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Trump Targeted In Apparent Assassination Attempt At His Golf Course; FBI: Trump Targeted In Apparent Assassination Attempt. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired September 15, 2024 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:01:18]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett in New York. We have breaking news tonight.

The FBI investigating what appears to be a second attempted assassination of former president Trump. Of course, it was just nine weeks ago that he was shot. The former president we are told tonight is safe, and let me tell you what we do know in this rapidly developing breaking story this hour. Trump was golfing at his golf club in West Palm Beach. The source says he was between holes five and six.

At that point, a Secret Service agent, a hole ahead, spotted a rifle barrel sticking out of a chain link fence, spotted that barrel and then opened fire. Now police say Trump was not that far away, about 300 to 500 yards. Obviously not far when a scope is involved, which it was. Shortly after authorities say a witness saw the suspect run from the bushes and then jumped into a black Nissan. The witness taking a picture of the car and plates, and that is how officials were able to detain him as he fled north.

Here is how officials are describing what they found this hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF RIC BRADSHAW, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA: In the bushes where this guy was is AK-47 style rifle with a scope, two backpacks, which were hung on the fence that had ceramic tile in them, and a GoPro, which he was going to take pictures of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: All right. So we are just learning that the person in custody has been identified and a lot is still unfolding at this hour as we are learning more about him and about what happened and of course about what could have happened.

Let start with Randi Kaye because she is outside Trump's golf club in Florida.

So, Randi, what else do we know about the suspect in the investigation right now?

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, according to sources telling CNN, Erin, we have an identity of the suspect. His name is Ryan Wesley Routh. That's according to several sources telling CNN. We know that when he was taken into custody, according to law enforcement, that he was relatively calm. He wasn't displaying much emotion. And now we know some of the history in terms of what happened here this afternoon here at Trump International Golf Club behind me.

We know that it was somewhere in between the fifth and sixth hole when the Secret Service had spotted this alleged gunman. They saw the rifle, the barrel of his rifle poking through the fence. They engaged him in gunfire and he fled. And that's when law enforcement went after him. They found a witness who had taken a picture of the car, black Nissan, that he was traveling in apparently, as well as the license plate.

They were able to track him down in Martin County, which is a short distance north of this golf club, and take him into custody. And as I said, he was relatively calm and didn't show much emotion according to officials.

But it's amazing, Erin, really striking that he was able to -- allegedly able to get access to the perimeter of this golf club. As we know, there's a gate here at the club here behind me, so there's heavy security if you're trying to get inside the club this way. The only way really to get access to this golf course, this 27-hole golf course is along those perimeters. This is a golf course with a lot of rolling hills, a lot of bunkers, a lot of thick trees.

So certainly there are places to hide here. But apparently they did spot that, security team did spot the barrel of that rifle as they were walking along the golf course. But I can tell you the scene here, Erin, is still very pretty much active. There have been crime scene vans coming in and out of the entrance here at the golf club. The only traffic along this area, along this street behind me here, Summit Boulevard, as you just saw, is a sheriff's car go by is just law enforcement and media.

There is no other access to this Summit Boulevard in front of the international golf of club here and also the other roads surrounding the club are shut down as well.

[19:05:08]

So certainly heavy investigations underway still. They're trying to get some answers as to who this person is, what his plan was, and how this was able to possibly unfold here at Trump International Golf Club -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Randi, as you get more, we're going to be coming back to you, of course, as we continue to cover this in this story developing.

Look, it's stunning and it's shocking that we're all sitting here in this situation again, and of course, the golf course, the former president, even after the assassination attempt nine weeks ago, still did not have the same level of Secret Service protection that he would have had if he were a sitting president.

I want to go to Kristen Holmes, who's obviously in contact constantly with your sources, Kristen, in the Trump campaign. What are you hearing so far from them as they are reacting to the shock of what has happened here?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, there are still obviously a lot of questions. Now when it comes to security they have noticed they have talked about consistently the upgraded security they have seen since the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. That means more Secret Service agents with him at almost all times. We know that in that situation when he was on the golf course, he had at least two sets of Secret Service agents with him.

The first one was ahead of him by number of holes. Those are the Secret Service agents who spotted the suspect in the bushes, spotted the rifle and engaged with him. We know that he also had a number of Secret Service agents with him back on the course, right? As you said, between holes five and six, who whisked him off into security.

He was golfing with megadonor and allies, Steve Witkoff, when they were rushed back to the actual golf course area to the golf lounge where they were held in a hold for several hours as there were security sweeps, as they were trying to -- they being law enforcement -- figure out what exactly had happened, if there was more than one gunman, if this was intentional.

But it was pretty quickly that we learned from officials that they did believe that Donald Trump was the target and that this could be a potential another assassination attempt here. So now we have seen him go back to Mar-a-Lago. It is unclear if he is still at his Mar-a-Lago resort, but one of the big questions that we have heard from these various campaign officials is how was it possible that this suspect knew where Donald Trump was going to be.

Just a reminder here, Donald Trump does not have a public schedule. He is not the sitting president. He does not have a pool that travels with him at all times. And just to give you the scope of the last week, he has been all over the country and all over his various properties from Trump Tower to Bedminster back to Mar-a-Lago in between campaign events, and I spoke to five or six very close confidants of the former president after in the aftermath of the shooting.

And none of them were 100 percent sure that he was going to be in West Palm Beach or in Palm Beach, meaning that it was unclear to even people who are the closest to him, who talk to him on a regular basis, where he was traveling this weekend. So how exactly did the suspect know he was not only going to be in Palm Beach, but not at his Mar-a- Lago home, but at this golf course? Now one of the things that we were reporting from a number of sources in law enforcement world is how hard it is to secure a golf course like this.

We do know that after that Butler, Pennsylvania, assassination attempt, there have been a number of measures taken all over Donald Trump's home in West Palm Beach. But it's unclear whether or not that extended to the golf course as well when talking about street closures. There are several streets all around that Mar-a-Lago resort that are now going to be closed until likely after the election, potentially even through December or January.

That's what we've been told by law enforcement officials. There is an uptick in police presence, not just Secret Service agents, but also on the ground. People who are around him at all times from West Palm Beach, from the Palm Beach County, from the very sheriff's offices in the area. They have tried to secure these areas, but as you can see there, this is still a very wide property. You can see just from the image we're showing you right now, how much foliage there is. The trees there, the brush.

And that of course is where we believe, not that spot exactly, but within that brushes where we believe that the suspect was essentially lying in wait, that is where we saw those Secret Service agents so we've learned about those Secret Service agents who saw the barrel of the rifle and engage. And one thing I will tell you is there is a lot of celebration of the Secret Service's actions among some of the campaign officials who I've spoken to.

Just because if you remember what happened in Butler, there were so many questions as to why the Secret Service didn't engage sooner with the shooter. It appears, based on the preliminary knowledge here, that they did engage and engaged very quickly with the shooter, with the suspect who was then able to get away before being apprehended by law enforcement.

But there are still a lot of questions here as to how exactly they can keep this man, the former president, safe given these circumstances in this truly unprecedented situation, where just in a span of two months a former president and the current Republican nominee has had two assassination attempts on his life.

[19:10:10]

BURNETT: All right. Kristen, thank you very much. And as you get more and certainly on the state of the former president's mind, you're going to be back with us of course, and nothing could be more important than that. I mean, someone tried to shoot you twice in nine weeks. Just to think about this on a human perspective, what this means for what state of mind he is going to be in, what's going to happen from here obviously is crucial.

Our law enforcement analysts are with us now. Our chief CNN law enforcement intelligence analyst, John Miller, senior national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, and former Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow also with me right now.

So let me ask you, John Miller, what you're learning right now and I know that Kristen and Randi were going through some of the details about the suspect who I just want to make sure everyone knows since we are talking about the second assassination attempt, it appears in nine weeks that this individual is in custody. That Secret Service engaged him. He tried to flee, but he is in custody, so they're able to question him.

I don't, at least from my understanding, he hasn't said anything as of yet. But what are you learning from your sources about this individual? And why he was there, to Kristen's point, if no one else knew Trump for sure was going to be Florida, never mind at Mar-a-Lago on the golf course? Was he just sitting there every day waiting for this opportunity or did he have some sort of information?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, what we know is Ryan Wesley Routh, who is a 58-year-old individual who has lived in Hawaii, has worked as a construction worker in North Carolina, is in Florida today in custody. He was arrested driving a car that was registered to what we believe is his daughter. And how did he know to be on that golf course on that perimeter at that time on this day, is one of the key questions that the FBI and the Secret Service, from a protective intelligence standpoint, are going to need to know the answer to.

But there is one possibility, because Kristen Holmes, who has done incredible reporting throughout the day on this, you know, tells us it's not on a public schedule. It is, you know, not known to people that, you know, where he's going and when. But she also reported when he moves, it's a big cavalcade of cars. So if you see it going from one place to another you can have an idea. But more relevantly, in today's age, and we experienced this in New York City, protecting presidents where we would do something called an OTR, an off-the- record.

It wasn't on the schedule. They would go to dinner at a place. It would be some private meeting where people spot that on social media and they'd put it out so if he was in the area lingering for a long time looking for that information they'll have to go back through his social media, and that somebody say, I'm on the golf course and Donald Trump is here.

BURNETT: And that's possible that we don't yet know whether when they scour that, what they will find.

Jonathan Wackrow, we also don't know exactly the distance, for example, right now between the Secret Service agent who spotted that barrel AK-47, the barrel sticking through that chain link fence with the scope. The distance between the agent and between that gun, whether they saw it with the naked eye or not, we know that this all went down very quickly, that that gun was already, you know, through the chain link fence waiting.

So, Jonathan, you know, what is your view, from what we know right now, it's limited, but that's what we know about the actions of that Secret Service agent?

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, you know, I think it's important to understand that the Secret Service has been dealing with protectees that play golf for a very long time. And they've curated over the years the protective model. And what I mean by that is if you think about a golf course, it's a very large area of real estate to secure. So what they've done is stay basically create a moving bubble around the protectee, in this case the former president of the United States.

And in that bubble, you have what we've seen numerous times, which is the protective agents, the women and men that surround the former president. But the protective model here also bumps out a little bit. And what you have is you have agents that flank to the left and to the right of the protectee along the edges of those fairways and pushing out even further. And you have agents that are in advance, and I don't want to divulge how many because that is -- you know, would reveal too much of the security plan.

But there are agents that go out in advance and they are literally specifically looking for this type of threat, that would-be assassin, that's lying in wait. They're trying to take advantage of cover and concealment to then launch an attack. And that's what we had today. One of those agents came across, identified the threat and immediately reacted to it.

[19:15:05]

Again, averting a potential disaster, had the president come close enough to be within sight of that would-be assassin.

BURNETT: Juliette Kayyem, we don't have the exact distance from the shooter to the former president either way. We have a range of 300 to 500 yards, which with a scope, of course, is, you know, that can be shot. We all understand that. But what does that mean to you, Juliette, that this was close enough from the perspective of somebody who knows what they're doing with a scope and a gun can shoot and succeed at hitting their target from that distance.

And that's a distance we're talking about. When we're just trying to understand here how close this actually came to happening?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, we're also assuming that at the moment that the Secret Service agent engaged him was the moment that he intended on shooting Trump because we don't know if Trump would have gotten closer to him just given the layout, if you look at the layout in terms of where he was. So the engagement may have happened at a time when he was further from Trump than he, than the assassin essentially intended.

And regardless, it's all too close, it shows the challenges of setting up legitimate security perimeters when you have people who are targets, who are former presidents and presidential candidates. And you simply cannot have a security perimeter that encompasses all of all of, you know, all of that area in Florida. So this was incredible work by the Secret Service, it appears at this stage, probably a lot of luck, but also the assassin's intent of when engagement or when the shots would have been fired was may have been later.

And we would have reason to believe that only because his backpacks are still on the fence. We don't know where Trump was going to be at that stage.

BURNETT: Right. All right. Well, we're all going to be returning in just a moment. And of course, you know, the fact that this individual is Ryan Wesley Routh is in custody is hugely significant. And he had an escape plan, right? So he was planning on getting away as he indeed tried to do when the Secret Service engaged him.

Our breaking news coverage continues here on CNN, on the back of this appearing attempt, assassination attempt on former president Trump on a golf course today. We will be back here on CNN in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:22:11]

BURNETT: And welcome back to our breaking news coverage here on CNN.

At this moment, the FBI is investigating what appears to be a second assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump. A suspect is in custody. The former president is safe according to several people in his orbit. He has of course posted on social media. The assassination attempt, and we understand, involving an AK-47. It happened just before 2:00 this afternoon. Trump was at a place he would consider to be incredibly safe, in his safe private area, his own golf course in West Palm Beach. He is now back at Mar-a-Lago. That is where we find our own Carlos Suarez.

And Carlos, what are you hearing and what are you actually seeing there from where you're standing in terms of security?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, we are still getting some reaction from the Trump campaign. Just a few minutes ago, the campaign put out a statement on behalf of the former president, a fundraising e-mail that says, quote, "My resolve is only stronger after another attempt on my life. I will never slowed down. I will never give up. I will never surrender." Those words again coming from a fundraising e-mail that the Trump campaign just released a few minutes ago.

As you noted, Erin, we are outside of Mar-a-Lago. That's about 10 to 15-minute drive from the golf course where this incident took place. Now, it is important to note that the security measures that we're seeing outside of Trump's property here at Mar-a-Lago, they were put in place after the first attempted assassination of the former president in Pennsylvania. Southern Boulevard, which runs from the mainland and connects out to palm beach. That remains open at this hour, though there are two security checkpoints that are being manned by the sheriff's office, though deputies are at this hour not searching any cars, trying to cross over.

There is a small island between the mainland here and Palm Beach that is normally open to the public. Folks are able to park in this lot here and they're able to you got to look at the Mar-a-Lago property. However, that has been closed. Now, even if you're able to get out onto Palm Beach you're not really able to get anywhere near Mar-a-Lago because South Ocean Boulevard, which runs the perimeter of this property, was closed as a result of this attempted assassination in Pennsylvania.

And so folks or only focus that live in that neighborhood or visiting someone that lives in that neighborhood, are able to get out from the mainland across the intercoastal here. Again, as I noted, we're about 10 to 15 minutes from where this incident took place at the golf course. But even for us to get from that original location here, it took us a bit longer because as my colleague Randi Kaye has been reporting all night, setting overall streets have been closed around the golf course as this investigation unfolds. And so it was difficult for us just to head east from where this golf course is located.

[19:25:04]

Erin, one final note. The last time that we were in this area was for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit with the former president here at Mar-a-Lago. That was in late July and we saw these types of measures already in place.

We're told that it appears that former president's trip from the golf course to his property here earlier this afternoon may have been held up a bit because law enforcement wanted to make sure that it was not only safe for him to leave the golf course, but of course they had to make sure that the route that they were going to take, again, only 10 to 15 minutes from where we are was safe enough for the former president to travel -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Carlos, thank you very much. And we're going to go back to you.

I want to go to Rob D'Amico. Used to be an FBI supervisory special agent. So Rob, I'm glad to see you. Of course, not under these circumstances, although thank goodness that this attempt failed. What is standing out to you from what you are hearing so far from our reporting?

ROB D'AMICO, RETIRED FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: So two things. One is I think you're seeing that complacency that maybe allowed Pennsylvania to happen stop this one. So I don't know. And I can't get into the -- you know, mind of the officer, the Secret Service guy. But if he had seen this rifle barrel sticking out before Pennsylvania, would he have taken that shot? I don't know if he would have.

I think the heightened alert and this is real, this is -- people are going to take, you know, take assassination attempts, I think played into this and it stopped it. But what I also think is your last -- Juliette mentioned I think that he caught him early. I think this was an advance agent about a hole ahead of the president, and when looking at it, he didn't have his vest on. So we had a vest with ceramic plates on which tells me he was looking at an encounter with law enforcement. He didn't have it on.

He had his backpacks on the thing. He might have been doing what we call as a former sniper scope check. So you want to put your weapon where you're going to shoot from. You want to see your field of view through the scope. And he got caught by the Secret Service agent who's advancing the next hole.

BURNETT: So when you hear ceramic tiles --

D'AMICO: And then he engaged him. So I think -- go ahead.

BURNETT: No, Rob, I was just saying so those ceramic tiles in the backpack, what you're saying is that it appears to you that he could have been setting up the gun, making sure everything was ready, and then he would have put those on.

D'AMICO: Yes. Because the ceramic plates are -- the reason that you put ceramic plates on it for a rifle engagement. They stopped rifle rounds. So he is looking for an encounter. Why else would you bring it and put it there if you're not, like, going to put it on through the event. So I think he was preparing and he was looking out the chain link fence that he was on, and seeing what his scope can see because there's scope when you start looking through a scope, it really brings down the field of view.

So he's probably checking that out seeing where he could actually engage the former president. And the Secret Service agent sees his barrel sticking out, which again is a bad sniper tactic. You never allow your barrel to go past something. But he did that. Secret Service agent sees it and engages him right away.

I don't think he would engage him right away if it hadn't been for Pennsylvania, but I think they caught him beforehand. I think he was waiting for him to get in what we call an ambush zone where it's a shorter distance and he has better field of vision and that agent interrupted it.

BURNETT: All right. Rob, thank you very much. Obviously, that context hugely important as we all try to understand exactly what happened here as the story keeps developing.

Thank you, Rob. We'll be speaking to you shortly.

And next, we're going to be talking to a reporter who has incredible sources inside Trump's innermost circle. He'll be with us next in Florida near Mar-a-Lago. We'll be back with that in just a moment as our breaking news coverage continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:33:31]

BURNET: All right. Marc Caputo is with me now for our breaking news coverage. He has a national political reporter for "The Bulwark" obviously, with the incredible sourcing inside the Trump campaign and Trump inner circle.

So, Marc, what are you hearing on the back of this -- honestly, he's on a golf course. He's on his golf course. He's on a Sunday afternoon. He is in what he would continue -- consider to be as much of a safe place as he could be and this happened.

So, what are you hearing of their reaction -- his reaction?

MARC CAPUTO, "THE BULWARK" NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: I'm not hearing what his reaction is specifically to this right now, but what I'm hearing from people who know him is that there is a tremendous amount of anger in Trumps inner circle, outer circle, on social media. And there was already considerable amount of paranoia and that's only going to increase

The second assassination attempt I don't think we've ever seen this before. There are loads of questions as to how this happened, why he didn't have greater security from Secret Service. And you're going to hear a lot more about that. Who knows, in the coming minutes or the coming days?

BURNETT: Are you hearing anything about their sense of who knew where he was going to be? Because we're in a situation now, Mark, where either this guy went there randomly lots of times and maybe Trump came along one day. That's one scenario.

The other scenario is that this guy somehow knew that Trump was going to be playing golf on this Sunday afternoon and that he is obviously not, as a president, he doesn't put out a schedule, so there was no schedule.

And in fact, he often is not there and so, it might have implied some sort of knowledge. Are you hearing anything about that of, I don't, when the president decided he was going to be here or anything about that?

CAPUTO: Two schools of thought, number one, that falls into the paranoic basket, right.

BURNETT: Yes.

[19:35:24]

CAPUTO: How did he know? And in talking to local law enforcement, there are questions about how this man knew that now. It is true that Donald Trump is somewhat of a creature of habit. He does have a tendency to play golf on Sundays when he's in town.

And the question that no one's able to answer yet and hopefully will be answered is this person, the alleged assassin, appeared to have been from out-of-state. How did he drive down there? How did he case the joint? How do you know when the former president would be there and come within his potential line of sight?

There's a whole load of questions and local law enforcement that I've talked to have asked the same questions and no one really knows.

But leading up to this, the former president had been subject to some critical coverage in the news media for stoking some conspiracy theories about the first assassination attempt. And now that the second one came along, its going be hard to persuade him otherwise that there is not some deeper, darker force at work.

I'm not saying that there is, but this is just his belief system and it's only strengthened by the situation.

BURNETT: So, you talk about anger and paranoia as to where you used to describe the feelings among those around him tonight. What is the morale situation on the campaign?

CAPUTO: You know generally, despite a lot of the critical coverage of the Trump campaign, his top pollster Tony Fabrizio, has been on numerous calls up before this telling Republicans like, look, my polling, and he is a top pollster, one of the top pollsters in the nation, if not the top pollster was showing Trump either winning or within striking distance of winning.

And they have, at least to me and to others in political circles, have been putting on a very brave facing, look, were not that worried. We're going to be able to do this. We're going to be able to win.

This is going to have a rally around the chief effect to the degree it wasn't happening anyway, but it was happening. And yes, there has been some internal drama in the Trump campaign with the addition of some new personalities, as well as some of the negative press.

But as far as Republicans are concerned that Trump campaign is concerned they're all in behind the former president and you're not going to see that change.

BURNETT: I'm just looking here at the emails coming in from the Trump campaign. He's saying he's safe and obviously, money is going to come in as a result of this, we're looking at traffic by the way, just so everyone understands how shutdown it is down there in that area, right now.

This is North of Mar-a-Lago, to get a sense of the complete shutdown that there is right now as were talking, Mark.

But in terms of fundraising, obviously, the Trump campaign has been massively out fundraised by the Harris campaign. I mean, two to one and it's not even in the same ball park but you have something like this happen and just to be real, maybe crass, but I'm going to be real here. He's going to raise money off of this.

CAPUTO: Certainly he's going to raise money off of this and yes, you can say you're being crass or say I'm being crass. But these are political actors, they're political creatures in a political environment and politics is the reality.

And the other reality is that, this is going to change some of the messaging from the Trump campaign going forward. They had been taking a number of shots. There have been a few critical reports on the nightly news about the Trump campaign rhetoric, while in the Trump campaign's eyes and Trump supporter's eyes and in Trump's eyes the Democrats have something to answer for because they've been calling him a threat to democracy and they've been saying that democracy is on the ballot.

This alleged assassin, if you go through his twitter feed, has an actual line in there about how he's critical of Trump and how he believes that democracy is on the ballot. So expect them to go on offense messaging wise about this and say, we're not the ones inciting people to violence, it's these other people were trying to kill the former president. BURNETT: All right. Marc Caputo, thank you very much and if you hear

anything new in these next minutes here is, as I'm here, please come on back and let us now. Marc Caputo, thank you very much.

We will take a brief break here. Obviously, dusk descending in Mar-a- Lago on the east coast. Our breaking news coverage continues after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:39:17]

BURNETT: And, welcome back to our breaking coverage here on CNN. Andrew McCabe joins me, the former deputy FBI director, along with retired supervisory special agent of the FBI, Steve Moore.

Thanks very much to both of you. And as we are just getting more information in about Ryan Wesley Routh, that is who we understand is the man who was behind this appearing, attempted assassination.

Deputy director McCabe, what stands out to you about how he got there, right? How he gets along this golf course somewhere between hole five and six on this Sunday afternoon at this time?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, it's really remarkable, Erin.

I think, this is a good graphic to have up. If you look hole five concludes right in the corner where it's indicated hole five. And then hole six runs from that point all the way down that right side of the golf course there.

So basically, from your hole five to hole six indicators. That's hole six. So we know that the president was walking from five to six when the shots rang out.

We also know that it was the advanced agents that saw the shooter and they are essentially one hole in front. So, they were likely walking from six to seven, which is just right around the corner.

If you look at it very closely on the map, it's a place where if he had not been seen, when the president went from hole six to seven, he would have been in the tee boxes, which is the beginning of whole seven, very, very close to the fence that runs right along that bottom street there, which is summit avenue.

So, it's a remarkably advantageous place for this shooter to post up, that transition between six and seven. And so, it raises all these --

BURNETT: No, I'm saying that would imply, I mean, it would imply certainly a level of knowledge of the course, and surveillance, and I mean, quite a bit of that, frankly, right.

CAPUTO: That's, right and it would show a high degree of planning, high degree of forethought. It's great evidence of intent. So it's all its good for the investigators. It would, as you said, it would indicate that he knew the layout of

the course, which is not hard. You can figure that out off the internet. The question is, how did he know the president would be there at that moment today and you know, the two, extremes of that are, well, maybe he had information from someone who knew, that's the worst possible scenario. The opposite extremist, well, maybe he just got completely lucky and he went to this place knowing it was a place of advantage and he decided to hide their wait. I think that's unlikely as well.

In the middle is probably where we're going to find this out. It may be that he has been surveilling the presidents movements, which is easy to do just by watching the motorcade come in and out of Mar-a- Lago and go from Mar-a-Lago over to the Trump international golf course probably on many occasions.

And so, realizing you could generally divide a pattern of activity. You could watch for the movement of the motorcade to know when to go over there and then put yourself in that position at the right time. My guess is that's probably the most likely version of what were going to find out once the investigators get into this guy's devices and materials.

BURNETT: And you know, Steve, I guess just to contrast this with what we saw in Pennsylvania, the shooter there not only really do we know very little about motivation, history on social? We just don't know much. Shooter also is dead, right? This man intended to live, right? He had the ceramic tiles and when he was shot as he fled, and he had a getaway car.

So he intended to live. Any did live and he's now in custody. As far as I understand, Steve, that he hasn't yet said anything, but that could change at any moment and well update everybody what it does. But do you think we are going to get the full story here from him under questioning from law enforcement?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: You know, when you go in on the kinds of interviews immediately after a crime, you have two types of suspects, you have the one who wants to brag about everything they've done. It's all about them. It's all about look what I did.

Then, there's the other one ones who are guarded because they know their consequences. I would suspect, even though this guy tried to escape, that they're getting more information than you would expect. I mean, he knows the whole thing is up it's -- he probably is got so politically motivated or psychologically motivated that he wants to tell people about it. And he'll brag about -- I found that people will brag about how they how they set their crimes up.

They love to talk about how smart they were. This guy, for instance, I mean, before you can shoot somebody like that, before you can ambush them you need to know where they're going to be. Well, on a fairway, you could be anywhere but as you know, in golf, you're going to spend lot of time on the green and a lot of time in the tee box. And so, that's where he waited for him. BURNETT: All right. Well, both, thank you very much as our breaking

coverage, it continues. Reaction here. We're learning now more from the White House. We'll take a brief break and we'll go there after that.

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[19:49:38]

BURNETT: Our breaking news coverage here of the appearing attempted assassination of former President Trump this afternoon at a golf course in Florida continues. Let's go to the White House now. New reaction from there, our Sunlen Serfaty is in the White House North Lawn on this Sunday night. Sunlen, what are you learning?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Erin, both President Biden and Vice President Harris expressing their relief that the former president Trump is safe. They both were briefed on this situation earlier today by their team and they say that their team will rise regularly update them on the situation.

And specifically in her statement, Vice President Harris, she condemn political violence, said that violence has no place in America. Now, meantime, on Capitol Hill, the Congressional Task Force that is looking into the first attempted assassination attempt to President Trump.

They have released a statement just in the last hour calling for a briefing, this week from the US Secret Service. They stated a statement, "We have requested a briefing with the US Secret Service about what happened and how security responded. We are thankful that the former president was not harmed, but remain deeply concerned about political violence and condemn it in all of its form.

Now, notably, this task force was of course, first formed back in July in the aftermath of Butler, Pennsylvania that first assassination attempt.

Notably, this committee is going to have more lines of inquiry with this incident today. Now, Erin, we are hearing from other reactions from members on Capitol Hill Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, revealed that he spent a few hours with President Trump down in Mar-a- Lago today at some point, were not aware exactly when he spent time with them, but he said him and his wife spent a few hours with him today at his private resort. And he's very happy that he was protected today -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Sunlen Serfaty, thank you very much as I said, from the White House tonight.

We do have some new reporting coming in from inside Trump's inner circle, from our own Kristen Holmes. She's working her sources right now. She gets on the phone. She's going to come up here, so well take a brief break and well be back with her after that.

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