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FBI: Trump Agrees To Victim Interview In Shooting Investigation; Trump Repeats 2020 Lies, Claims Without Proof Democrats Will "Cheat Again In This Election". Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired July 29, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:43]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you are in the CNN Newsroom on this Monday. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. And we begin with breaking news. We're just getting some brand new details from the FBI this morning surrounding the investigation into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. The former president has agreed to meet with the bureau for a victim interview. CNN senior justice correspondent, Evan Perez, joins us now. I mean, Evan, this would be routine in the investigation. But it's also pretty significant, extraordinary given it's Donald Trump.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right, because it is the former president obviously, this was something that was being closely watched. And the FBI requested the interview, the foreign president has now agreed to it is a voluntary thing. And it is the standard part of -- of an investigation like this, right? He is considered to be a victim of a crime. And so therefore, they want to talk to him about what he experienced that day. Is there anything that they're missing about what -- anything that he saw or -- or witnessed before this shooting took place?

So those are parts of the -- the -- the standard process. What is interesting, too, is -- is a lot -- a lot of new details that we got from this call with the senior officials of the -- of the FBI who are overseeing this investigation, and including the fact that they said that, again, no motive so far has been uncovered as part of this investigation. They've also found no co-conspirators, any accomplices. But they spent a lot of time trying to understand him. And they think, you know, again, he's a -- he was a loner, he was -- essentially his social circle was his family.

And then he spent a significant amount of time preparing for this attack. He bought gun components and -- and he also bought chemicals to make his improvised devices. He bought those online using aliases, using encrypted e-mails. Those are the things that the FBI has been spending so much time trying to get into. We also know that, you know, he spent a lot of time, you know, that day visiting the site, doing essentially surveillance ahead of when the former president finally gets on stage. And one of the things that the FBI is still trying to -- the -- the behavioral analysis people are trying to understand is, you know, again, how does this fit with his mental state? Something we know, he researched depression and so on. The question is, you know, was he ever treated for that? They've found no indication of that yet right now.

BROWN: And we're also we want to note, so as the FBI investigation continues, they're trying to piece this together, we were set to see some more key Senate testimony on the investigation this week. This is the fourth, I believe --

PEREZ: Right.

BROWN: -- major hearing on the assassination attempt. What are we expecting?

PEREZ: Well, we expect that the -- they're going to be pressed to provide as much pot -- as much as they can on the events that day and what went wrong. Of course, the FBI as part of this is really just a shooter. But we also expect that the Secret Service will be providing testimony and hopefully, a little bit more prepared than the director was last -- last week before she resigned. So we expect that they're going to be pressed on how many of these lapses happened. From what we can tell, there's overlapping lapses that happened here, Pamela. And, you know, it's clear that just by matter of luck and -- and millimeters, the former president wasn't more seriously injured, or perhaps even killed that day.

BROWN: Right. I mean, the more we're learning, the more we're seeing that the communication breakdowns and so forth.

PEREZ: Right. For 90 minutes, they -- they were looking for him. And it -- it just doesn't seem like they were able to, well, we know that they never -- were never able to find him.

BROWN: Yes.

PEREZ: But just the -- the -- the sort of effort on the ground before he takes the stage is kind of remarkable to watch.

BROWN: And -- and we're now hearing "ABC" interview the SWAT team --

PEREZ: Right.

BROWN: -- that said that they were supposed to be connected with the Secret Service on that day that never happened and comms are off. I mean we're learning so much more. Evan Perez, thanks for bringing us the latest on the investigation from the FBI.

I want to go straight to Josh Campbell for more on this. Just on the Donald Trump aspect, I mean, this is -- can we just take a step back on this and he is going to be interviewed by the FBI as victims, when simultaneously he has been under investigation by the FBI on several different avenues and he has been attacking the FBI for years and Director Wray and it's just kind of a remarkable moment in that way, but also as Evan pointed out, it -- it would be expected right?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It is. And this is what they call a standard witness interview. I actually don't think that there's much that the former president is going to provide the FBI investigatively. I mean he was obviously a -- a central victim in this mass shooting. But everything that we saw, there's so much video of it, they've been collecting evidence talking with witnesses.

[11:05:14]

Again, you know, we've seen that moment over and over now where he's speaking and all of a sudden gunfire erupts. So again, I -- I, you know, I doubt he -- he saw something himself, that would be advantageous to the investigation. But to your point, I think the news would be if he didn't want to be interviewed by the FBI. But officials making clear on that call just a short time ago that this is a standard, this is something that -- that they would try to do in every single case.

That -- that call that we just got, the update from the bureau is really interesting, not only because of, as you mentioned, with the former president now being interviewed, but I think, you know, we're finally getting some insight into the mind of the shooter from the behavioral professionals at the FBI, the so called profilers that I'm sure everyone is familiar with, as Evan was just mentioning there, they determined that this person is what they believe to be highly intelligent. They described him in their own words, as a loner.

Again, his social circle, limited to just his immediate family. And interestingly, they also said that, you know, although he was a so called gamer, he didn't engage in the type of, you know, friend -- friendly, witty banter conversations that you often see within the gaming community, so someone who was certainly reclusive. They did mention that there's no evidence that he was ever treated for any type of mental health issues. But again, an interesting, we're getting that kind of mindset from the people who -- who know this best.

BROWN: I -- I want to follow up with you. I was just talking to Evan about what the SWAT team told 'ABC News" that there were supposed to be a briefing by Secret Service once they got there on the ground. And there were just, there -- there wasn't comms ever between the SWAT team and Secret Service. And that was a big, you know, security lapse, obviously. I'd like your perspective on that, as a former FBI agent, how big of a -- a deal is that?

CAMPBELL: Well, you know, there's this phrasing in both law enforcement and the military, that complacency kills. And I think that that is what it's going to turn out here. It's just the more and more that we're learning about the run up to that. And it's worth pointing out that within the Secret Service, there are two main components, there is the detail that's actually protecting the former president in real time. But there's also a separate team, the so called advanced team, they're the ones who do the site surveys. They're the ones who look for potential threats.

And it's that team that's on the former president's detail that's relying on their colleagues to ensure that once the protectee is brought into a particular area, that the place is safe, and it is secure. But, you know, we're seeing, according to, as you mentioned, comments from some of the local law enforcement officers there that the standard types of briefings that you would expect didn't happen. Have a listen to them speaking to "ABC's Good Morning America."

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GEORGE NICOL, BEAVER COUNTY SWAT TEAM: He was looking up and down the building, and just wandering around, it just seemed out of place. If we had a --a text group between the local snipers that were on scene, I'd sent those pictures out to that group and advise them of what I noticed and what I'd seen. I assume that there would be somebody coming out to, you know, speak with the -- this individual or, you know, find out what's going on.

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CAMPBELL: You know, so interesting, Pam, that a staple in law enforcement on any given day, much less a crisis situation is having the ability to communicate. Here, it appears that there was a text chain that some of the officers were on, but it didn't appear that they were even on the same channel, you know, Secret Service, their radios are encrypted, a lot of times local law enforcement can tap into that. And so you would expect that there would be at least some type of Central Command posted, a dispatcher if you will, who's getting information, relaying information back and forth, it appears that that wasn't happening in real time.

That's -- what -- what's -- what's so difficult to grasp about all this is that you had people there based on some of the witness footers that we've seen, saying, there's someone on the gun, there's a shooter on the gun, you have law enforcement, they're scrambling to try to figure out who this person was. But even in that moment, even here in the year 2024, these officers couldn't talk to each other via radio -- radio, Pam.

BROWN: Yes. And we're learning more through these text messages as you pointed out, Josh, to bring you in on that, Evan, initially, we thought there was a 60-minute gap. Now we're learning through these text messages, it actually it was longer.

PEREZ: Yes, it was 90 minutes according to these text messages, these exchanges as -- as Josh was referring to, you know, it appears these are text messages among the local law enforcement officers and a Secret Service and at -- at some point, they -- they say, we -- please send this to the Secret Service, so it's clear that they're not on the same channels, as -- as Josh was pointing out.

I'll read you just one of those from these text messages that were obtained by Senator Grassley staff, Chuck Grassley staff, he said, one -- one law enforcement person says, a kid leaning around the building we're in. I did see him with a rangefinder looking towards stage. FYI, if you want to notify Secret Service snipers to look out, I lost sight of him. Now, this is essentially the blind spot for these law enforcement people because essentially local snipers are in the -- the local sniper team is in the AGR building. They are in that building with line of sight on that rooftop.

[11:10:09]

But what they can't see is that he is standing essentially just right underneath them, right under their nose. And that's where he's doing surveillance. He's looking at -- at the stage with his rangefinder which draws the attention. And they're trying to find him. You know, it's not clear what went wrong there, but they just don't find him and by the time they do, he is already up on the roof. And within seconds is firing off shots at the former president.

BROWN: Wow. Right under their noses, as you said.

PEREZ: Right.

BROWN: Well, Evan Perez, Josh Campbell, thank you so much. And we'll be right back.

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[11:15:09]

BROWN: We are now just 99 days away from the presidential election. And look at this eye popping measure of what Kamala Harris has accomplished in the past eight days. Her campaign has raised $200 million since her bid for the White House began with President Biden's endorsement. Two of three donors are giving to the campaign for the very first time, and more than 170,000 people have volunteered to work on the campaign.

And as Harris considers her own running mate, she and her allies are ramping up attacks on Donald Trump. They will target J.D. Vance for his controversial comments and say he's too experienced to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Meanwhile, the former president is row testing his own attacks on Harris. Trump is rolling out new insults at his campaign events to find out what riles up his supporters most. He often does that.

Let's discuss with CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, Republican strategist, Doug Heye, and CNN political commentator, Jamal Simmons, he was also communications director for Vice President Harris. So we have an all-star lineup here with this panel. Ron, I'm going to kick it off with you. You had the DNC just three weeks away. The big question, can Vice President Harris maintain this incredible momentum by anyone's measure, and the run up to the convention?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. And look, the -- the biggest change in the race from a week ago before President Biden, you know, announced he wasn't going to run again, is the unleashing of Democratic enthusiasm. I mean, there is enormous energy in the Democratic Party for years now about preventing Trump from imposing his vision on America. But that was largely suppressed by the disillusionment and, you know, depression really about Democrat -- from Democrats about their prospects and Biden. The political strategist, Mike Patirizer (ph), using data from the Democratic firm, Catalyst, has calculated that there are 93 million separate people, individuals who have come out to vote against Trump, or Trumpism in 2018, 2020, and 2022. And what Harris has done, above all, she still has lots of challenges in the Electoral College and getting to 270. But what she's done is I think re-energize what that -- that coalition with Democrats called the anti-MAGA coalition, and it has put her and the party back in the game.

BROWN: It's interesting, Jamal, on that note from Ron. And -- and actually, for our viewers, you should know that Jamal served as a communications director for the Vice President. But her campaign seems to be really shifting away from focusing solely on Donald Trump's threat to democracy and towards this sentiment that he's just weird. What do you think about this shift in strategy?

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Listen, I think people know that Donald Trump, they've been hearing for a year from President Biden year and a half about him being a threat to democracy, frankly, they've been hearing about it since January 6th. So some of that's built in and people know it. But now we're getting to a different place where Democrats aren't talking about it in big lofty terms, talking about it in very straightforward words, like, it's just weird. It's odd.

These people don't think people who haven't had kids ought to participate in the government or maybe people who do have kids, you get extra votes, or maybe, you know, whatever other MAGA Project 2025 oddity that the Trump people want to go along with. They're hearing about it. And I think people -- most people in America don't -- don't really like it. They don't want to hear about it.

So, right now, you've got Donald Trump about to be investigated. We're not investigated, but we talk to you about the FBI because he's been a victim in crime. And what is it mazing is how little that seems to have impacted the electoral kind of math here. And really, now we're at a place where the Democrats are surging, and maybe they have a good perspective future.

BROWN: And Trump, for his part is responding to Harris's momentum by saying she quote, sees a horde of over $2 million from dirty liberal cash. He -- so he's framing her candidacy as essentially fraudulent and illegitimate. Doug, what do you think about that? And also, I want to get your response to the -- the weird strategy?

DOUG HEYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Well, clearly, they were planning and hoping to run against Joe Biden, that was their whole campaign strategy.

BROWN: And they made pretty obvious.

HEYE: Absolutely. Donald Trump is a ball of energy, whether you like him or not. And Joe Biden looks really sleepy. But he's now sort of -- sort of in the past tense, and they're dealing with a ball of energy right now, that is Kamala world. Democrats think that they're in the land of hope and dreams at this point, though, it's still very, very early, and this is where they have to shift.

And the good news for -- for Republicans, for the RNC, is they have two sets of records for Kamala Harris that they can use and it's what we call the book. The research department at the RNC compiles these over months and years. You have Kamala Harris's record as vice president, which is everything that American voters are upset about, with the direction of the country right now. The Biden-Harris administration, that's costs and inflation, that's the situation at the border where she was the border czar, some people say well actually she wasn't, that says it's a problem.

[11:20:06]

Then you have the set of -- of what her record is as a senator in California, and also her work in San Francisco. There's a lot of material there. Republicans don't panic, just pivot to what you should be doing anyways, in any normal campaign.

BROWN: Well, then you have Trump for his part, repeating lies about the 2020 election this weekend and began planting seeds of doubt about the outcome in November. I want to take a listen to this.

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DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If they don't cheat, we win this state easily, OK. They cheat. They have no shame, they cheat. You understand that you crooked people that are most crooked. They cheat. They cheated in the last election, and they're going to cheat in this election, but we're going to get them. They use COVID to cheat. And this time, they'll try and find something.

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BROWN: I want everyone to pay attention to that. And here's why, that is what Donald Trump did in 2016. He ended up winning. That is what he did in 2020. He lost. And then we had January 6th. Now he is doing this again, Ron, setting the stage that can have serious consequences.

BROWNSTEIN: Enormous. I mean, Trump, you know, I -- I have said that the Trump faction of the GOP rejects the basics of American democracy more fundamentally than any political movements since the John Calhoun south in the -- in the decades before the Civil War. I mean, there's no question what he is setting up. And, you know, his -- his kind of, sometimes oblique comments about dictator on day one, or you never have to vote again, you don't even have to look at kind of parsing through those comments. You -- you -- you can -- you can explore what he has specifically proposed in terms of gutting the civil service or weaponizing the Justice Department or claiming the right to fire U.S. attorneys who will not investigate specific individuals that he -- that he targets or deploying federal force into blue jurisdictions over the objections of local officials.

I mean, this -- this is why Democrats believe there is an anti-MAGA majority, based on the results of 2018 and 2022. The problem is, is that not everyone votes on those concerns, as we were talking about earlier, about democracy. Ultimately, there is a slice of the electorate, who doesn't see the choice in those terms, and are really focusing on who they believe will make life better for their family. So while Harris has enormous strengths, on prosecuting the case about democracy and rights more broadly. Ultimately, there -- there's going to have to be an economic message there too, to -- to push back against this threat, because -- because the evidence is that the voters worried about it are not quite enough on their own to win, particularly in the swing states that will decide the election.

HEYE: And here's where the weird argument I think should -- should come into play a bit more is --

BROWN: Jamal, I'll get to in just a second.

HEYE: -- everything that you've just said, you know, it comes -- comes very serious issue. Obviously, anybody's looking at Venezuela right now knows their global ramifications. But we've also heard this from Donald Trump and about Donald Trump for years. So there's -- it's just a new variation on his theme that's been very consistent. So this sort of weird argument Donald Trump talks about, do you want to drown or, you know, be electrocuted are eaten by sharks and all that kind of stuff, speaks to what Republican members of Congress have said for years and what voters have said for years.

I don't like that stuff. I don't like the tweets. I wish he'd do that less. Focus on that, and that may be a new and sort of creative way to -- to get some results where you just haven't before. I don't think there are a lot of voters who are going to be convinced on the small D democracy argument in 2024. They're already there one way or another.

BROWN: Jamal?

SIMMONS: Yes, you know, that from the Vice President has a economic message that she has been talking about, and you're going to hear a lot more about it. And the economic message starts with wages and then wealth. You know, she talks about, you know, she's very pro-union, has been meeting union members for a long time. She talks about entrepreneurship. She talks about trying to give people, you know, more -- she'd been on a wealth tour for the last few months.

But it -- it also was about healthcare and childcare. I think that's a difference for the modern Democratic Party is we think about working class voters. And as -- as a friend of mine said to me, we think of working class voters, you think of that guy with a lunch pail sitting at the diner counter, but maybe that working class voters, the woman sitting next to him, who doesn't feel like she can talk to him about politics, or the waitress who's serving him the coffee at that diner.

And for those workers, healthcare is incredibly important. And the -- the -- the key issue may be abortion and right to abortion, also Child Tax Credit, which the administration have put in place that lowered child poverty and raised wages. And when I was with the Vice President, I heard a story about a woman who was starting a business and she said she had a great business story. But every day at 3 o'clock, her business had to stop because she had to go pick her kid up from school. And so if you get childcare for that woman, she can actually be an entrepreneur that can build the economy more. So in the modern Democratic Party, I think you're talking about wealth and wages but also healthcare and childcare as part of that economic mix.

[11:25:03]

BROWN: I'm wondering Ron on that note, you know, you're so good at looking at the data and -- and looking at the map, I'm wondering, who are the voters that -- that she can bring in right now? Where should -- where should Kamala Harris target her energy that maybe Biden wasn't excelling in?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Clearly, she has the opportunity to improve on some of Biden's biggest -- biggest weaknesses. I mean, the biggest change for Biden from 2020 winning to being behind the 2024 was his erosion among younger voters and voters of color. And Vice President Harris, certainly, there's already indications in polling that she will improve among younger voters, she will improve among black voters, she will probably improve among Latinas, Latino men is a little more of a question mark, whether she can regain ground there.

And, you know, Pam, if she can do all of that, but the question then becomes, can she do it enough to put back into play any of the sunbelt states that have drifted away from Biden that are younger and more diverse, particularly Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, if she can do that she really changes the map. If she can't -- if she can't gain -- regain enough ground to -- to win Arizona, Nevada or Georgia, she's in the same position as Biden was, which is yes, across that rickety bridge of sweeping Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

And if that's the case, the key group for her becomes I think, a working class white women who are more open to Democrats in the working class white men, she polled very well, among those women and the three "Fox" polls that came out this weekend, probably the best news for Democrats and, you know, on the polling front and the last few days. But it really is a two-step question. Can she bring any of the Sunbelt states back over the line? And if she can, can she win just enough working class white voters to combine with the suburban, socially liberal white's, young people and -- and people of color to sweep those three Rust Belt battlegrounds?

BROWN: All right.

HEYE: And I would add North Carolina to that as well, a state you and I -- I know very well. As am I. And not just because of young voters, but also African American young voters. What Obama did in 2008 was he turned not just UNC, obviously, the greatest school in the state and maybe the country, turn those students out, but also the 11 HBCUs were absolute turnout machines for Obama in 2008. If Harris can replicate that, that puts the state very much in play and then makes Roy Cooper all the more interesting as well.

BROWN: That's an interesting point. For our viewers, UNC, what we're -- that's our alma mater, so we're partial to UNC. Doug Heye, Ron Brownstein, Jamal Simmons, thank you all very much for that really interesting conversation about the state of play right now in this incredible election cycle.

And coming up President Biden today is set to propose major changes to the Supreme Court like any lifetime appointments for justices. Stay with us.

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