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Suspect in apparent assassination attempt faces two federal gun charges; Bipartisan Task Force seeks briefing with Secret Service; Cellphone data: Suspect may have spent nearly 12 hours in bushes. 2- 2:30p ET

Aired September 16, 2024 - 14:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: After a second apparent assassination attempt, the Director of the Secret Service is meeting with former President Donald Trump this afternoon. And just a few hours ago, the suspect in the attempt appeared in federal court dressed in prison scrubs and shackled. The very latest from the courtroom.

Plus, a new deal between Washington and Seoul discussing who would foot the bill for the cost of keeping U.S. troops in South Korea hanging over these talks, clinching a deal before a possible return to the White House by Trump.

BRIANNA KEILAR: And an NFL Quarterback says the risk of new concussions and the lingering impact to his health and brain isn't enough to get him to quit the sport that he loves. We're following these developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN News Central.

SANCHEZ: We're learning new details about the man suspected in the apparent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump. Court documents released this afternoon say that Ryan Wesley Routh may have been lying in wait for more than 11 hours before Secret Service agents spotted him with an SKS-style rifle just a few hundred yards from where the former President was golfing on Sunday. Routh was in federal court today and prosecutors are now charging him with possession of a firearm while a convicted felon, as well as possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.

Now, this afternoon, Trump is meeting with the Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe. Rowe apparently plans to stay in Florida as this investigation plays out. CNN's Carlos Suarez is live force outside the Trump International golf course in Palm Beach.

Carlos, what more are we hearing from investigators?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, we know that the 58- year-old could be facing additional charges. Those two gun-related charges were filed as prosecutors, at least we're being told, were filed as prosecutors sought to continue their investigation. And so they wanted him to be detained. Now, according to the criminal complaint that was filed against him,

Routh's route's cellphone data shows that he might have been in the area for nearly 12 hours, in the area where he was spotted by the Secret Service on Sunday afternoon. So we're talking about from about 1:59 in the morning on Sunday to about 1:31 in the afternoon. We're told that several bags, including that SKS-style rifle and a plastic bag containing food was also found at the scene.

Now, this afternoon, we're also getting our first look at the moment that Routh was taken into custody by the sheriff's office about an hour north of the golf course here in West Palm Beach. He was arrested by the Martin County Sheriff's Office. Here now is the moment that he was taken into custody.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAN #1: Driver, walk straight back. Keep walking.

MAN #2: (Inaudible) that moment (inaudible) holding it on (inaudible).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SUAREZ: And right after that moment, according to the criminal complaint, quote, "shortly after the motor vehicle stop, Routh was asked if he knew why he was being stopped." He responded in the affirmative. Authorities went on to note in the criminal complaint that the license plate tag that was on his car was reported stolen. Routh is scheduled to be back in court on Monday for a detention hearing. And then he is scheduled to be arraigned on September 30th.

All of these, all of these new details, Boris, are coming to light as we get ready for a news conference at four o'clock this afternoon, where the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office tells me they expect to have members of the Secret Service as well as the FBI.

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They're going to be answering questions from the media. And they're also going to be providing us with some new information on exactly where the investigation stands.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: We look forward to those new details. Carlos Suarez, thank you so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Today, we are getting a clearer picture of the suspect's past. CNN Senior Investigative Correspondent Kyung Lah is with us now with that side of the story.

So, Kyung, we found out today that Routh had a criminal record. What more are you learning?

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDEN: Yeah, we are learning more about that criminal record. We're also learning more, Brianna, about his background as well as his global travels. But let's start with what you just started with there, criminal history. Public records do show that his first brush with the law dates back to 2000, but it was really in 2002 when he became known to North Carolina law enforcement.

Now, CNN spoke with a former officer in Greensboro, North Carolina, and she responded to a 2002 incident where he barricaded himself inside a building after a traffic stop. He eventually pled guilty to felony possession of a weapon of mass destruction. Sources tell CNN that that was a fully automatic weapon.

Public records also reveal other minor financial crimes in North Carolina. But then he moved to Hawaii, where he set up his own business and worked on what is being described as a nonprofit constructing small shelters for homeless people. But then, there was some sort of a change a couple of years ago. Routh became very vocal and then personally involved when it came to the war in Ukraine.

He traveled to Ukraine, where he said he wanted to join the fight, but was told he was too old. He was age 56 at the time. So he's put his effort into trying to draw attention to the plight of Ukrainians. He saw it as a battle of good against evil, and he thought the entire world should come to Ukraine's aid.

I want you to take a look at this interview during a protest in Ukraine's capital in 2002.

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RYAN WESLEY ROUTH, ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT OF FORMER US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Putin is a terrorist and he needs to be ended. So we need everybody from around the globe to stop what they're doing and come here now and support the Ukrainians to end this war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: You know, he did a number of interviews with various reporters during that time in 2000 to a number of them. He got even emotional and would cry on camera just talking about the war effort. I spoke with one of those journalists who he spent a good deal of time with. He said that he described him almost as manic, singularly dedicated to a cause. And then when he talked about the video, the body cam video that you've been showing throughout this hour, it didn't surprise him, he said, that this would be the man who would do something like this. Brianna, Boris?

KEILAR: That is really interesting. Kyung Lah, thank you so much for that report. Boris?

SANCHEZ: It's still very early in the investigation, but let's break down with some analysis of what we know so far. CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst and Former Deputy Director for the FBI, Andrew McCabe joins us now live.

First, Andrew, your reaction to hearing that this suspect was camped out in this area for something like 12 hours? ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST AND FORMER DEPUTY

DIRECTOR FOR THE FBI: Yeah, really remarkable, Boris. And it raises some very obvious questions about how well the area or not well the area was scoured for threats before the President arrived. This gets kind of to the heart of that question about the Secret Service right now. You know, it's a bit of a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the protective operation they had in place for the former President yesterday actually worked the way it's supposed to. You have those advance agents who are ahead of him on the golf course. They are kind of clearing threats as they go. They perceived a threat. They addressed it with firepower and mitigated that threat to the President in that moment. That's the way it's supposed to work.

But it raises all kinds of other issues about like how is it that these threats are getting so close to him and why was there not maybe a more strengthened perimeter around the course, especially in light of the fact that we know that he would eventually have been completing that 6th hole, moving on towards the 7th hole. That cart path connecting those holes is basically 10ft, 20ft off of the fence where we know this guy was holed up for almost 12 hours. It's really frightening.

SANCHEZ: Could you give us some kind of an estimate or an approximation of what expanding that perimeter might require? I imagine, it's additional personnel. But also, perhaps the closure of a street, you know?

MCCABE: Well, you know, the street closures are a little tricky because you're in a highly populated area. You've got a lot of businesses, you've got government entities. Right behind the course there is the sheriff's office and the jail and everything. So that could be dicey, but certainly more personnel and vehicles, right, to have regular patrols through that area on foot on both sides of the fence, right on the public side and on the private side.

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You might want to park some vehicles right there on the sidewalk, you know, on the grass, along the fence line. That sort of a presence, a visible presence of law enforcement officers is typically enough to deter any sort of person who is thinking about wandering up to the fence for whatever reason, whether they're planning an attack or just trying to get a look at the President or photograph or something. So it definitely requires more people, more vehicles, more money to support those folks. But a worthy investment at this point in what we already know is a very elevated threat picture.

SANCHEZ: I'm curious, Andy, about what you made of his response. He seemed subdued and calm and complying with everything that officers were telling him during that body cam footage. But this is someone who, back in 2002, had a run in with law enforcement and wound up barricading himself. Does that give you any insight into his state of mind going into what we saw unfold yesterday?

MCCABE: Well, you know, I think, Boris, what it, you know, I'm not a professional or a doctor by any means, but his past certainly tends to indicate that he has, at least in the past, and maybe today, is experiencing some mental or personal stressors that are kind of making him somewhat irrational. It's good that he didn't go full on barricaded yesterday or that would have ended up in a firestorm of bullets. I'm not surprised that he was somewhat accepting of his fate when he was finally taken out of the vehicle. He knew -- you could tell by the way he set up that position around the fence, the way he's using the hanging, the backpacks on the fence, possibly including ceramic shock plates, to maybe use those things to deflect incoming fire or to protect him, at least to conceal him in some way. So he's someone who has shown us indicators that he knew that ultimately law enforcement would be looking in his direction and coming to get him. So I think that makes sense with his kind of his resignation yesterday on the side of the road.

But, yeah, I can't imagine that he's -- I would expect that he seems like someone who is undergoing some sort of a mental or personal crisis that might be pushing him to these points.

SANCHEZ: Andrew McCabe, appreciate the insight. Thanks so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: For now, Routh is facing two gun-related charges, but sources tell CNN additional charges could be brought against him. Let's talk about this now with our legal analyst Elliot Williams. Okay, so I mentioned those two federal charges. What else could he be facing? I should mention, possession of a firearm while a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. What else could he face?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right. So right now, he's looking at about up to 15 years in prison. Now, based on what's publicly in the record so far, I think that's all you've got so far. You could be -- one could be charged with attempted assassination of a candidate for president of the United states. But you need a little bit more. You need to establish that the person knew where he was going and what he was going to do.

Now, you and I, as a matter of common sense, know this was -- come on, it was an assassination attempt. Investigators need to have the text message, the statement, the phone call where this guy says, I know this is Mar-a-Lago, and I'm going to kill the current candidate for president. I suspect more evidence will come out, more information. But right now, it's gun charges.

KEILAR: So Palm Beach County's state Attorney Dave Aronberg told NBC, it'd be difficult to charge Routh with a crime against Trump specifically. Is that sort of to your point there, or what do you think about that?

WILLIAMS: Absolutely. And I don't quite agree with that statement. In order to be charged with assassinating a candidate for president of the United States, you don't even need to know that they're a protected person. You just need to know that you're going there to kill somebody. I think right now, the evidence is in the record. You have the guy with a gun, with food there for 12 --

KEILAR: A GoPro.

WILLIAMS: A GoPro. He's there for 12 hours. He's going there to kill someone. And I think, dollars to donuts, this person knew that this was Mar-a-Lago, where the former President was. Now, again, you need one more piece of evidence to jump that link. But I have confidence, I think, that law enforcement is really trying to get to the bottom of that.

KEILAR: So the FBI is the lead agency in this. So they're doing their investigation. But you also have Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, saying the state will conduct its own investigation. I wonder what you think about that, if that's going to make things complicated.

WILLIAMS: It's going to make things very complicated, because the next statement that the Governor made was that the FBI has a conflict of interest because they're also investigating former President Trump for other unrelated conduct.

Now, the state of Florida is quite limited in what it can prosecute. It can't prosecute federal law, it can't prosecute the assassination attempt on a candidate for office.

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Now, it could prosecute trespass on private property, it could prosecute an attempted murder, but not the big federal stuff. That's going to send someone to jail for a long time. That's a little bit of partisan silliness that I think -- even though he does have that jurisdiction, I think we know what's behind some of that.

KEILAR: It is worth noting that you worked at DHS for five years. That is the department that oversees the Secret Service. You're watching this episode. You saw what happened a couple months ago. What kind of systemic review do you think needs to happen there?

WILLIAMS: It needs to be outside of Congress. Now, the body that would do this normally, Brianna, would be Congress to decide, do we need more troops, more bodies, more money, whatever it is? But Congress, they devolved so quickly into the partisan fighting.

KEILAR: Well, Biden said today, he said, Congress, there needs to be more personnel than he'd get with Congress.

WILLIAMS: Sure. This Elliott is saying this is bigger than Congress. This is 9/11 style commission to revamp how we protect our former Presidents. It cannot be the case that twice in three or four months, there's a serious credible threat on a former President's life. And regardless of the fact that he's a candidate for office. There's something systemic happening. And it's not just, oh, we need to fire the guy or the woman who's in charge. You have to overhaul the whole system. And I think I personally don't have a lot of faith that Congress is the one to do it. It's got to be far bigger than that.

KEILAR: That it seems more emergent than that prescription. Really interesting. Elliot, thank you so much. Appreciate it. A congressional task force is already investigating the July assassination attempt against former President Trump. And they've now requested a briefing with Secret Service over the second apparent attempt. We'll have the Ranking Member of that task force joining us next. What questions he has for the agency right after this.

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SANCHEZ: The Congressional Task Force formed after the first attempt on Donald Trump's life is now seeking a new briefing with the Secret Service about this second apparent plot against the former President. Court documents show the suspect appears to have been lying in wait for nearly 12 hours just outside the golf course.

Joining us now is Congressman Jason Crow. He's the Ranking Democrat on that task force. Congressman, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us. What do you make of the security response to this event? What do you think could have been done differently?

JASON CROW, UNITED STATES REPRESENTATIVE: Well, thanks for having me. It's too early to tell right now or to make any conclusions about what exactly happened or didn't happen here. You know, I'm grateful that the former President was unharmed. And it did appear as though the Secret Service did foil this attempted -- assassination attempt, although we have to wait for more information from federal law enforcement. But what's important here is to know what type of situation we're dealing with, right?

Our task force was convened in focusing on the Butler, Pennsylvania incident. And in that incident, there were numerous security lapses and failures, right? Protocols that were not followed, things that weren't done that were supposed to be done. What we don't know is whether or not this is a situation where protocols weren't followed or whether the Secret Service just simply doesn't have the resources and the manpower and the capability that it needs to meet the threats that we're facing right now. So it's an important distinction, and it's one that we're going to be looking into.

SANCHEZ: There are a number of lawmakers, including President Biden himself, who have made the argument about resources he's calling on Congress to bolster the Secret Service. What do you think needs to happen to expedite that? Could the Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, do more in the meantime?

CROW: Well, there's no doubt in my mind that there needs to be additional resources. Let's just look at the situation we're dealing with right now. We're dealing with an environment of heightened threats, right? Members of Congress face four times as many threats as they normally do, threats against presidential candidates, against the president, the former President, elected officials everywhere around the country are facing threats at all levels, right?

We are in a heightened threat environment. At the same time, we have a situation in this political campaign, this presidential campaign, where you have a current sitting President that's receiving presidential level security but is not a candidate. You have a Vice President who is a candidate, and you have a former President who is a candidate. So you have three individuals that need presidential level security, which is the first time we've ever faced that situation, at the same time as the secret Service has been working double overtime in this environment because of the threats.

Acting Director Rowe came before our task force just last week and testified that his agents are, in his words, redlined, right? They have been working double overtime for over a year. You can't expect people to be working 80, 90, 100 hours, weeks in perpetuity and for them to maintain the level of acuity and focus that we demand and expect of those agents.

SANCHEZ: And Congressman, on top of that additional personnel, some lawmakers are calling for a different approach from the Secret Service when it comes to addressing the public and providing the public with information. I want to play a clip of Congressman Mike Waltz of Florida, a Republican. He was speaking to Dana Bash earlier today. Let's listen.

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MIKE WALTZ, TASK FORCE INVESTIGATING TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: Well, remember, the Secret Service director Cheatle kind of took that approach. I can't talk about it.

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And that was totally unacceptable to Congress and to the American people. I think this is such a unique moment in American history and so dangerous. I think this is a moment, break your established protocols and tell the American people what you know or what you don't know, even if you have to go back and correct it later. More information is better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Do you think that this is a time, given the unprecedented nature of the climate that we're in, to, as the congressman says, break the established protocol and provide as much information as possible to the public, even if there are things that later on need to be corrected?

CROW: Well, what I don't know is whether Mr. Waltz was talking about the criminal investigation, in which case it's the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, that has jurisdiction over conducting a criminal investigation about any of these attempted plots or these attempts or security protocol itself, right?

So Secret Service security protocol, much of that has to remain classified. And actually, our task force received a classified briefing last week by the Acting Director of the Secret Service about what protocols are in place, the level of personnel, the resources, and how things are done. Listen, that should not be public, right? We are not going to publicize how we protect our presidents and our presidential candidates, period. That is not something that we want our adversaries or people to know.

When it comes to investigations, however, of attempts or specific situations, yeah, I'm always in favor of transparency. I think people need to know what's happening, why it's happening. Obviously, there are ongoing criminal investigations that have a certain level of secrecy. That's law. As a matter of fact, law dictates that grand jury proceedings and criminal proceedings are sealed until trials. But the extent to which we do demand transparency, I think is important because the American people need to know that there are candidates, that their elected officials are secured. And that's one of the big reasons why Congress created our task force, is to actually have public transparent hearings about that very topic.

SANCHEZ: Congressman, there is no indication that yesterday's incident is in any way connected. But CNN has new reporting that Iran has renewed its efforts to launch attacks against former President Trump and people in his circle. Do you think that that requires some kind of preemptive deterrence on part of the United States?

CROW: Yeah. I mean, first of all, you're right, there is no indication of any connection whatsoever. And that's what investigations are all about. I never jumped to conclusions here because that gets dangerous. And we just want to make sure we're putting out good and accurate information to people. So there's a variety of threats. We do know that there have been foreign plots and attempts to target elected officials, U.S. elected officials, current and former elected officials of both parties, by the way, not just one party or one president, but anyone that they believe that some of our adversaries have believed have maligned to them or created problems in their countries.

We know that's a threat. We know that lone wolf actors are a threat. We know that political extremism is a threat. So there's numerous different types of threats that our candidates are facing. and all of them deserve a high level of attention.

SANCHEZ: Congressman Jason Crow, we have to leave the conversation there. Appreciate the time, sir.

CROW: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: We have much more on the apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump ahead. But first, why Washington and South Korea are now racing to finalize an agreement involving U.S. troops ahead of a potential Trump election victory.

Plus what Dolphins Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa just said about his retirement. Actually, a decision that he's opted against after a frightening fourth concussion. We'll be right back.

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