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Trump in Milwaukee for GOP Convention After Assassination Attempt; Biden Forcefully Condemns Trump Assassination Attempt in Rare Oval Office Address to the Nation; FBI Says, Shooter's Motives Still Unclear. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 15, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hello from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm Kate Bolduan and the Republican National Convention is kicking off today. And right now, Donald Trump is here in Milwaukee, and this is less than 48 hours after surviving an assassination attempt. We're standing by right now to find out when you may see him today and who you may see him with.

He could be announcing and introducing his running mate as soon as this morning. And there's also a lot of developments in the investigation into that tragic shooting Saturday at his rally in Pennsylvania. Trump is talking in detail about what happened, and the impact, and the FBI is still searching for a motive behind this shooting.

In a new interview, here is some of Trump's first reaction to what he lived through. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be dead. Trump also saying that in light of this, he's making changes to his much anticipated convention speech slated for Thursday, saying this, I had all prepared an extremely tough speech, really good, all about the corrupt, horrible administration, but I threw it away. I want to try to unite our country, but I don't know if that's possible. People are very divided.

What a different day today is. And President Biden is also appealing for unity and condemning the attack on his political rival, speaking to the nation with an Oval Office address last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Now, also happening today, President Biden is set to tape an interview with NBC News, so much more to come from him as well. And in the backdrop, this investigation into the shooting is really at full tilt, as is the scrutiny that the Secret Service is facing right now. We have team coverage of it all from here in Milwaukee and far beyond. John Berman and Sarah Sidner are standing by in New York. Let's start with CNN's Steve Contorno for the latest on Donald Trump. And, Steve, what are you hearing from his team this morning?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Well, Donald Trump last night giving a series of interviews, really opening up for the first time about the harrowing experience of Saturday, telling the New York Post that the agents who tackled him were, quote, linebackers and they, quote, hit me so hard, my shoes fell off and my shoes were on tight. He also said that usually you have to die to have an iconic photo talking about that image of him holding his fist in the air, blood on his face with American flag behind him.

In another interview, he previewed his convention speech, saying that he had tossed out what he had planned to say, calling the speech he was going to give, quote, a real humdinger. Had this not happened, this would have been one of the most incredible speeches. Honestly, it's going to be a whole different speech now, and really we expect this entire week to be different, given what's happened in the past 48 hours.

And if you think back to recent weeks, four weeks ago when we thought this convention was going to be a rallying cry around Trump's sentencing, which was scheduled to take place four days before today. Then we have this debate and we expected the convention to be changed once again around a victory lap over President Biden's debate performance and Trump's momentum coming off of that.

Now, this entire event and the tone of it has changed once again and that's what we'll be watching for over the next few days, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely, Steve. I mean, it's like the schedule is not changing, is what they've suggested. But as you say, it's like a wholly different convention that we're going to see starting just today. Steve standing by for us.

Let's get over to CNN's Arlette Saenz. She's standing by at the White House. Arlette, President Biden, he adjusted his schedule in light of the weekend attack. We heard him speaking from the Oval Office last night in that huge address. What are you hearing today?

[07:05:00]

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, President Biden is really trying to navigate a sensitive moment in this country's history as he's urging Americans to lower the temperature in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.

Now, President Biden was initially scheduled to travel to Austin, Texas, today to speak at the LBJ Library, but his team scrapped those plans to have the president remain here at the White House, at least for a good portion of the day.

The president this morning, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, will receive an updated briefing from law enforcement officials about this shooting. The president has said he is marshalling all of the resources of the federal government to ensure there is a thorough and swift investigation into this shooting as well as calling for an independent review of the security that was in place at that rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Now, President Biden so far has spoken three times since that assassination attempt, and he is really trying to use this moment to this is a very rare Americans to urge Americans to unite and move past the anger and division that has consumed so much of this country. The president last night, speaking in a very rare Oval Office address where he had this message for voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I want to speak to you tonight about the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics and to remember, or may disagree, we are not enemies. We're neighbors. We're friends, co-workers, citizens, and most importantly, we are fellow Americans. We must stand together.

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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, in the wake of the shooting, Biden's campaign paused all of its television advertisements and outgoing communications, including fundraising emails. It's unclear exactly when that will resume, but the president and Democrats are expected to turn back to political and campaigning activity in the coming days.

President Biden, this afternoon, will be sitting down for an interview with NBC News Lester Holt, something that initially was expected to address some of the concerns around Biden's candidacy after the debate performance, but now will take on a different kind of significance. Then later today, he will travel to Nevada, where he will spend the next two days attending various events, including trying to Latino and black voters while he is there.

Now, one thing that many will be watching is to see how exactly President Biden will campaign in this moment. Last night, he said this should be a debate about character, record and issues. That is something that he's expected to stress throughout the coming weeks. But clearly the president at this moment is trying to use his position of leadership to show that it's time for the country to unite, lower the temperature in the political discourse all at a time when there's so many people still reeling from that assassination attempt of Donald Trump.

BOLDUAN: Both of these men making similar appeals. How do how is that accomplished? How long does that last? Huge questions with all of this, but both of them making that very same appeal for unity and bringing the temperature down right now, all because in the aftermath of this horrible shooting that happened. Let's get the latest on the investigation now. CNN's Whitney Wild has been tracking the law enforcement investigation into the shooter and trying to find a motive. Whitney, so far, still, the FBI has not revealed a motive. What's the very latest you're hearing?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's very difficult, Kate, because the FBI is still trying to get into the shooter's cell phone. This man has left very little public footprint. It is not clear that he had a robust social media presence. It is not clear what he was saying in text messages and phone calls, although the FBI says that they do have some insights, just a few insights through those phone calls and text messages.

But this investigation, at least what happened on the ground, is going to rely heavily on what witnesses saw. And what they say is that they saw a man matching that description, carrying a rifle outside of the perimeter. And when that happened, there was an alert that was sent out. This is according to a senior law enforcement official. An alert went out about the shooter acting suspiciously outside of the perimeter. That information was passed along to the Secret Service, according to this official that CNN spoke with.

So, witnesses also say that they saw the gunman going rooftop to rooftop. There is a lot of video, Kate, of witnesses clearly seeing the gunman discussing it, shouting it, saying, officer, look, this man's on the roof. Here's what two witnesses say they saw. Here's their interview with CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE DIFRISCHIA, CAPTURED VIDEO OF GUNMAN FIRING SHOTS: They had no line of sight and they even looked at us and said, you know, where's he at? And we were pointing to him. You know, he's right there. They just -- they were too close to the building. One officer did try to climb up on the building and he got all the way up and he just went to get up on top and then he just kind of let go and fell to the ground.

[07:10:05]

I don't know if the guy startled him or what exactly happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: What we know, Kate, is that the shooter's name is Thomas Matthew Crooks. He's 20 years old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. That's about an hour south of where the shooting happened. We know that he is a registered Republican, although he made a very nominal donation to a Democratic-aligned political action committee at some point.

We also know, Kate, that he used an A.R.-style rifle in the shooting that belonged to his father. Many more questions to answer, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely so much. Thank you, Whitney. You've been working this ever since it happened. Thank you so much. And thank everyone. We've got much more to come from Milwaukee as this convention will officially be gaveling in this morning. And, John and Sara, what -- I mean, 48 hours ago, what a different convention we were going to be talking about.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Absolutely true. And coming up Kate and John, as you know, we're going to be speaking to somebody, a journalist who was there on the ground, but who also interviewed Donald Trump within 24 hours after the assassination attempt.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are also standing by to hear from the Milwaukee mayor about security plans for the convention there, right where Kate is.

And House Speaker Mike Johnson vows to find out how law enforcement missed the gunman. We've got new details on the Capitol Hill investigation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

SIDNER: This morning, we are standing by for a press conference with the Milwaukee mayor at City Hall. It is expected to get underway shortly and we'll bring it to you live. Mayor Cavalier Johnson will talk about public safety, as you might imagine, on this first day of the Republican National Convention there.

Meantime, Donald Trump has just praised the Secret Service agents who surrounded him after the attempt on his life.

CNN's Ryan Young is at City Hall in Milwaukee. Ryan, can you give me some sense of whether or not the Secret Service is saying there are new plans to increase security for the RNC considering there was an assassination attempt on the former president?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Sara, so far, from what we're told, there'll be no changes to any plans. That's because this situation has been planned for months and months in advance. This is the hardened security area. If you look back this direction here, you can see how vehicles want to enter this area. They have to go through a checkpoint like this one where they're thoroughly searched.

They actually have canine officers here that will smell a car to make sure there's no explosives. And then something that you see throughout this entire city is these metal gates. And a lot of times, you know, they're reinforced behind there so vehicles can't approach and if you look down this direction, you can see how far this stretches.

Now, when you think about what happened this weekend, of course, people are talking about security, but this zone right here is so locked down, this is the highest level of security that you can have for an event. They believe the planning that's been for more than a year is more than sufficient when it comes to a situation like this one.

This hotel here, we believe, is for a dignitary. And there are several people who are on the street who believe the former president, Donald Trump, is actually staying in this area. And you can tell just the intense amount of security that they put up around this area. But listen to Secret Service and the FBI talk about the plans in place for this event.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AUDREY GIBSON-CICCHINO, SECRET SERVICE RNC COORDINATOR: We're confident in the current plan that we have. It is based off of technical assessments, protective intelligence, and we are continuously monitoring information related to the event.

MICHAEL HENSLE, FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: There's no known specific or articulated threat to the RNC or any specific individual attending. As you'd expect, after the event yesterday, we've seen an uptick in social media chatter, people talking about what happened. And we as the lead for all intelligence matters related to the RNC, the FBI, we evaluate all of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Sara. Now, of course, we're going to walk down the city hall to be a part of that news conference as well. There is a planned protest as well in the First Amendment zone. But you can see the heavy dump trucks have been brought in place, and those trucks are loaded with heavy material to make sure someone can't drive through an area like this one. Here's one of the dump trucks right here. This kind of blocks the roadway to make sure there's that extra reinforcement.

Now, something I want to show our viewers, you can see how much of this area that they've blocked off all throughout the city. If you're driving through here, you're not going to be able to get through the streets that you'd normally go through. The security here is intense. If you don't have a badge to get to a lot of places (INAUDIBLE).

SIDNER: Thank you for giving us a real vision of the security measures that are in place right now. That fence and those barricades, I haven't seen that in quite some time. Thank you so much, Ryan Young. I appreciate it. John?

BERMAN: All right. This morning, the Secret Service is facing question about how the gunman was able to get on that roof about 130 yards from where former President Trump was standing. President Biden is ordering an independent review. House Speaker Mike Johnson says Congress will investigate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I think pretty clearly there was a security lapse at least. And we need to find out, for example, why were drones not used in the area? I've not gotten a satisfactory answer on that yet.

We have more questions than we have answers, but Congress is going to get down to the bottom of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BERMAN: All right. CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller is with me now. And, John, you've worked on many events like this where you went on the other side in law enforcement here. One of the questions is, why wasn't this guy, shooter, maybe on the radar beforehand?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, as far as he goes as an individual, and they're still digging into his social media and past.

[07:20:00]

He is not on that list of people who are threatening the former president. He's not online making vitriolic statements that they've uncovered so far or calling for violence. He's just not on the radar.

Now, the other thing that's really remarkable here is, in terms of planning, advanced planning, you know, how long was this in his mind, he's buying a box of 50 rounds of .223 rifle ammunition that afternoon somewhere between 12:00 and 2:00. He's in the gun store purchasing ammunition. So, this doesn't sound like something that it's something he'd been preparing for for months. So, that would be a challenge to him being on the radar.

BERMAN: Right, but the ammunition that afternoon, used it in the early evening. In terms of what else was found, the explosives in the car, the transmitter on the body. What questions does that raise for you?

MILLER: So, those are really interesting questions because they take the other side of that coin, which is, in the trunk of the car, they find basically an ammunition can, and they see wires coming out of that to a receiver. So, what they think they're looking at in the shooter's car, parked near the event, is a remote controlled device. At the house, they find a similar box in his bedroom, which they consider, since they've seen what's in the car, another potential device.

But you have to ask if it's got a receiver on it, and he had some kind of transmitter on him, I am told by sources, what was the purpose of having something that could cause an explosion in the car? And let's take a look at it. One version is, if he wanted to distract all the security personnel from his presence while he was trying to sneak up on a rooftop, he could have cranked off that device, caused everybody to focus on that car.

Another possibility, which is really interesting is, he was seen at the magnetometers earlier. They had flagged him as acting squirrelly around the magnetometers. And they had put that over the air of keep an eye on this guy. Was he looking to place a distraction device that would have drawn security to the noise of multiple explosions coming from some direction that would have taken their focus off of him? All of these are not answers. All of these are questions that are on the table about what was the purpose of that device. Did it have anything to do with this plot? BERMAN: Then the question is, he's up here, the snipers are right here, Donald Trump is right here. What were the rules of engagement for the Secret Service and the local law enforcement snipers? And just so people have a sense of the timeline here, the shooter was spotted by a local police officer near magnetometers. You discussed that. They saw him on the roof. Supporters and police spot him on the roof, then the shooter points the gun at a local law enforcement officer, you know, hits Trump, and the shooter is killed by a sniper there.

I'm going to put this map up again here. So, again, what could they have done? Could they have acted more quickly?

MILLER: So, you've got the inner perimeter, that's the event, Secret Service is in charge of that. You've got the outer perimeter, which is a mix of Secret Service and local law enforcement. And then you have the third perimeter, which is mostly local law enforcement. So, when they say we've got a guy on the roof with a rifle, people are alerting them.

Now, your clock starts at around a minute. An officer starts to go up that ladder to get on that roof and is confronted at gunpoint by the shooter, according to the accounts we got from the sheriff yesterday. And at that point, they're putting that over the air.

That word gets that there's something going on over here with an individual on the rooftop to the sniper team. But a rooftop is like this. There's an upside and a downside. He starts on the downside of that roof. They don't see him until he pops up and that first shot is fired.

Now, we've listened to the audio. There's about a second and a half between the first shots and the multiple shots that they fire taking him out. This isn't the only countersniper team. There's four set up on the ground. So, the rules of engagement would normally be, we have an individual on a rooftop. He has what looks like a rifle. They would call the detail leader and say, do we have a green light? The detail leader would make a judgment. This happened way too fast for any of that, and their reaction time was split second.

BERMAN: All right. There will be a lot of questions about this going forward. We still obviously need more information. John, great to have you here. Thank you very much.

All right, former President Trump personally called one of the reporters who was steps away from him when the shots rang out. We've got new details on that conversation.

And we're standing by from a possible announcement from Donald Trump that really could come at any minute. Who will be his running mate?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

SIDNER: Former President Trump in his first interview since the assassination attempt says he has completely changed his speech for the RNC convention. He says he plans to call for national unity.

Journalist Salena Zito was just feet away from former President Trump when shots were fired. You see her there on the ground being covered by some members. It looks like of the Secret Service and others, Trump. The day after the shooting, she spoke with him and after this attempt on his life within 24 hours of that.

Salena Zito now joins me live. Thank you so much for joining us. First of all, I'm really happy to see that you are okay this morning after that horrific scene there and seeing you there on the ground gives me chills. I do want to ask you what happened when you spoke to Donald Trump. Did he sound different? Did he seem different from times past?

SALENA ZITO, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: So, it's really interesting.

[07:30:00]

He called me yesterday. I was there with my daughter, who is a photojournalist. We were to interview President Trump after the rally on a flight.