Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Harris & Walz Kick Off Bus Tour In Battleground Georgia; Harris-Walz Ticket Reignites Tight House And Senate Races; Latino Group Accuses Texas AG Of Voter Intimidation & Suppression; FBI Releases New Photos From Trump Assassination Attempt; Trump: To A Certain Extent, Biden And Harris Are At Fault For Lack Of Secret Service Staffing At My Rally. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired August 28, 2024 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:05]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: I didn't think of that, but I was told that we might get one of these pizza things in here. Unfortunately, given the update on where they're available, they're not available in D.C. Nevertheless, it feel like I was deceived and we're owed a pizza.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It's fair. We did pitch this story thinking we might get a snack out of it. And alas, we didn't.

SANCHEZ: Some dreams were not meant to come true, but that's a nice looking table. I wouldn't mind having that in here.

KEILAR: Yeah. I guess it works.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

KEILAR: THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts now.

(MUSIC)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN HOST: Can a bus tour help deliver one of the most crucial battlegrounds in this election?

THE LEAD starts right now.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are on the road again traveling through what will surely be one of the most important states in November, the state of Georgia. And as they're courting voters, Harris and Walz are also preparing for their first joint interview which you will see tomorrow, only here on CNN.

Plus, with Harris at the top of the ticket, Democrats seem more confident that they can actually win control the House of Representatives. Republicans say not so fast. I'll be joined live by the man in charge of dashing those Democratic dreams.

And we're learning brand new details about the failed attempt to assassinate former President Donald Trump. The shooter searched for major political events to target for months before settling on that Trump rally. (MUSIC)

MATTINGLY: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Phil Mattingly, in for Jake Tapper.

It's road trip time for the Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz. They just landed in the host city of Savannah, Georgia, where they'll kick off a bus tour through rural and southern parts of the battleground state. Touring this area is a lesson learned from President Joe Biden's very narrow 2020 victory in Georgia.

Metro Atlanta's bluest counties may not be enough to pull off a win in the Peach State. They're going to need some more throughout the state. And tomorrow, during this trip, Harris and Walz will sit with CNN's Dana Bash for their first major interviews since President Joe Biden ended his presidential bid.

We start things off with CNN's Priscilla Alvarez who's in Savannah, Georgia.

Priscilla, the vice president and Governor Walz, just arrived. What do we expect to see and hear from them on this bus tour over the next two days?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we expect them to talk about the kitchen table issues, the economy, for example. But it's where they're going that is notable about this visit to this critical battleground state. Of course, they're hitting southern -- south Georgia with its rural counties. And it's a page from a playbook from Senator Warnock back in December of 2022 during his runoff, where strategist and his campaign manager at the time, Quentin Fulks, they tried to peel off voters from Republicans.

And Quentin Fulks is now the deputy campaign manager for the Harris campaign, and when I spoke to him, he told me that he thinks that he can use a similar strategy in Georgia this time around. Again, what this boils down to is essentially winning big in metro Atlanta, but also trying to close margins with Republicans, essentially losing by less in South Georgia. By doing that, the campaign thinks that they have a path to victory in this state, a state that as you mentioned, President Biden only narrowly won in 2020.

Now, of course, strategists I've spoken with also say there could be a Tim Walz factor in all of this, too, and that's going to be critical as they both hit the stops today and tomorrow. And that factor is the fact that he comes from a rural upbringing. He has roots and football and his military background and how does that resonate with voters. That is what strategists say that they are focused on.

But again, Phil, certainly a critical time for this campaign in a place unlikely, but when they think they can make in roads in.

MATTINGLY: The margin certainly matter.

Priscilla Alvarez in Savannah, Georgia, thanks so much.

Let's discuss now with former Democratic congressman, Cedric Richmond, co-chair for the Harris-Walz campaign.

Congressman, appreciate your time.

I want to start with six weeks ago, did the campaign think then -- President Biden's campaign think the Georgia was slipping out of reach? And if so, what's changed since then?

CEDRIC RICHMOND, CO-CHAIR, HARRIS-WALZ CAMPAIGN: Well, we thought that Georgia would be a challenge. We still think the judge is going to be a challenge, but we have to put in the work and I think that that strategy is the same, that it was then which is if we put in the work, we do what we need to do, Georgia is a state that we can win.

And so you see 190 staff in Georgia, you see 24 coordinated offices all across the state and we're going to go there and make our case to the great people of Georgia.

You know, Priscilla did a great job kind of outlining the bus tour and kind of the key goals. Quentin Fulks obviously Michael Tyler, also a Warnock alum, if you will, you guys know the state. He flipped the state in 2020.

When you look at kind of the demographic makeup of the state, everybody talks about the black voters in Fulton County, and pushing outside, also Savannah, as the majority population Black as well.

[16:05:01]

Black men has been an area where the Trump campaign feels like they have made inroads and the crosstabs in the polls would seem to back that up, at least to some degree.

Do you think that's changing?

I do think that's changing and I think that you see that Black men are realizing exactly who Trump is and take his word for the things that he said he was going to do.

But look, Trump thinks that he can get Black male vote because he's now a convicted felon. Its foolish assertions like that, that I think that people are starting to see exactly who he is and you see more African American men gravitating back to the Harris campaign.

And the other part I will tell you though, is that we had a broad coalition to win Georgia. And you can't count out the Asian-American vote that was in Georgia. That showed up in 2020 and 2022. And we expect them to show up again and we're going to knock every door and try to earn their support.

MATTINGLY: Congressman, as a former member of the House, some of your House colleagues spoke to my colleagues in the Capitol Hill team here at CNN, and they made the point that they don't want this to be necessarily from the campaigns perspective about detailed policy discussions or policy proposals they want this to be about character, about values. Do you think that's the case, that this shouldn't be in depth policy here? Well, I think that part of your values is your policy and so I think that what you will see us do is articulate the values of the Harris- Walz a team. And that is to help the middle-class ease the prices and burdens on families. We don't want them to just get by. We want them to get ahead and prosper.

And so, that's the overarching goal and yes, character absolutely matters. But I also think you have to show your values through policy.

MATTINGLY: Congressman, you served in the White House with President Biden. I know we think very highly of you. You're a close adviser of his.

He will have his first joint campaign event in Pittsburgh on Labor Day with the vice president and he seemed be out in Wisconsin next week as well. Is there an understanding right now of what his role in this campaign will be? Had those conversations happened? What do they entail?

RICHMOND: Well, I don't know about any detailed conversation specifically on role, but you saw the incredible response that Joe Biden, President Biden received at the Democratic convention on the first day, late into the night. You know the excitement and the love that Democrats have for him. The one thing they know is his character and they know he woke up every day focused on them and how to improve their lives. And I think that that's going to be an asset around the country. And we're certainly going to use the president in that way.

MATTINGLY: With a specific focus on those blue wall states. Pennsylvania, he goes there quite often as you know.

RICHMOND: Well, I do. I mean, he calls himself a boy from Scranton and he has tremendous relationships there, tremendous accomplishments and affection from the people. So we expect to use him a lot of places as much as he's willing to do it. You know he's a fighter. You know he cares deeply about the people in this country and he understands that threat that Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Project 2025 are to the future of this country.

MATTINGLY: Former Congressman Cedric Richmond, always appreciate your time, sir. Thank you.

RICHMOND: Thanks for having me.

MATTINGLY: Let's bring in our panel of political experts.

Guys, thanks so much for being here.

Michael Eric Dyson, I want start with you. The vice president is facing a lot of pressure from Republicans since she became the nominee to give this in-depth interview, which she will be giving with our own Dana Bash -- Dana Bash tomorrow.

But one of my questions has been, how important is this for voters to hear her actually go in depth on policy, to explain where she stands on these issues? MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, PROFESSOR OF AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES, VANDERBILT

UNIVERSITY: Well, I think it's extremely important. Obviously as Congressman Richmond just indicated, vision and value, policy is critical, but public character is critical as well.

So those Republicans hankering after a word from Vice President Harris will certainly get it. They would do better, of course, to ask for consistency and logic from their own candidate. But that notwithstanding I think she's quite capable of doing so. If you saw her speech at the convention, she laid out basic elements of her vision, but she also wanted to communicate to people I care about.

Remember, I think it was Maya Angelou who said people won't remember what you say about that. Remember how you made them feel. Now it's not that feeling as a substitute emotion as a substitute for serious concrete forensic analysis and policy, but it does suggest that given the history of this country recently with President Trump having so disrupted, the politics and the protocols of normal everyday existence, her presence is a reassuring one. And then to drill down on specific policies is exemplary as well.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: It will be instructive to watch her explain some of the evolution on some key policy issues. So when she ran for president, she advocated for banning fracking. We understand from her team that that is no longer her position.

[16:10:02]

Especially for Pennsylvania voter, she's going to have to explain why. And I'm looking at how she talks about immigration. I'm reading her memoir now, her very first visit after she won her Senate seat in 2016, was to CHIRLA, an immigrants' rights activist group in California.

She advocated for undocumented immigrants pretty forcefully in this book, she called out the Trump administration for what she described as indiscriminate enforcement. So going after immigrants weren't necessarily committing crimes after they were in this country she now advocates. She said that she will sign that border enforcement bill if she's elected president. That bill, of course, does not have a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Now, she might have a very good reason for her evolution on some of these policies and she is following the party Democrats who have lurched right on immigration, but she should have to speak for that.

MATTINGLY: It has been remarkable how the Overton window has shifted on this issue for Democrats.

Matt Gorman, you are a grizzled political veteran, many, many cycles.

MATT GORMAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Many campaigns.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: One of the things I've been wondering as we've seen, the attacks from the former president and his team on the vice president leading up to the interview, leading up to the debate next week, some of them have been very personal. He writes in one post, quote, Kamala refuses to do interviews because her team realizes she is unable to answer questions much like Biden was not able to answer questions, but for different reasons, he is just plain shot, in quotation marks, and she has just plain incompetent, also in quotation marks.

Expectation setting is an important part of things right now.

GORMAN: Oh, yeah.

MATTINGLY: Is this going to end up being a problem for them?

GORMAN: I mean, we saw this before the CNN debate in June.

If you remember a couple of weeks before, they were setting very low expectations of Joe Biden. Now he didn't really clear them but the whole other story, but even before they were sending very expedition, and they kind of careened into a different set of expectations about a week or so prior. Look, I think that's a very fair point on this, and I -- look, I'm interested to see how she addresses a host of those sorts of flip-flops you said over the years.

But look, stepping back, he's an operative, and, Paul, you know this too, media prep, interview prep is among the best debate prep you can have because you can hear what people will come after you with, to refine your arguments. I don't think it's a secret that she's doing this in the middle of the debate prep process. I would count it as another session if you will, Thursday night with Dana.

MATTINGLY: That's an interesting point.

All right, Paul Begala, I can -- if you've had seen Paul Begala, he may have been buzzing over the course of the last five or six minutes because -- for good reason, I would know not just because he sits next to Matt Gorman. The backdrop of the interview, key battleground state of Georgia, Harris and Walz just kicked off that bus tour, you know a lot about the state. Also know a lot about bus tours in this state, you're the chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, and you're bubba for Bill helped Clinton win the state in 1992 by the slimmest of margins, not these limits to actually Biden had the slimmest, 13,000 back then in 2020, Biden carried the state with just under 12,000 votes.

Explain the strategy here in terms of what the campaign is doing and what you saw back then.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You've got to show up. You've got to respect people. You know, Democrats have been pounded in South Georgia and I think Priscilla's reporting is exactly right. Quentin Fulks, a native of South Georgia, graduate of Georgia Southwestern University, one of our great universities in Georgia, he's behind this, right?

And I know President Clinton did. I was with them on that bus tour back when he's Governor Clinton and it was fantastic. But you show up and you show respect, then you have to perform. You have to show that you get it.

You know, on the other side of the aisle, I thought it was good that Donald Trump went to the National Association of Black Journalists. He didn't do very well with Black voters, but then he insulted them, right? He performed very poorly there.

I expect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to do a very good job and to resonate culturally with those folks. That's -- it's critically important. You're not going to win South Georgia, but if you lose less badly, those margins matter and, by the way, I would encourage them to draw the contrast.

You know, Coach Walz actually had been in small towns all his life, not just like South Georgia. They happen to be up in the Midwest, where they talk with a really funny accent. But coach I think can relate to them, and, you know, then you draw the contrast.

I mean, Donald Trump lives on a country club. He proudly says that he's a billionaire. I mean, his idea of a farm program is Hee Haw (ph). So, why the hell is rural America voting for this guy?

DYSON: Right.

MATTINGLY: Do you think showing up matters? And I'm -- I don't ask it to be kind of simplistic about this, but it just in this moment in time with where the U.S. politics system is at this point.

DYSON: Absolutely. Buck Owens, notwithstanding off the Hee Haw, Roy Clark, Minnie Pearl was great, too. But the point is that --

BEGALA: We're dating ourselves.

DYSON: But the presence matters enormously. First of all, because she's got a chance to reveal herself to many people. We haven't even seen her, get a sense of her in the flesh. What does she talk like? How does she laugh?

That laughter on television is one thing. That laughter in person is cued by certain contexts that you can understand, what motivates her, and for her to communicate her compassion, her sense of engagement with the people.

[16:15:03]

Donald Trump is not a people's person, because he has manipulating endlessly. And his insults upon Black women, his racist and misogynist assaults will be mitigated by the fact that this woman stands up highly intelligent, highly articulate down with the people, with a white guy from Minnesota, you know, in there accent, that shows that she is not averse to reaching out to the hinterland.

A black man in Oakland, in San Francisco, in her hometown, told me, you know what? This is the problem with Democrats. He said, they've got to show up.

They say, what the swing states are. He says, you know how many swing states there are? I said, no, he said all of them. So the point is if you show up and you are present, that makes a difference.

MCKEND: There are plenty Democrats in South Georgia and they often lament that candidates skip them over.

DYSON: Right.

MCKEND: So it makes a lot of sense for them to campaign there.

MATTINGLY: Yeah, in terms of margins, activating those voters, a critical point.

Shoutout to our team for pulling on the file footage from the Bill Clinton bus tour. Paul Begala says a lot photos on his iPad - -

(LAUGHTER)

MATTINGLY: They want to see what we're talking about.

BEGALA: I was texting with the former president of a large nation in North America, I won't reveal. I reminded him that he went down there in Columbus, Georgia, and he said, I like going to a place where I don't speak with an accent, were moon pie is something to eat and Mudcat is somebody who plays baseball and a president is somebody who fights for ordinary people.

MATTINGLY: And I have no doubt he has complete recall of that --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: All right. Everybody, stick around.

DYSON: Praise for Jimmy Carter.

BEGALA: Yes, that's right.

MATTINGLY: And you got a lot more to get to and don't miss out, of course, on the very first interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, are sitting down with CNN's Dana Bash. It airs tomorrow night at 9:00 Eastern, only on CNN.

So how exactly do Republicans plan to blunt Democratic momentum and make sure that House stays under GOP control? The man in charge of making that happen joins me live next.

Plus, the FBI releasing brand new details today about the man who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump. Why he picked Butler, Pennsylvania, and the rally to try and carry out his plans.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:20:57]

MATTINGLY: And we're back with our 2024 lead. The fight to control the very closely divided House, it's on. And a lot of Democrats are banking on Vice President Kamala Harris to help down-ballot candidates.

Joining us now is Republican whose job it is to stop that, the Republican congressman from North Carolina, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Congressman Richard Hudson. Thanks so much for joining us.

I want to start with how the landscape has changed over the course of the last five or six months, there was a call that House Republican leadership held with their rank and file, which I think my sense of things was it was part pep-talk fire people up in the August recess, but also some warnings that fundraising prowess for Democrats, the enthusiasm is real. When you look at the map, how much have things changed in the last six weeks?

REP. RICHARD HUDSON (R-NC): Well, it seems like the worlds changed three or four times in the last several months. But, you know, since Kamala Harris became the nominee, we've certainly seen the numbers tightened, but it really is a result of Democrats deciding they were going to be Democrats and that they were going to support the nominee. You know, under President Biden, a lot of Democrats had concerns and his poll numbers were not good.

And but we're not seeing a whole lot of voters move from President Trump to Vice President Harris. We're just seeing Democrats increase their enthusiasm.

MATTINGLY: There is understandably a lot of focus on the campaign trail, but you guys will be coming back for the month of September. During the August recess, three Republican committees release their impeachment inquiry report. Do you expect a vote to impeach President Biden based on that report?

HUDSON: You know, we're two months out from an election. I don't think we'll see a vote before that. I think we need to stay focused on the issues American people care about which is the cost of things inflation, crime, open border. And those are things the American people want to see us address. And so, I think -- I think you'll see us keep our focus there.

MATTINGLY: One thing that the both chambers of Congress can have focused on funding the government. You have a deadline at the end of September. Do you see House Republican leaders getting behind a clean resolution to fund the government until after the election?

HUDSON: I think that's ultimately where well end up. But, you know, obviously, there's a lot of concern about voter integrity. And so, there is some discussion about the Save Act, which Republicans and Democrats ought to agree that we only want citizens voting in this election. So, there's some discussion about including that in a continuing resolution, but we'll have to see how that plays out.

MATTINGLY: All right. We were talking about during the break, I was in Asheboro, North Carolina, for former President Trump's rally last week. You were there as well. You spoke. I tried to grab you across the crowd. It was a lot of people, couldn't quite do it. I'm interested. When you look at your home state right now, Democrats

feel like it is a flippable state. I would caution that they've said that for several cycles now.

But the combination of the Republican candidate for governor, momentum on the Harris side of things, we've seen election analysts put this into a toss-up category. Are you concerned that the Republican hold on the state statewide is in danger right now?

HUDSON: No. I think North Carolina is obviously a purple state. I think the election will be very close every statewide election in our state in recent memory has been very close. But Donald Trump carried the state in '16 and '20, I believe he'll carry the state again, you know, because people back home in North Carolina are hurting.

I mean, the cost are up through inflation. They're concerned about fentanyl deaths and they're concerned about crime. I think Republicans and President Trump are really focused on those issues. And so, I think, ultimately, President Trump's going to carry the state for a third time.

MATTINGLY: Last before I let you go, we always ask this question. You've talked about expanding the House majority, which is very, very thin right now. Do you have a sense of seats? How many seats you think you can win?

HUDSON: Well, I'm not going to give you a number, but I remain very optimistic that we're not just going to hold the House majority, we'll increase our majority.

[16:25:01]

And the key to that is we've got really good candidates and, you know, we've got folks in places like California, New York, Maine, Connecticut really quality candidates that can win anywhere and we think were well-positioned. And again, as long as we stay focused on the issues that matter to the voters, I think our majority not only is it safe, but I think we'll grow it.

MATTINGLY: NRCC chair and Republican Congressman Richard Hudson of North Carolina, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it.

HUDSON: Enjoyed it. Thank you.

MATTINGLY: A Texas civil rights group is accusing state officials of trying to intimidate voters ahead of the November election. The head of that group joins me live next to explain exactly what happened when some of his members had their homes raided.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:30:12]

MATTINGLY: In our law and justice lead, one of the nation's oldest Latino civil rights groups is accusing the Texas attorney general, Republican Ken Paxton, of voter intimidation and suppression. The group wants the U.S. Justice Department to investigate a series of raids at the homes of Latino voting activists in three counties last week.

Here's how one woman describe what happened when her home was searched.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIDIA MARTINEZ, DEMOCRATIC ACTIVIST AND LULAC MEMBER: Two of them went into my bedroom and started searching everything. They searched all my house, my store room, my refrigerator, my kitchen cabinets, everything. And I said, can I help you? What are you looking for? And they said, anything to do with voter registration.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Here now is LULAC CEO Juan Proano.

Appreciate your time.

CNN obtained the search warrant affidavit. It says investigators suspect a longtime political operative in a county near San Antonio may have performed can be illegal actions in 2020. No one has been charged. Initially, question would be, do you not believe that Paxton has a right to at least investigate those claims?

JUAN PROANO, CEO, LULAC: Election integrity is actually very important, but this really goes beyond election integrity. This is actually voter suppression.

You know, the attorney general has a process here, a pattern in which he's actually been going after Latino nonprofit organizations. And back in June, he went after the archdiocese of Rio Grande Valley. In July, he went after the annunciation house. Last week, he went after 12 other Latino non-profits, and then on Tuesday, he started serving warrants to individual Latino leaders and LULAC members.

That's a pattern. All Latino organizations, all Latino civic activist, always LULAC members.

MATTINGLY: You co-signed a letter to the Justice Department arguing these raids, as you noted, are meant to intimidate and suppress the Latino community. Have you heard back from DOJ or had any conversations with them about this request?

PROANO: Yes. We've had an initial conversation with them and now we're working with two different lawyers, one on the criminal side and obviously one on the civil justice side as well. So we'll be following up with them this week. And in addition to that, have been working with a lot of our allies who was on the phone just earlier with Marc Morial from the Urban League, with Reverend Al Sharpton as well, with Hector Barba from Mi Familia Vota.

So, we are actively engaging all of our allies. And we're going to make a really big push because this is discriminatory practice, it is prejudicial and he is working to dissuade the Latino vote in the state of Texas.

MATTINGLY: Did DOJ give any indication that they were open to an investigation, that they were looking to take next steps?

PROANO: They are. I mean, we're waiting obviously for them to take this next step. But I know that they have a process. I know that it isn't necessarily as quickly as we would like it to go.

And so, our messaging around this is critically important. We don't want any more raids. There is really no evidence at all to say that there actually it has been any voter fraud or any voter harvesting as they've been claiming.

MATTINGLY: It's something we will certainly be keeping an eye on in the weeks and months ahead.

Juan Proano, LULAC CEO, really appreciate your time and walking us through this. Thanks so much.

PROANO: Thank you, Phil.

MATTINGLY: Well, the FBI released these photos today of the gun used in the Trump assassination attempt. Officials also revealed new details about the shooter and his months of research before the attack. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:37:56]

MATTINGLY: Now to the breaking news in our law and justice lead, new details about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

The FBI just released -- released these pictures of the shooter's gun, his backpack, and the explosives found in his car at Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

I want to bring in CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller.

John, the picture of the gun, why is that significant in your mind?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, one of the burning questions has been circulating, how is it possible that with Secret Service police, crowds around, a person was walking around with a long rifle and able to scale a rooftop and appear, you know, therefore, we learned today six minutes on the rooftop before opening fire on a former president of the United States.

But if you look at the second picture, which is the rifle has a mag poll folding stock so you can fold that back. You can remove the barrel. Then there's just a lower receiver side-by-side with a backpack. You could see you could fit all of that in the backpack.

And now, you're not a guy walking around with a rifle that's over three feet long, you're a guy walking around with a backpack and these elements are inside and could be assembled.

We also learned about the explosive devices that were found in the trunk of the car and we learned some really interesting things about how long he had been studying these things, including, you know, making a device, going back to 2019 even. We learned he got up onto the roof by climbing on that air conditioning unit we just saw and then boosting himself up.

So the images helped us a lot in visualization of some of the things that have been hard to explain.

MATTINGLY: What did you make of the fact that the FBI says the shooter had no definitive ideology that they could find? He wasn't left leaning. He wasn't right-leaning. What does it tell you?

MILLER: Phil, that's a fascinating question because it goes to the offender characteristics of assassins that we've been tracking since Lee Harvey Oswald, you know, in terms of what makes these people tick, and what we know is that 68 percent of them go into these plots with the plan the main motivation of injuring or killing their target.

We know that 40 percent of them go into it with the added motive of wanting to achieve notoriety and that 22 percent of them have the idea that they're also going to get killed in the process. So you have a little suicide by cop built in.

So what we find with these characters, you know, in the research of each one and the interviews with those who survived is that they often had the plan to do an attack before they had the why. In this case, we know that from the FBI briefing today, he researched Donald Trump. He researched Joe Biden. He researched a number of other people, but not as much in the political swirl.

But then he became singularly focused, they said, once he saw that Donald Trump was coming to a rally near where he lived.

MATTINGLY: You have -- you have cautioned me several times, don't expect some clear cut clean answer as to the why here. This certainly demonstrating that once again.

John Miller, as always, my friend, thanks so much.

MILLER: Thanks, Phil.

Well, as we learn all of these new details about the investigation, Donald Trump revealed who he alleges are misty thinks is at least partially to blame for the shooting. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:45:40] MILLER: As the FBI releases new details about the gunman who tried to kill former President Donald Trump, he's now at least partially blaming President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the assassination attempt. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: People would ask, whose fault is it? I think to a certain extent, it's Biden's fault and Harris's fault, and I'm the opponent. Look, they were weaponizing government against me. They brought in the whole DOJ to try and get me.

They weren't too interested in my health and safety. They were always making it from what I understood and I could feel it. They were making it very difficult to have proper staffing in terms of Secret Service.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MILLER: CNN's Alayna Treene joins the table. The panel's back with me.

Alayna, let me start with you. You covered this campaign. You talk to them probably 100 times a day.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Yeah.

MILLER: This felt different than what we've heard from him about this in the past, kind of brought it back to where he's been about blaming the upper echelon of the Secret Service, have never really gone after his actual details itself, has never pointed at President Biden and Vice President Harris, at least to that degree before. Why?

TREENE: Right. Well, we have heard him try to argue that some of the rhetoric. We've heard this from Trump end high profile Republicans is allies that perhaps some of the rhetoric from Harris and Biden particularly, and he mentioned this in the interview as well, the line about him being a threat to democracy, how that has contributed to perhaps the assassination attempt.

But I think the thing that was different in this interview to your point, Phil, is the idea that they're making it harder for him to have the proper level of Secret Service protection, which I just have to be very clear about, there's no evidence of that. There is no evidence that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are purposefully trying to mess with his Secret Service.

I will say, however, though, that this is an unprecedented election and the idea that you have a former president than it was a former president versus a current sitting president. Now, of course, it's Vice President Harris he's facing against, that is put a lot of strain on Secret Service.

We've heard that through our extensive reporting on what had happened at Butler. But to try and blame Joe Biden and Harris, but there's just no evidence whatsoever to back that up. MATTINGLY: Yeah. Look, there was a failure. There's no question about

that.

TREENE: Right.

MATTINGLY: A lot of people responsible probably not that definitely not the two of them. I don't think.

Matt, I want to talk to you about whatever went down between members of the Trump campaign and an official at Arlington National Cemetery, and I'm not trying to dismiss it. We don't really have a great idea on some level, Trump was there, marking three years since the Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan killed 13 U.S. service members.

Campaign photography is not allowed. According to NPR, Trump campaign staff, quote, verbally abused and pushed a cemetery official who tried to stop campaign staffers from taking pictures. Trump's running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, just spoke in Pennsylvania and said this about the Abbey Gate bombing. Take a listen.

I'll go ahead and read that, we're trying to get the actual specific sound, and what he said according to our reporters on the ground: Kamala Harris is disgraceful. We're going to talk about the story oh, story out of those 13 brave innocent Americans who lost their lives, is that Kamala Harris has so asleep at the wheel that she won't even do an investigation into what happened. And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can go to hell.

That's stronger than I've heard from Senator Vance really on most anything some level.

GORMAN: A couple of things. I'm with you. I don't know what happened. We probably won't unless there's more details emerged from those incident report and/or other things. I think that's fair from what exactly happened at Arlington.

Look, as someone who staffed principals on the ground, there are ways you can get around certain things for them, the rules to get what you need to get and you can work with these folks with and I've never done it with at Arlington, per se, but usually there's ways you can work around these things within the rules. That's number one.

Number two, I looked -- that was -- that was the first I've heard of that from J.D. Vance, but certainly stronger language here. I think it benefits Trump to get off of the incident Arlington and talk more about I think probably hear this at the debate, whether the Afghanistan debacle, because, look, that was the inflection point in my opinion, and like the public polls bear this out, when Biden's approval rating really started to nosedive in August 2021 and it really kind of stayed there up until it get out of the race. It was a little bit of inflection point in his presidency.

[16:50:02]

I think -- and Kamala Harris has said, I was last one in the room with Joe Biden when that happened. So long story short is, I think expected to hear that at the debate. I think it's good that are getting off of this story, and it's more fertile ground for them.

MATTINGLY: Your sense of what's actually going on here. To Matt's point, you can see Senator Vance is clearly trying to move in that direction of things more aggressively than I've seen. There has been a very aggressive pushback effort by the Trump team they say that these claims aren't true, but the fact that this is -- something that's out there, right now.

ERIC DYSON: Yeah. I mean, the level of disrespect must not be overlooked. The normalization of this kind of coarse rhetoric is itself problematic. The opprobrium of a vice presidential candidate speaking about a presidential candidate in such terms is problematic.

Number two, Mr. Trump is seeking to deflect all of the reporting about him calling them losers and suckers. So at any point, fisticuffs at Arlington, which is unseemly to say the least distracts from the fact that -- distracts us from the fact that this man has not shown profound respect for the military.

As for, you know, Vice President Harris and thrusting in pairing about this issue its legitimate to ask questions, to engage in conversation, to talk about what happened, who was there, and the like. But the lack of decorum itself is a larger story than any kind of conflict that they might endure.

MATTINGLY: And to be clear, Paul, we haven't heard from the vice president on this specific issue. Her campaign's talked about it certainly over the course of the last 24 hours, I think from a political perspective to your point, it feeds into some of the reporting behind the scenes, reporting about the former president and how he's viewed veterans. I think that's probably why the campaign is pushing back so hard on this.

BEGALA: Mr. Trump has been a Section 60 where the war dead from Iraq and Afghanistan are interred before. And according to the father of one of those dead heroes, he stood over that young man's grave and said, I don't get it. What was in it for him?

That father was John Kelly, four-star general himself, who was Trumps chief of staff, not exactly a Trump hater, not exactly a Democrat, right?

So Mr. Trump has disrespected the most important heroes in American history at that graveyard, 400,000 of them.

So, of course, I don't like Trump anyway, I'm inclined to believe it. So I think Matt's right. We should have more transparency from the Army. The Trump campaigns spokesman alleged that the Arlington National Cemetery official, quote, clearly suffering from a mental health episode.

I want to know -- I want to know. I got family at Arlington. I want to know if there is somebody mentally deranged working there, or is it perhaps that the Trump campaign, not for the first time, is lying, and that they disrespected the most sacred ground in American. MATTINGLY: They have said they have video and they're willing to

release it. I think my perspective, the former president was invited there by families of some of those who were killed did abbey gate, there was an extraordinarily powerful moment at the Republican convention where they had those families talking about what happened, talking about their issues with President Biden everything that happened here?

What's your sense right now and talking to the campaign of how they're viewing this moment?

TREENE: A couple of things. One, yes, we saw Steven Chung, one of the Trump campaign spokespeople say we have the footage I don't -- I doubt it gets released to be honest, I'm not sure. I think they've -- to Matt's point, want to move on from this.

But when I talked to -- I actually talked to some Trump campaign advisers today about this just to have them break it down from their viewpoint. I think the main incident was that one there is the photography, but also the idea of you heard the statement from Arlington National Cemetery about this being, you know we absolutely prohibit political campaigning. They said that they had given them a statement in advance warning them of this.

I was told the incident and happened at that scene where they were laying flowers on the burial site and that's really what was in question here. Look, I think at the end of the day, they want to move away from this. They don't want to keep talking.

You haven't really seen a lot of people after the initial response last night from Trumps campaign, you're not really seeing a lot more continuation of that from them. I think there's a reason they want to move on and that's why you also heard J.D. Vance that's kind of pivot in his answer when asked about it.

MATTINGLY: In a rather aggressive fashion.

All right, guys, thank you very much. We got a lot more to get to in the next 70 days, 60 some-odd. Appreciate it is always.

A new warning for parents from one of the top American health officials today, our last leads are next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:58:52]

MATTINGLY: Topping last leads, parents in the United States are overwhelmed and burned out, and it's a public health concern. That's according to the U.S. surgeon general who put out a new advisory today calling for new policies and cultural shifts to help families. High levels of stress can have harmful effects on the mental health parents, which in turn affects the well-being of their children. Now identified that if that's not nearly as much as this one.

In our world lead and speaking of parental stress, one curious little museum-goers in Haifa, Israel, wanted to see inside of 3,500-year-old jar in a way, the four-year-old boy got his wish because the jar shatter at his feet, revealing all of its secrets. Now the Hecht Museum prefers to display objects without protective glass and staffers understand things like this happen. They will repair the jar and have invited the family back for a private tour. There, literally the coolest staff ever.

Finally in our politics lead, or maybe its our fashion lead, because today marks the day that everything changed in politics. Ten years ago today, the most controversial moments of the Obama administration -- yes, you see it right there, tan suit. Never mind that the president actually came into the briefing room at the White House to answer questions, its a great thing. That's happened much lately.

His choice of tan suit instead of black and blue or gray or navy, its a tongue and fingers wagging, by the way, noticed at last weeks Democratic convention, politicians is still there to wear tan.

A reminder about the first interview with Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, are sitting down with CNN's Dana Bash and airs tomorrow night at 9:00 Eastern only on CNN.

The news continues on CNN with Alex Marquardt in for Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM".