are going to be crawling out of the woodwork who are registered Republicans who may previously have been on the fence about him. And if we continued down this path of mental and cognitive health, well –

If you ask registered voters, do you think that Biden has the cognitive health to serve as president, only 28% say yes. 71% say no. It's basically 50-50 whenever it comes to the chance of Trump. Choice for president, does Biden have the mental health to serve? 89% of Democrats say actually that Biden does.

32% say Biden does not. But if you look again at the registered and the likely voters, and you look at the overall picture, very, very different. Now, even amongst Democrats, though, there is a big divide. You have some 52% who say he should continue running in the race after, and that's actually gone down since the debate. They say he should step aside. They say 48%, so almost 50% of Democrats there saying he needs to go. Now, in terms of beating Donald Trump,

voters have a pretty good insight into what's happening. They think that Kamala Harris, only 30% say that she would have a better chance. 32% say a worse chance. 37% basically say same chance as Biden. I think I kind of agree. Either it would be worse or maybe same just because of how badly Biden is doing right now. But here is the other fascinating thing. And keep in mind, this is before the assassination, this poll was done.

attempted assassination, 53% of Republicans say they are excited to vote for Donald Trump, 33% say satisfied, and only 14% say they are disappointed. There are over a full third of 36%, a full third of Republicans back in 2016 who said that they were disappointed and or upset about having to vote for Donald Trump.

In terms of the VP, there is some interesting stuff here about how this is all going to play out. Keep in mind, this is before the attempted assassination, but he apparently was mulling a, quote, apprentice-style VP reveal at the convention. And considering the convention literally starts tomorrow and we still have absolutely zero idea about who it is, well, I think it does tell you a little bit about how he is keeping the suspense and was before all of this even happened.

Now, what they said is all of the finalists are expected to be at the convention. Trump has decided, obviously, to keep this quiet over the weekend and the attempt at assassination happened. Trump's team themselves, they have no idea. They said nobody knows. They said, for instance, that, for the record, I don't know who it is. That's from the freaking campaign manager, Chris LaCivita.

Trump was asked about this on Thursday. He says, I would love to do it at the convention or just slightly before the convention, like Monday. Today is Monday, so we'll see. We don't actually know. In terms of how it would be revealed, the idea behind it is basically to have this mystery person behind the stage. Nobody knows who it is, and they walk out onto the stage. And that is the big revelation to everybody at the RNC and also to everybody at home.

Now, we actually have some polling, kind of interesting, about who Republicans want to be the running mate. Now, amongst registered voters, 61% said they'd be enthusiastic or satisfied with Marco Rubio, 43% with J.D. Vance, 34% with Doug Burgum, 51% Tim Scott, 43% Nikki Haley, 31% Elise Sarkozy.

So that gives you a little bit of a sense of who people would be most excited about. I'm not sure I'd take it necessarily for granted just because I think whoever Trump picks, they're going to get an instant bump. Listen, there's been a lot of speculation about this. I have no inside information, zero. Personally, I've tried. Don't worry. I've done my best. But

From what we understand is that basically all three were in consideration as of not that long ago. Doug Burgum, Marco Rubio, and JD Vance all had interviews with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. I think it was earlier this weekend.

All of them have received vetting paperwork. The donors really don't want Trump to pick J.D. Vance. Apparently, Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News and of the Wall Street Journal, has been pushing Trump hard to pick Doug Burgum. Marco Rubio, I'm not sure he has a major donor constituency, but I know for certain donors like Paul Singer and others, major backers of him. J.D. also, though, has developed a close relationship with Donald Trump Jr. Some people have noted on the schedule

actually, that Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to speak before the apparent vice presidential pick for Donald Trump. All of them bring their own pluses and minuses to the ticket, and all of them have their own complications as well. So obviously, we're going to wait and see. Now, in terms of Trump, Trump is actually on the ground this morning in Milwaukee. He left yesterday. Let's put D2 up there, please, on the screen.

Trump put out a truth yesterday. He says, based on yesterday's terrible events, I was going to delay my trip to Wisconsin and the Republican convention by two days. But I have decided that I cannot allow a shooter or potential assassin to force change or scheduling or anything else. Therefore, I will be leaving for Milwaukee as scheduled at 3.30 p.m. That was put out yesterday. And there was video that was released that actually showed him on the ground already in Milwaukee.

There's also been a reaction from the Trump campaign. They've apparently put out a memo telling staff, quote, not to comment and to avoid dangerous rhetoric. So in this shift, campaign managers of the Trump campaign have called on the campaign to, quote, eschew dangerous rhetoric on social media in a missive sent on Saturday after the assassination. They wrote, we urge you to recognize that political polarization in this heated election. If something looks or feels off, flag it immediately for leadership or an on-site security team.

Do not comment publicly on the occurrence of today. We condemn all forms of violence, and we will not tolerate dangerous rhetoric on social media. So that obviously a bit of a shift in tone for the campaign, and they have very much an idea of what they're dealing with. And then finally, let's just check in with the RCP polling average again to look at where things stand. Let's put this right now. This is just general election.

Overall right now, Trump leading by 2.7% in the national polling average of everything that's been put out. Only one single poll that was conducted that, let's look, let's see, July 9th and 10th from NPR actually had Biden.

up by two points. Every single other one either had the race tied or Trump up by a minimum of two with an average of 2.7. So that obviously is absolutely shocking to have that happen right before the election. All of that to say is that in general, what we know from political science

At the Republican convention, you usually get a, quote, convention bump, one or two points. The reason, media focuses a lot on what you're doing. Now, there's not really a lot of evidence that it stays or makes any difference. There's not a ton of evidence that vice presidential picks matter all that much for the ticket. Trump's previous pick of Pence was an exception because he needed to satisfy a lot of those requirements.

other Republicans. This time around, these people are gonna follow him anywhere. Keep in mind, this also comes in the midst of an attempted assassination. So the best that they can really do is just capitalize on kind of on the sympathy that people have for Trump, his call for unity. I think it's probably a smart one, especially when you're in the leading position and you wanna set yourself up for what the future would look like on top of trying to contrast yourself with Joe Biden

The central thing here is that dissatisfaction with Biden is policy oriented, but a lot of it is just age too. So the more that you can just look vigorous and what's more vigorous really than surviving an attempted assassination, probably better off you're gonna be, especially with every camera in the world that is aimed straight at you. So as I said, we've got our own Emily Jasinski. She's on the ground in Milwaukee. She'll be doing interviews and other things for us. And we'll be highlighting her throughout the week here on the program. Thank you to our premium subscribers, by the way, for supporting that.

All right, a couple of fun stories that we had to throw in here about the craziness inside of the elite democratic mind. We're going to start first with Dmitry Melhorn. Now, you guys might remember Dmitry Melhorn. He's the advisor to Reid Hoffman. He's the billionaire mega donor. We recently had him here on this program, actually, for CounterPoint's

debates against Cenk Uygur about whether Joe Biden should stay in the race. It appears now he has actually been caught trying to tell reporters in the immediate aftermath of the attempted assassination that the entire thing was staged. Now, if you didn't know anything about Dmitry, we're going to give you a taste of who he was during that debate. Let's take a listen.

So yeah.

He's the person who wants Biden to stay in the race, debated Cenk about that topic. I thought that's all we would really hear from him until days later, we find out that apparently in the aftermath, as I said, he was emailing top journalists memos about how this assassination attempt was staged. Let's put this up there on the screen because it's just unhinged. It's insane. So what we find here is that Dimitri is apparently saying,

Sending out emails on Saturday at 7.34 p.m. Keep in mind, that is after I did a breaking news segment for everybody where it was obvious and clear that this was an attempted assassination. And if anything, it was a huge security failure. So I believe I filmed mine at like 6.50 or something. The attempted assassination happened at approximately 6.15 p.m.

So in this email at 7.34 p.m., he said to sympathetic journalists, which was also apparently sent here to Semaphore, he wrote that one possibility, which feels horrific, alien, and absurd, but it's quite common globally, is that the shooting was encouraged and maybe even staged so that Trump could get photos and benefit from the backlash. Quote, this is a classic...

Russian tactic, which such as when Putin killed 300 civilians in 1999 and blaming it on terrorists to ride the backlash to winning power. Others who have embraced this tactic of committing raw evil and then benefiting from the backlash include Hamas on October 7th. If any Trump officials encouraged or knew of this attack, that is morally horrific and Republicans decency must demand that Trump should step down as unfit.

The other possibility, he writes, is that some crazy anti-Trumper in this chaotic moment decided to assassinate the former president. So that's only a possibility. It's a possibility. Again, keep in mind, I mean, this is a person

who controls the flow of billions of dollars in American politics, one of the single most influential donor advisors in all of Washington, D.C. That is one of the reasons why that we had him on the counterpoints debates. But what's more significant here is to just see how unhinged he apparently was behaving behind the scenes. Put this up there on the screen, okay? Let me give you another example. The guy who he works for, Reid Hoffman,

This is just days ago at the Sun Valley Conference for Major Investors. Peter Thiel apparently sarcastically thanked Reid Hoffman for funding lawsuits against Donald Trump because they had turned him into, quote, a martyr, increasing his chances of reelection. From the state, Reid Hoffman then shoots back, quote, yeah, I wish I had made him an activist.

Sexual martyr. So that was a joke just day, apparently, according to him. It was a joke just literally days before all of this happened. Now, we actually have the memo now that we can show you from Dimitri Melhorn that he wrote to these journalists. Let's put this up there on the screen and I'll read from it.

He says, one possibility is that some crazy anti-Trumper, as I said, blah, blah, would assassinate. The other possibility, horrific and alien, is that Trump must step down and seize fit because this was staged. So he goes, so which is it? To be clear, it might have been real.

Both pro-Trump and anti-Trump coalitions include violently insane people. As he says, a burning person shot at Steve Scalise. Trump supporters have killed police to start a race war, committed mass murder in a synagogue, etc. Violence happens. On the other hand, I am prone to bias, but this is a classic Putin play. And given the facts seem more plausible, look at the actual stock.

Shot. Look at the staging. Look at how ready Trump is to rally. This pampered baby shit his pants when an eagle lunged at his food. Look at how quickly Trump protects himself at the expense of others. But showed few of those lifelong instincts in this moment. And consider how often Putin and his allies run this play.

I know it feels yucky to discuss such a possibility, but in this case, the odds are so high and the stakes are so consequential. We must ask the question. I have skimmed a few headlines just now.

All caps. Not one newspaper or opinion leader in America is willing to openly consider the possibility that Trump and Putin staged this on purpose. Ask the question, people. If it proves wrong, we should respond appropriately to a non-stage act of political violence as outlined above. But your credibility and our entire system of truth and justice depend on being certain in the answer. So that is...

That's unhinged, shall we say? Shall we call it what it is? That's fucking crazy. I mean, somehow Putin is now involved in this, and he basically says it is the most likely, the Occam's razor, the most likely explanation for what happened here. Now, keep in mind, again, this is 7.34 p.m. This is more than an hour after the attempted assassination. By this time,

We and others already have video from people who are on the scene who are like, hey, I saw a guy crawling up there with a gun. I saw all this happening that was behind the scenes. You saw that the former president by pure happenstance turns his head at that moment, gets freaking shot in the ear, and a man is

killed who is behind him and you think that that was staged keep in mind this too if it was staged why is a guy going to allow a shooter to basically graze his head within the margin of error where a single you know flap of a wing of a butterfly moves a wind in a different direction and we get a pink miss shot on live television you think

that is going to be more like, is that something you're going to trust in your hands if this was allegedly staged? That's where it's like, what are we doing here? This is psychotic. This is insane. But

What's more insane is that this is the mindset of a person who controls billions of dollars in American politics. This is the mindset of the most elite rings of the Democratic Party and the conspiratorial thinking that goes through them. Now, put this up there on the screen, too. Eventually, you know, he apologizes. He says,

Yeah.

I agree entirely with this thoughtful post this morning at Join All America in demanding we lose no more innocent lives to political violence. So he claims he didn't clear it with Reid Hoffman. At the very least, though, this is a guy who Reid Hoffman trusts a lot. This is a guy who journalists trust enough to be getting emails from him that are something like this. He's lucky that he was – this is probably the first one that's ever leaked because even they were like, hey, this shit is crazy. All right, but look.

This is who we're dealing with, folks. These are the people who are propping Biden up. These are the people who are keeping Biden in the race. This is the mindset which has been running this country now for a long time. This is a mindset that runs right through elite media. And the fact that even somebody would ever put this down on paper, who is in a position of power, send it out to people and not expect to get ridiculed, that's one of the craziest things that I've ever seen. And I'm glad that they burned him and they put this out because...

He deserves every ounce of condemnation that he is getting. All right, so elite media news. This is breaking just this morning. Just had to put it here in the show because it's delicious. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Report from CNN's Oliver Darcy.

Morning Joe has been pulled from the air Monday because of the Trump shooting. MSNBC will not air Morning Joe, its quote, celebrated politics round table, opting to instead air continued breaking news coverage of the attempted assassination,

They confirmed this decision to preempt its influential and top-rated morning show Sunday evening after CNN reached out to them. The network said that the show will resume on Tuesday. The decision by MSNBC to leave one of its most recognizable programs on the sidelines amid a seismic politics news-driven news cycle with the RNC underway is going to raise eyebrows. Now listen to this.

because this is the delicious part. A person familiar with the matter told CNN that the decision was made to avoid a scenario in which one of the show's stable of two dozen plus guests

might make an inappropriate comment on live television that could be used to assail the program and the network as a whole. Given the breaking news nature of the story, it made more sense to continue airing rolling breaking coverage

and fraught political moment. Given the gravity and the complexity of the story, NBC and MSNBC have been remained in rolling, making coverage. As we continue, these networks continue to cross simulcast, alternating between NBC News and MSNBC. So there is one feed covering the assassination and the alleged attempt. Now, there is a lot to be said about that.

But for one of the bosses to say, we don't trust our own flagship anchors not to say something crazy is an insane thing to admit.

Because what you're really saying is that we don't want the potential criticism of our flagship anchors in the time when it matters the most. So if that's true, then why should we want them on the air at all? If they can't be trusted in them, this is the thing too about news. And this is something I've learned a lot about doing this business. We do this show basically, you know, all the time, every day, et cetera. And we're on call 24 hours. And most of the time, nothing that important is happening.

Like we're bringing the people the news. It's not earth shattering. But one of the reasons that you have to do that is because this is all about trust. This is me coming to you. I mean, I've been doing this job almost five years now that some of you have been sticking with us between rising and breaking points. You've been watching the show almost every single day. At this point, we have a relationship, right? And so because you stuck with us now through all the ups and downs, not just the big times, but in terms of inflation or, you know, any times we pick random or fun stories or whatever.

you know, the stuff that is going on. You know, and you know a little bit about me and you have trust in me and you have trust in Crystal, Ryan and Emily and everybody else here at the show about the type of the things that we have in place

to both check ourselves, to check each other, to look about what's going on here with the news, to report it to you properly. And if you hear any opinions, especially in a fraught political moment, you're going to know they're well-considered, that we're coming at it from the long perspective, and you can bake that in. And in fact, I would say it's times like now, I'm not going to say you need us the most, but it's times like now where we feel most gratified because you have the most amount of wanting to know what the hell is going on,

We feel very, very fortunate that you're willing to put your trust in us at that time, in the bad times, the good times, and also in the medium and the downtime. So whenever you take somebody off the air in a breaking news situation, at a time when news consumption is near an all – I mean, I don't have the data yet. I'm willing to bet this is an all-time high for just the last couple of years. When you take somebody off and you say you don't trust them to cover it then, that's actually an admission you should never trust them at all.

at all. That's really what I know the most about having done this job now for quite some time. And the sad thing now is I think they're right, is that they're obviously right in that

Look at the way that Scarborough burned all of his credibility on Joe Biden on saying he has even more cogent than ever before, attacking the Wall Street Journal. And then three weeks later, admitting, saying, yeah, maybe Joe Biden doesn't need to drop out of the race after they can't cover it up anymore. And then back, you know, changing that, flip-flopping, saying, oh, no, no, he should stay. Mika Brzezinski saying, actually, I'm cool with him staying. But more so, think too about

What's the story I just did, right? These guys, Dimitri Melhorn, these people are crazy. They think that Donald Trump and Putin staged a shooting that came within inches of ending Trump's life for political benefit. That's what they think in the immediate aftermath. Those are the type of people who are on Morning Joe. Remember Donny Deutch or whoever that guy is who claims that Trump is going to come and kill him? They're nuts.

Joy Reid, you know, over at MSNBC, she's locked her entire Twitter feed after the attempted assassination. Why? What happened, Joy? What'd you tweet out there in the past that you're worried that people might come and look at? And I just think it's stunning. I mean, Lawrence Tribe, he's a lawyer.

He's somebody who's been on Morning Joe, elite Democrat, propped up all throughout Russiagate. He literally tweeted out, you reap what you sow after the attempted assassination on Trump. Now, listen, I want to say this too, because this is important. A lot of people are out there talking about unity, et cetera, like, oh, we got to tone down the rhetoric. And I don't necessarily disagree with any of that. But a lot of people are also doing the same thing that Democrats and the media did,

against Sarah Palin in the aftermath of the Gabby Giffords shooting, where they're like, "Oh, you said, you know, Biden said something like, 'We gotta put Trump in the bullseye.'" It's like, guys, that's bullshit, all right? He wasn't targeting Trump for assassination. This is just normal political rhetoric. Now, should it be that way? I don't know, whatever. But I've seen plenty of Republicans do that too. And when Sarah Palin put out a map

which had a quote bullseye over Gabby Giffords in targeting her for political defeat. That was not legitimate to say that she was trying to incite assassination. We are allowed to criticize each other. We believe in free speech in this country, especially here on this show. And that's not necessarily the grounds. But

What we do know with the MSNBC situation here and taking Morning Joe off the air is if they were to say something inappropriate like that, it's more that they don't have the wherewithal to even understand the moment that they are in. And I think this should be a lesson for everybody. And hopefully, maybe send this to your boomer MSNBC relatives, the people who put their trust. If their bosses can't trust them,

to maintain their composure, to meet the moment, to deliver information in a timely and a useful manner to their audience when it matters the most.

Why should you trust them to do it at any time? And take that from somebody who literally does this also for a living. I would be mortified if somebody, luckily I own my own business here with Crystal, so nobody can make the decision to take us off the air. But that almost makes it more important. We've got to serve as checks on each other, ourselves, the staff, the production team, and others to make sure that something like this doesn't happen. This is actually an admission by the people who put them on the air every single day whenever the time is, quote, not that important.

that they actually aren't up for the job, that they are doing a lot of damage here in terms of warping the mindset of a lot of voters and other people who do trust them for information. And I would urge all of those people to reconsider that if their own bosses and the people around them don't trust them to not, quote, say something inappropriate in this moment, that tells you everything you need to know about what they're doing over there.

Thank you, everybody, sticking with me for this emergency one-man show. Waiting on the news about Chris's kids, but I think the situation will be all right. And the two of us, you know, plans withstanding, will be here at the desk tomorrow. There will be some programming notes about me later on in the week, but I'll leave that to later. I hope you guys stuck with us through the show. We really appreciate you, all the premium subscribers. We'll bring everybody the news from the RNC throughout the week. It's going to be a big couple weeks here on Breaking...

big couple of months, I think here on Breaking Points and for everybody, for the entire country. And we really appreciate you sticking with us at a moment in a time like this, a fraught time. We appreciate you. We thank you. And we'll see you tomorrow.

7/15/24: Photos Expose Secret Service Breakdown At Trump Rally, Dems Give Up On Replacing Biden, Trump Rewrites RNC Speech For Unity, Dem Floats Wild Putin Trump Conspiracy

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Chapters

What Led to the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump?

How Did the Secret Service Fail in Their Duties?

The Political Fallout and Biden's Response

Trump's Shift in Tone and the RNC

The Conspiracy Theories and Media Reactions

The Impact on Biden's Political Fortunes

Trump's Revised Speech and the VP Selection

The Elite Democratic Mindset Exposed

MSNBC's Decision to Pull Morning Joe

Final Thoughts and Looking Ahead

Shownotes Transcript

7/15/24: Photos Expose Secret Service Breakdown At Trump Rally, Dems Give Up On Replacing Biden, Trump Rewrites RNC Speech For Unity, Dem Floats Wild Putin Trump Conspiracy 01:17:30 Share

Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

Chapters

What Led to the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump?

How Did the Secret Service Fail in Their Duties?

The Political Fallout and Biden's Response

Trump's Shift in Tone and the RNC

The Conspiracy Theories and Media Reactions

The Impact on Biden's Political Fortunes

Trump's Revised Speech and the VP Selection

The Elite Democratic Mindset Exposed

MSNBC's Decision to Pull Morning Joe

Final Thoughts and Looking Ahead

Shownotes Transcript

7/15/24: Photos Expose Secret Service Breakdown At Trump Rally, Dems Give Up On Replacing Biden, Trump Rewrites RNC Speech For Unity, Dem Floats Wild Putin Trump Conspiracy