Return to Transcripts main page

The Situation Room

FBI's Investigation on Trump's Second Assassination Treating it as "Extremely Serious"; Ryan Routh Been in Trump's Golf Course for 12 Hours; Vice President Kamala Harris Seeking Endorsement of Teamsters; Trump Blaming Biden-Harris Rhetoric on Second Assassination Attempt. Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Is Interviewed About Trump's Second Assassination Attempt; Musk Claims A Now-Deleted Post Questioning Why "No One Is Even Trying" To Assassinate Harris & Biden Was A Joke; Historic Rainfall Floods Homes, Forces Rescues In Coastal North Carolina. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired September 16, 2024 - 17:00   ET

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

[16:59:56]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Breaking news in "The Money Lead." The Dow closed at a record high today at more than 41,000 points, this as investors await the Federal Reserve's decision this week on cutting interest rates possibly by half a point.

On Friday evening and on Saturday, CNN aired a number of segments that briefly showed an image of former President Donald Trump and (inaudible) taken from social media. On review, this image have been digitally altered by a third party and should not have been included. We regret the air. The news continues on CNN.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news. Authorities say Donald Trump has the highest level of protection right now, including his security over at Mar-a-Lago, after the apparent attempt to assassinate him on the golf course. Stand by for all the new information from authorities that just came in minutes ago on the suspect and on the investigation.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer and you're in "The Situation Room."

All right, let's get right to the breaking news on the second apparent attempt to assassinate Donald Trump. The FBI now describing his investigation as, quote, "extremely serious" during a briefing in Florida just a little while ago. CNN's Paula Reid is on the scene for us in West Palm Beach, Florida right now. Paula, what stood out to you from this update?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, hearing the Secret Service defending its protection plan for former President Trump and revealing that the suspect did not have a clear line of sight to the former president. An investigation down here in Florida is active and ongoing.

We've learned that investigators have interviewed witnesses, even members of the suspect's family. They've also pursued search warrants for his car and electronic devices and everything that they gather over the next days and weeks will help inform any additional charges that they file against the suspect.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNKNOWN: Driver, walk straight back!

REID (voice-over): New dramatic footage of the moments Ryan Wesley Routh was taken into custody. Martin County police apprehending the suspect as he fled after an apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump while he was golfing Sunday afternoon.

RIC BRADSHAW, SHERIFF, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA: The security level at Mar-a-Lago is the highest it can possibly be now.

REID (voice-over): Today, Routh appeared before a federal judge in West Palm Beach, wearing dark prison scrubs, his hands and feet shackled. Routh was charged with two counts, possession of a firearm while a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Investigators believe Routh had been lying in wait nearly 12 hours along the tree line near the golf course.

Newly unsealed court records show Routh's mobile phone was in the vicinity from approximately 1:59 a.m. until 1:31 p.m. Authorities say Secret Service officers clearing the golf course ahead of the former president first noticed the suspect.

RAFAEL BARROS, SECRET SERVICE AGENT IN CHARGE, MIAMI FIELD OFFICE: He noticed that the rifle was pointing out. Our agents engaged.

REID (voice-over): Palm Beach police released photos of the scene showing the gun along with a backpack and GoPro camera mounted on the fence.

BRADSHAW: Fortunately we were able to locate a witness that came to us and said, hey, I saw the guy running out of the bushes. He jumped into a black Nissan and I took a picture of the vehicle and the tag, which was great.

REID (voice-over): Police were able to quickly get that information out to surrounding areas and track the suspect's SUV in nearby Martin County.

WILLIAM SNYDER, SHERIFF, MARTIN COUNTY, FLORIDA: He's smart. He was just driving with the flow of traffic. Yeah, I think that he may have thought he got away with it. I was able to get to the scene shortly after the stop, and I saw him in the car. His facial affect was very bland. He was not emoting any emotions at all.

REID (voice-over): More details are emerging about Routh's background.

RYAN WESLEY ROUTH, SUSPECT, TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: Putin is a terrorist and he needs to be ended. REID (voice-over): He was outspoken on his strong support for

Ukraine, encouraging foreigners to fight in the war. He also criticized Trump in his self-published book on geopolitics and has contributed more than $100 to ActBlue, which processes donations to Democrats.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

REID (on camera): It is expected that as this investigation continues, additional charges will likely be filed. Now, Routh will be back in court next Monday for a detention hearing, where we expect prosecutors will argue that he should remain detained ahead of a possible trial, arguing that he is not only a flight risk, but also a danger to the community. Then on September 30th, he will be formally arraigned. Wolf?

[17:05:00]

BLITZER: All right, Paula Reid reporting for us. Thank you, Paula, very much. I want to get the latest now on Donald Trump's reaction to this apparent attempt on his life. CNN's Kristen Holmes is in West Palm Beach, Florida for us. She's near Mar-a-Lago right now. Kristen, what are you learning about Trump's state of mind?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I've talked to a number of people who have either spoken to the former president in the aftermath of that second assassination attempt or been briefed on conversations with him, who say that he is in good spirits, that he was making jokes at one point saying that it ruined a wonderful game of golf and noting that he was too under par at the time that it happened. He apparently told one person that he was going to win in November, that he had upped his resolve for that.

And at one point he was asking what the media coverage had been of the second assassination attempt. All of this to say that it does seem as though his reaction to this has been very different than what we saw in Butler, Pennsylvania. Right after that event, we saw him call for unity, say that the country needed to come together and he was the one who could do it.

Now we see a much different approach. What we have seen in his statements that he has given, including an interview, is essentially blaming the Biden administration, the rhetoric from the Biden administration saying that is the reason he got shot. I think we have some of the excerpt here from his interview that he did with Fox News Digital where he says he, the shooter, believed the rhetoric of Biden and Harris and he acted on it. Their rhetoric is causing me to be shot at when I am the one who is going to save the country and they are the ones that are destroying the country, both from inside and out.

Again, sources say though that he is in good spirits and that the campaign is not going to change any of its previous plans. He had several events this week in Washington D.C. as well as Michigan and Uniondale, New York. They say everything on his schedule is going to stay exactly the same. Wolf? BLITZER: All right, Kristen, thank you very much. Kristen Holmes on

the scene for us as well. I want to break all of this down with our experts right now. And Andrew McCabe, you're the former deputy director of the FBI. The FBI special agent in charge of this current investigation says they're sending evidence to Quantico. They're interviewing suspects friends and families and investigating his quote, "active online presence." How does all of this come together to understand the suspects actual motive?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: So Wolf what you heard from FBI Special Agent in Charge Jeff Veltri today was basically FBI big case 101. This is how the FBI does it. There's not another law enforcement entity in the world that does it quite as well. You see an intense focus on the crime scene, rendering every piece of evidence that they can find. They are farming that stuff out to the specialists, whether they're from headquarters or Quantico or wherever.

They're cutting leads to other field offices like Charlotte and Honolulu to interview family members and associates. This is exactly what you would expect to find. Ultimately, all of that information will come back to FBI Miami. They are the, what we call the office of origin or the lead office on the case.

And they will piece together each one of those facts, each one of those elements of evidence and put it in a timeline that allows the investigators and the prosecutors to have the most complete understanding, a truly rich picture of who this guy was, what kind of path he went down and how he ended up sleeping in the woods for 12 hours outside the president's golf club, the former president's golf club, waiting to take a shot at the former president of the United States.

I have every confidence that they'll do a sound job in putting that together. I only hope they share it with us at some point.

BLITZER: I hope they do as well. Evan Perez, you're our senior justice department correspondent. We heard Paula just now lay out those two gun charges. Should we expect the suspect to be charged again once this investigation has moved further along?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf. That's what the FBI is working towards. They are still calling this an apparent assassination attempt. And one of the key things that we heard there during the press conference is that the suspect has lawyered up. Essentially, he's not cooperating with investigators. And so they're going to have to do it the hard way, which is some of the things that Andy just laid out.

They're going to have to go to talk to people around him. They're going to have to use some of those cell phone records, some of his social media accounts. They're going to have to figure out where he has been over the last few days. That's still something that the FBI does not have a clear picture. We know that, you know, obviously his cell phone showed him in that location or in that vicinity for about 12 hours. So what happened before that? One of the key parts of this is that, you know, the former president,

no one knew he was supposed to go there. That was a last minute thing by the former president to show up at that golf course.

[17:19:59]

So why did he -- did the suspect spend all that time there? What did he know? And how did he know that? All of those things are now part of this investigation.

BLITZER: And certainly are, Andrew, the fact that he was camped out in that position along the trees near the golf course for almost 12 hours. What does that tell you and how could he have gone undetected for that long, knowing that the former president of the United States was about to play golf there?

MCCABE: You know, Wolf, it raises some really important questions for the Secret Service. And they are in a tough spot right now because coming off of the attack at Butler, they have tried to really upgrade their level of protection for the former president and simply to do a better job. And it sounds like they did, because the system they had in place for yesterday worked the way it was supposed to.

The advance agents found the threat, they eliminated the threat, and they got the president out of danger. The problem is the system they had in place was insufficient to identify an attacker with a rifle hiding out probably, I don't know, 20 yards from the tee box for the seventh hole. So, There's got to be some rethinking of the sort of methodology, as they refer to it, that they are using to protect this president under these circumstances.

The fact that they didn't know that person was there and that they were there for as long as they were raises some real concerns about how they're thinking about protecting the perimeter, that edge of security, which sometimes can come very close to the principal you're trying to protect.

BLITZER: Especially if someone has a rifle with a scope, it can be extremely, extremely deadly and dangerous. Evan, the Secret Service acting director also weighed in on whether the agency right now needs more resources. What did he say?

PEREZ: You know, Wolf, he was trying to do both things. He was trying to commend his agents for doing the good thing, which was to spot this threat ahead of time, but he's also acknowledging that they need, clearly, they need some additional help. Listen to how he put that in the press conference.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD ROWE, ACTING SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR: Service operates under a paradox of zero fail mission, but also that we have done more with less for decades. And this goes back many, many, many decades, right? What I can tell you is that we have immediate needs right now and we have great support, not only from President Biden, and you saw his public statement today where he said that, you know, he's gonna direct his staff to make sure that the Secret Service has the resources it needs. We're having fantastic conversations with members of Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREZ: And Wolf, one of the facts of the Secret Service is that it is not a very large agency and that amount of threats, the amount of threats that they're having to deal given the circumstances that were in is really, you know, just much larger than anything -- I think anyone really expected. And so that's what the agency faces in the coming months and years really.

BLITZER: Yeah, it's so important what the Secret Service does. Guys, thank you very, very much. The breaking news continues next here in "The Situation Room" as we get more and more information on the threat of political violence hanging over the 2024 presidential race with election day now only 50 days away. Stay with us. You're in "The Situation Room."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:15:00]

BLITZER: We're following breaking news on the apparent Trump assassination attempt. Tonight, the Harris campaign is stressing that this is not a political moment. Both the Vice President and President Biden expressing relief that former President Trump wasn't hurt and condemning political violence of any kind. This as Kamala Harris has been working very hard to pick up a major endorsement. CNN's Eva McKend has more on all of this, Eva, the vice president met with the Teamsters earlier today. First of all, What came of that meeting?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, we could get an update from the Teamsters later this week as leadership confers with their members. But listen, the vice president and her team emerging from that meeting feeling confident because they maintain that she is on the right side of union issues when it comes to opposing national right to work, when it comes to supporting the PRO Act, and when it comes to supporting the Butch Lewis Act of 2021 that was a part of the American Rescue Plan that, in their telling, saved more than a million pensions to date.

Now, the vice president's team also releasing a statement saying the vice president appreciated the opportunity to meet with leadership and discuss how she has worked for her entire career to support, defend and empower union workers including as part of the most pro-union administration ever. Listen, ultimately, this is going to come down to them and it seems like leadership wants to send a message here that the union isn't in the business of routinely supporting Democrats and are making them work for this endorsement.

But when it comes to the issues, the vice president maintains that she supports them. And that's why she has earned the endorsement of the UAW, the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and various other union groups to date. You also hear her, Wolf, talk about this on the campaign trail, play up her working class background. You hear her surrogates say this as well, that you might hear Republicans making overtures to union members in sort of a cultural fashion, but when it comes down to the actual policies, Democrats are the ones that support them. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, Eva. Thank you very much. Eva McKend, reporting. Let's get some more on all of this. Our political experts are standing by. And Gloria Borger, I'll start with you. Give us your analysis first of all of Trump blaming Harris and Biden for this apparent attempt at his life, even as they condemn political violence.

[17:19:57]

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I don't think it's really surprising, Wolf. We don't even know the motivations of this would-be shooter. We know very little about him now. And the first time this happened to Donald Trump, when he was actually shot, he sang a different tune. He was calling for civility. He said, you know, I'm going to be nice now. And at this point, he is no longer doing that. He's decided to point a finger at Kamala Harris, even though he is a candidate who has called the other side vermin and who constantly says if they're elected, you're not going to have a country anymore.

There's a little bit of this going on both sides, this sort of -- that each side sees the other side as an existential threat to America. But I think it's a little rich for Trump to say, you know, this is Kamala Harris's doing when we know very, very little about this man and what his motives were.

BLITZER: Yeah, good point. S.E. Cupp, how dangerous are these Trump comments during this already rather tense moment for the country?

SE CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Very, and look, I agree with the ecumenical sentiment that rhetoric and words matter and that we should tone down the divisive rhetoric. However, as Gloria is pointing out, you can't have it both ways. You can't say that threats, bomb threats on Springfield, Ohio schools and hospitals have nothing to do with Trump and the Trump campaign.

You can't say Trump has no responsibility for an attack on Paul Pelosi, no responsibility for Jan 6th, no responsibility for threats against election workers, no responsibility for threats against Dr. Fauci and health administrators. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. So, the calls to tone down are good, but they need to come from inside the House.

BLITZER: Republican strategist Matt Mowers is with us as well. Matt, should Trump be trying to bring the temperature down and unify the country right now as he vowed to do after the Butler assassination attempt in Pennsylvania in July?

MATT MOWERS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, look, I think he certainly has an opportunity to. I mean, Donald Trump, for a long time, has been the leader of an ideological wing of the United States. In moments like this, he actually has an opportunity to potentially become a leader of the entire United States, to bring people together. Clearly, he is voicing I imagine what he truly feels. Maybe he's speaking for some members of his base and how they feel, but it is an opportunity, I think, for him to reach out to people. You know, you notice after the assassination attempt in Butler, you

did have the -- President Biden, Vice President Harris, others saying, we do have to change some of our rhetoric. President Trump obviously said similar things. You're not really hearing quite as much of that going on right now, but I will say one other last piece of this is that since the assassination attempt in Butler, you have seen Donald Trump's numbers on a personal rating level, favorable, unfavorable rating go up because in moments like this, you do see Americans unify, rally around political leaders of either party when there are situations like this as it should unify Americans.

BLITZER: It's interesting, Ameshia -- Ameshia Cross is with us, Democratic strategist. It's interesting that the Harris campaign is trying to downplay the political significance of this apparent attempt on Trump's life and says there are no plans to address it politically. Is that the right approach, do you think? How should the Harris campaign navigate this very, very sensitive moment?

AMESHIA CROSS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: They should do it in the exact way that they are. We've heard from the Harris campaign about the importance of not having this level of violence. We've heard from them saying that there needs to be more support for the Secret Service that we need to amplify and ratchet up the number of Secret Service people available. That is something that, you know, financially at least is going to have to happen through Congress. But I think that she's doing the right thing to a point that S.E. made a moment ago.

You're talking about a man in Donald Trump who has ratcheted in violent and actions against the media, against Dr. Fauci, against black people, not only Haitians, but against black people writ-large. We saw it with his reaction to BLM. We're seeing it with his ostentatious conversation around Haitian migrants, which is factually incorrect. We've seen time and time again, this man be okay with violence and insinuating it and talking about it even on Truth Social and in other sources.

So in many cases, we have to call out a thing as a thing that it happens to be, but also argue the point that violence has no place in our politics or in our arena. Also recognizing that this isn't new. Unfortunately, we've seen cycles of political violence over decades in this country. Honestly, generations, if we talk about it in a very real sense.

Kamala Harris is running the campaign in the same way Donald Trump is. This is a man who unfortunately has had to go through two assassination attempts in a very short amount of time.

[17:24:59]

He's fundraised off of both. He's utilized rhetoric off of both to ratchet up his MAGA base. He knows that the polls are closing in, and he's utilizing this to his advantage as well.

BLITZER: You know, Gloria, the polls show that the race right now has been a dead heat for weeks. Do you see this apparent attempt on Trump's life changing that at all? BORGER: Well, look, I think this will make the base rally around him

more. I think that his notion that this is Kamala Harris's fault will appeal to that base of voters. But I don't see this changing the shape of the race in any significant way at this point. I think, you know, the fact that they're talking about Springfield and, you know, eating cats and dogs and all the rest of it shows you that they want to talk about immigration more than anything else, no matter what they have to do to do that and I think they're gonna continue on that front.

And so, you know, this is a candidate who remarkably does not seem to be reaching out to that sliver of undecided and independent voters that could be within his grasp, but instead he continues to be full of bombast, you know, charging that this shooter is -- this would-be shooter is Kamala Harris' fault, which is absurd on its face.

BLITZER: And it's interesting, S.E., as Ameshia just said, the Trump campaign is seizing on this apparent assassination attempt as a way to rile up his base. But how do you see it? How do you see independent and swing voters who are so critical in these battleground states right now reacting to this?

CUPP: Yeah, listen, I'm here in Pennsylvania, a swing state with the most electoral votes. It's a big prize. And for this battleground, sure, I do, I talk to swing state voters all day and they all say the same thing. The distractions of the migrants eating pets' story or what childless cat ladies, all this nonsense, the Taylor Swift stuff, they are so not here for it. They have real problems. And they're undecided because they don't, frankly, like either of these candidates or trust either of these candidates.

They're waiting for the one who is going to tell them, I understand your problem with the economy or inflation or the cost of goods or immigration. I understand it, and here's how I'm gonna solve it. This stuff that Trump is doing is really turning them off, deeply turning them off. This isn't conjecture. They are telling us in their own words that this stuff is repelling them, but it feels a little like the Trump campaign has lost the plot of this election.

He's got the base. They're going nowhere. They love everything he does. He needs these independent, moderate, undecided voters in seven swing states to win this election, and he doesn't seem to care.

BLITZER: Yeah, I think you make an important point. Guys, thank you very, very much. Up next, we're taking a closer look at the suspect in the apparent Trump assassination attempt as authorities are searching for a motive.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: More breaking news this hour on the second apparent attempt to assassinate Donald Trump. The FBI now says it's still investigating whether the suspect acted alone, though there is currently no information of anyone else involved. CNN Kyung Lah is taking a closer look at the suspect and his background. Kyung, what are you learning, first of all, about his criminal history? KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we have been looking into that criminal history. We've learned that it dates back to 2000 but it was really in 2002, Wolf, when he became known to North Carolina Law Enforcement. Our investigative team spoke with a retired Sergeant in Greensboro, North Carolina who was part of a 2002 traffic stop. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRACY FULK, FORMER GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA POLICE SERGEANT: He reached over into the center seat and opened a black duffel bag, and there was a gun laying in there. And he kind of held his hand over the bag for a second as I'm backing up and issuing commands. And then he just put the car in gear and drove two businesses down and pulled in his business and ran inside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: And then when he ran inside, Routh barricaded himself in that building. He eventually pled guilty to felony possession of a weapon of mass destruction. Sources tell CNN that it was a fully automatic weapon. Public records also reveal other minor financial crimes, Wolf, and all occurring in North Carolina. Wolf?

BLITZER: And what are we learning about his efforts in Ukraine? This potentially could be significant.

LAH: It -- it really because it gives you a mindset into what he was thinking in the last couple of years. Two years ago, he became very vocal and then personally involved when it came to Ukraine. He actually traveled to Kyiv when he said he wanted to join the fight there, and he was told once he got to keep that he was too old, aged 56 at the time, he set up camp instead at the main square and proceeded to do multiple interviews with journalists there. Take a listen to one of them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN WESLEY ROUTH, SUSPECTED GUNMAN: I think more emotional for me is also, is just talking to the guys that have come here, you know, when you talk to a 20-year-old guy that sold everything out to come at your fight, that is heroism. You know, he's come here to risk his life for humanity, for the Ukrainians.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAH: You can hear how emotional he is there. And I spoke with one of the journalists who conducted one of those interviews, and he said he was really singularly minded. A representative from Ukraine's foreign legion also tells CNN that Routh had contacted them several times. And on those contacts telling us that, quote, the best way to describe his messages is delusional. Wolf?

[17:35:11]

BLITZER: Yes. Kyung Lah reporting for us, I know you're working this subject, and we'll get back to you. Thank you very, very much.

Meanwhile, Democratic Congresswoman Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania is joining us right now. She's on the Congressional Task Force investigating the first assassination attempt against Trump, which came in Pennsylvania back on July 13th. Congresswoman, thanks so much for joining us. You heard Kyung Lah's report just now about the shooter's history. What stands out to you as you prepare to likely investigate this second assassination attempt as well?

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Well, Wolf, it is good to be with you. I am very sorry over the subject matter, because yesterday's events, they are stunning, they're shocking, they are sobering, and they come nine weeks after the first assassination attempt on the life of the former president. I want to start by saying, I condemn any kind of violence, but political violence has no place in this country. It only seeks, as President Biden said today, it only seeks to divide us, to bring further hatred. There is nothing to be gained by political violence.

I have not seen the background. I did just listen to that reporting as to the suspect. It's very troubling, because when people are struggling with delusional ideas, we see what can come of it. It's disturbing to hear what weapons he may have had in the past, weapons of mass destruction and what weapons he had just yesterday. It's disturbing to think how long it appears he was on the property.

One report says that he was he came onto the property about 2 o'clock in the morning, so spend some time there. So as I said, I'm very sober about this. Our task force is committed to making sure we get at the truth as to the first assassination attempt. I've been in touch with our ranking member, Jason Crow. We're going back to session tomorrow, as you know.

And so I'll be interested to see if the leadership of the House decides to consolidate this by way of legislation with the first assassination attempt.

BLITZER: Yes.

DEAN: It is mighty frightening, and we need to get to the truth.

BLITZER: We got -- we have to learn all the lessons. I think it's -- would be so important to consolidate both of these assassination attempt investigations, and you guys are going to be -- be doing very important work. Congresswoman, how do you assess the U.S. Secret Service's response here in this second assassination attempt? Does it raise concerns to you, for example, that the shooter appeared to be staked out in that area near the golf course, undetected for some 12 hours?

DEAN: Oh, it's very worrying. And I have to tell you, Wolf, we had the benefit of the acting director of the Secret Service in, in a classified briefing when we were last in session a week or so ago, and he was very forthcoming, wanted to be as transparent as possible. And we ultimately want the transparency to go directly to the American people. But in terms of their performance, I'm not going to prejudge it. The reporting is still coming in. I will say we're going to find some heroes in this story. Number one, a Secret Service member going in advance of the president on that golf course, spotted this would-be assassin. So some very good work was done by Secret Service in terms of spotting him and defeating his ambition that appears to be a shot at the president, the former president.

There's also the heroine, whoever the person was, who spotted him running off, had the wherewithal to take a picture of his car and his license plate and how that aided law enforcement in apprehending him very, very quickly before he could do any further damage. So we have a lot of questions. And I will say that we've been interviewing our -- we're very staffed up. We've been doing transcribed interviews of Secret Service and also, of course, of other law enforcement to get at the facts of the perimeters, of the sight lines.

How -- how wide out should some of these things be? Something that struck me at Butler, and struck really, all of us, was the proximity of that building that was not within the protected area, to where the President was going to be coming onto stage. I think we'll be looking at that exact measure again, the proximity here. And as to Secret Service, we're going to need to know what resources they need.

I agree with President Biden that Mr. Trump deserves absolutely all the resources necessary because of the enhanced threats in our environment, as well as Kamala Harris. So President Biden has stepped up and said, make sure they get exactly what they need.

[17:40:00]

BLITZER: Yes.

DEAN: In the meantime, you're absolutely right. Our words matter. All of us must do everything we can to tamp down the rhetoric that could provoke violence.

BLITZER: Yes, but having said that, Congresswoman, Trump is actually publicly blaming Harris and President Biden's rhetoric for this attempt on his life. How do you respond to that?

DEAN: Well, you know, I'm a lawyer by training, and I'm somebody that prefers the evidence and the truth. So I wish the former president would not leap to that kind of a claim. I want him to use his platform to pull this country together, to say that our political differences must be decided through campaigns, not through violence, and must ultimately be decided by our citizens at the ballot box.

So I would ask everybody to make sure they use their platform for the good. Words matter. Follow the evidence and the facts. That's what we on the task force are charged with doing.

BLITZER: Good point. Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, thank you very much for joining us.

DEAN: Thank you. See you Wolf. BLITZER: Come -- coming up, there's new Fallout for the head of one of the world's biggest social media platforms, we're talking about Elon Musk, potentially facing an investigation for a now deleted post about President Biden and Vice President Harris.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:45:28]

BLITZER: X owner, Elon Musk, has now deleted a controversial post he made yesterday, questioning why former President Trump is the only 2024 presidential candidate who has faced apparent assassination attempt. His post said this, and I'm quoting, and no one is even trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala. Let's bring in CNN media correspondent Hadas Gold. Hadas, how dangerous is this message, and how is Musk trying to explain it?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: You know, Wolf, Musk is the richest man on earth. He owns, controls one of the most popular platforms where he has the most number of followers compared to anybody else on this platform. He has legions of fans. And he is now also one of the most well-known, I would call him a conspiracy theorist.

Now, his post could be incredibly dangerous, because it could be seen as promoting an assassination attempt on the President or the Vice President. Now, as you noted, this post was in response to a user who said, why they want to kill Donald Trump, and then you saw his response. And I think it's important to note that emoji, because that emoji is sort of a, hmm, questioning emoji. Now, he was widely criticized when this came up. And he initially resisted calls to take it down, saying he was just trying to make a point.

He later said he was trying to make a joke. But then he seemed to be convinced maybe there's other things going behind the scenes. But another user who responded to said that his intent may be misinterpreted. So then he posts this. It turns out that jokes are way less funny if people don't know the context and the delivery is plain text.

He also posted later, one lesson I've learned is just because I say something in a group and they laugh, it doesn't mean that it's going to be all as hilarious and a post on X. Now one thing that's interesting, Wolf, is Elon Musk often seems to violate the own terms and services of his own platform. And one of those rules for the platform is that you're not supposed to incite, promote or encourage others to commit acts of violence or harm.

But as I said, he's the owner of the platform. He often flouts his own rules. X did not respond to a request for comment from CNN. They never do essentially respond to requests from the press. We do know, according to "Reuters," that the Secret Service is actually aware of this post. They haven't really commented on it. All they say is that they are aware of it and that they investigate all threats related to their protectees. That's a statement to "Reuters." And also the White House has weighed in calling Elon Musk comments, what they say are irresponsible. Wolf?

BLITZER: Yes. They certainly were. How does this fit into Musk's behavior generally, around this election and around election conspiracies?

GOLD: Well, Elon Musk has waded right into the election. He has endorsed Donald Trump. And he has also endorsed some of the biggest conspiracy theories out there, and he often spreads them and promotes them on his out -- on his own platform without seeming to do a basic fact check. He's promoted the false claim that the Biden administration is allowing undocumented immigrants to vote in the U.S. election.

He's also been promoting memes related to the whole people eating pets in Ohio, conspiracy theory that has been debunked. And again, he has also regularly flouted X's own rules, for example, not long ago, he posted an artificially generated image of Kamala Harris in a seemingly communist uniform. And X's own platforms say that you cannot do that. And yet he still posted it.

But I actually think what's even more dangerous than Elon Musk promoting conspiracy theories is that he has removed the guardrails on X, what used to be called Twitter. He's removed the trust and safety teams, the fact checks and things like that. And that is why these conspiracy theories can now be all over this platform, and often you even see them being promoted on this platform and being placed right in front of everybody's eyes. And that is what is most dangerous.

BLITZER: All right. Hadas Gold, thank you very much for that update.

[17:49:02]

Just ahead, we'll take a closer look at this, a one in 1,000 year storm hammering the East Coast, leaving many parts of North Carolina underwater. We'll have a live report on where it's headed, and that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Floodwaters in North Carolina have surged into homes as a storm dumped historic amounts of rain in the area in just a matter of hours, emergency services have gotten dozens of calls from people needing rescues from cars, houses and businesses. Let's go to our meteorologist, Chad Myers. He's over at the CNN Weather Center for us. How dangerous, Chad, is this situation?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Wolf, they got 18 inches of rain in 13 hours in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, from a storm that didn't even get a name. It was not even powerful enough to make a tropical storm with this. So the storm never got its act together, the convection, the thunderstorms, never got around a common middle, and so they could never actually call it a tropical storm. Yet, all of this water, no, it's not raging, rushing water like you see in West Virginia or the mountains, because this is just a flat area.

So 18 inches of rain made 18 to maybe 30 inches of flooding as it started to kind of fall off and back into the coast, but it's still raining. And this is now on shore. The center of the storm, potential tropical cyclone number eight, that's all -- that's what it's going to go by, that is now onshore. This is not going to get any stronger. But it's not going to get any less wet, because there's a lot of tropical moisture.

The water off here, the Gulf Stream, is very hot, even for this time of year, it's hotter than it should be. And the area here, from Oak Island toward Wilmington, all of that pink, picked up more than a foot of rainfall. And when you get it that widespread, it can't just go into the low areas. It's just all going to kind of rise. So, you know, Carolina Beach, 18 inches of rain since midnight, just since midnight today.

[17:55:17]

Now there were gusts that were tropical storm force winds. But hey, you know what, it didn't get a name, but it certainly made so much damage. We are going to see a lot of that water damage. It's fresh water flooding, but that doesn't help the people. Even if you get six inches of water in your house, that's a devastating flood. Wolf?

BLITZER: Certainly is. All right. Chad Myers, thanks for that update. Appreciate it.

Coming up, there's more breaking news on the apparent attempt on Donald Trump's life and its potential impact on the presidential race at this volatile moment in American political history.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)