Trump Assassination Attempt Fallout, And Florida Docs Case Dropped, with Emily Jashinsky, Eliana Johnson, Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, Sean Parnell, and More | Ep. 838

This episode delves into the fallout of the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and the dismissal of the Florida documents case involving him.

1. The dismissal of the Florida docs case is seen as a comprehensive victory for Trump, potentially influencing other legal battles.
2. The episode explores the security lapses that allowed the assassination attempt, emphasizing the need for stringent security measures.
3. It highlights the political divide and the use of legal strategies in the broader context of Trump's ongoing influence on the Republican Party.
4. There's significant discussion on the constitutionality of appointing special counsels and their accountability.
5. The episode underscores the high stakes of political and legal maneuvers in an election year.

1: Breaking News on Legal Victory

The episode opens with breaking news from Florida where a major legal case against Donald Trump has been dismissed. The hosts discuss the immediate implications of this decision.

• Megyn Kelly: "This is the case with the most legal peril... It's a complete victory."

2: Assassination Attempt Analysis

The assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally is analyzed, discussing security failures and political reactions.

• Sean Parnell: "President Trump is unstoppable... He's going to get elected in a landslide."

3: Legal and Political Implications

Further legal discussions focus on the broader implications of the day's events for the January 6 cases and future legal challenges.

• Mike Davis: "These federal cases are going to go away on day one, as they should."

1. Review and enhance personal and public security protocols.
2. Stay informed about legal and political developments to understand their broader implications.
3. Advocate for transparency and accountability in government appointments and legal proceedings.
4. Encourage civil discourse to bridge political divides.
5. Support legal reforms to ensure constitutional compliance in government actions.

Megyn Kelly begins the show with legal experts Dave Aronberg and Mike Davis to discuss the massive breaking news that Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed the Florida documents case against Trump, the political and legal ramifications of the decision, whether it could have an effect on other Trump cases, and more. Then Megyn discusses the details of Saturday’s assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, and the pivotal moment that America finds ourselves in after this historic and horrible moment. Then Sean Parnell, host of "Battleground," joins to discuss his experience at the Trump rally Saturday, the spiritual feeling he had there, the incredibly unifying way Trump handled the assassination attempt, and more. Then Chuck Marino, former Secret Service agent, and John Spears, former military sniper, join to discuss the various Secret Service and law enforcement failures in protecting Trump on Saturday, what the protocol should have been, the key issues of a lack of communication, addressing rumors circulating now, DEI efforts within the Secret Service, if these efforts contributed to the security shortcomings leading to the assassination attempt, what protocols should have been top priority, and more. Then Eliana Johnson, editor of the Washington Free Beacon, joins to discuss the terrible media coverage surrounding the assassination attempt on Trump, and Morning Joe being pulled from MSNBC this morning. Then Emily Jashinsky of UnHerd joins to discuss Trump’s resilience and bravery just seconds after the unthinkable happened, how this shows Trump's strength and leadership, how Biden continues to look weaker and less fit to lead America, the unhinged reaction from some in the media and celebrities, and more.

People

Donald Trump, Mike Davis, Dave Aronberg, Sean Parnell

Companies

None

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

Emily Jashinsky, Eliana Johnson, Dave Aronberg, Mike Davis, Sean Parnell

Content Warnings:

None

Megyn Kelly
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on SiriusXM channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

People, I can't even with this news day.

These, this is the list of sound bites that we were going to go to air with moments ago.

Then we got the legal bombshell out of the Florida federal court. Just buckle up. I don't remember a news day this jam packed in my time as a newswoman. I don't remember one. Welcome to the show, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. On Saturday night at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, former President Donald Trump dodged a literal bullet which grazed his ear in an assassination attempt that he survived but came within inches of taking his life. This morning, Mister Trump dodged perhaps the biggest legal bullet left in the law fair chamber against him as Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the Mar a Lago classified documents case in full against him. Oh, and by the way, the Republican National Convention kicks off today. A more unified convention than previously planned. Former Trump rival Nikki Haley now expected to take the stage. Desantis as well. And Trump says he will name his vp pick any minute.

Any minute right now.

Reports by Forbes that JD Vance just left his, just left for, left his home in a motorcade.

Now, that's not typical of a us senator, I think.

Uh, but they are beefing up the security for all potential Trump vps. So that doesn't necessarily tell us anything. We're on edge, waiting to hear the name. We're going to cover it all, including shocking new reporting about the security failures leading up to the assassination attempt and some stunning video that we have our hands on. I've watched this several times. I can't believe my eyes. But we begin with the breaking legal news out of Florida. Joining me now, Mike Davis, founder of the article three project, live from the RNC site today in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Dave Ehrenberg, state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, where Mar a Lago is located.

Mike and Dave have been with us covering every twist and turn of this case. Guys, welcome on this historic day. Dave is overseas on your honeymoon. Dave, you're such a trooper. Thank you so much for phoning in.

God bless and congrats.

Dave Aronberg
Thank you, Megan. I give all thanks to Sasha, my bride, because she allowed me to do your show. She thinks that highly of you, Megan, and of Mike.

Megyn Kelly
Oh. Oh, God bless you both. Thank you so much for being here. And Mike, what a day.

This was the case with the most legal peril. The three of us have discussed it many times, and it's not a partial victory. It's a complete victory. And it also may have a side effect of gutting what's left the tatters of the January 6 case, in which Jack Smith is also a special counsel. So explain briefly why Judge Cannon just got rid of this case. Mike.

Mike Davis
So we had the office of the independent counsel under Ken Starr. Most famously, that was created by statute, a statute passed by Congress. It's an office created by Congress, which is required under the constitution. And then once Congress intentionally allowed the office of the independent counsel to lapse because people were upset about Ken Starr's investigation of then President Clinton, the Justice Department just tried to do an end runt around the lapse of the office of the independent counsel. And they created, by fiat, by regulation, the office of special counsel. And they created this office that essentially, it's not presidentially appointed and Senate confirmed like the attorney general, like a United States attorney. And this office of special counsel essentially had jurisdiction that all over the country had pretty near full power of every us attorney in this country. And it had essentially an unlimited budget. And that violates two provisions of the Constitution, the appointments clause, which states that the offices must be created by Congress and they must be appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate. And then it also violated the appropriations clause because with this essentially unlimited budget, it's not that this office is not accountable to Congress. Right. So that's the problem. And what, what needs to happen is if President Biden wants to bring these charges or the attorney general wants to bring these charges against President Trump, they need to do it through a Senate confirmed United, United States attorney.

They can do it through the United States attorney for the Southern District of Florida, uh, down in Miami. They can bring these charges if they want to refile them, but you can't do it through this special counsel, because this special counsel is not accountable to Congress. It's not accountable to the attorney general. It's, they actually made it where the, the special counsel is intentionally. They made it intentionally where that this special counsel is not accountable to the attorney general on a day to day basis, and that is clearly unconstitutional.

Megyn Kelly
It's basically just a separation of powers. Then it says, the court says, look, it's the president who gets to appoint people to these positions, special counsel or us attorney, that kind of thing. And then the Congress weighs in with the confirmation. And only for inferior offices can Congress create a process that might look a little different.

And there is, that didn't happen here. So Jack Smith has not been nominated by President Biden to do anything, nor any president prior, you know, for this appointment, and he hasn't, certainly hasn't been confirmed by the US Congress, and nobody authorized payment to him. And the Congress controls the purse strings. So all of this is extra legal, it's extra constitutional, which means it's unconstitutional. But the thing is, Dave, other courts have taken a look at this argument in the past, and it does appear that Judge Aileen Cannon is one of the few to find this way. Right. Other courts have been like, yeah, no, it's not a problem.

She's saying, you know what? It is a problem. And while she may look like a bit of an outlier, she's got something very helpful in her back pocket. And that is Clarence Thomas's concurrence in the decision finding Trump has immunity for most of the things alleged against him, which we read to our audience when it happened, as a very important piece of what might happen in getting rid of the Mar a Lago case. And sure enough, judge, Judge Cannon saw it, raised it, and felt, as he did, right.

Dave Aronberg
Notably, no other Supreme Court justice signed on to Justice Thomas's concurring opinion. This position that Judge Ken has taken is an outlier, as you correctly said. I don't know if any other judge who has ruled her way. Many other judges have found the opposite. In fact, former President Trump thought this was such a reach of an argument that he did nothing raise it in the DC election interference case, or in this case. He didn't raise it originally in the Mar a Lago case, except then the conservatives came in from the outside and raised it. And then Judge Cannon allowed them not only to submit a brief, but then to make the oral argument. And, I mean, I think this case is definitely headed towards the Supreme Court. It's going to go to the 11th Circuit, then the Supreme Court, and it is an outlier of an opinion. I'm surprised by it.

I understand the argument that when they say that Jack Smith is acting too independently, but remember, the rhetoric coming from Donald Trump and his legal team has been. Jack Smith is. Is a pawn for Joe Biden. Joe Biden and Merrick Garland are pulling the strings here. So which is it? Is it that Jack Smith.

Megyn Kelly
Well, those are political arguments. And this whole thing comes down to what is in the constitution.

And, you know, there was a good piece in the Wall Street Journal. Bye, former judge. And then AG Michael Mukasey about it was July 7, and he was pointing out, you know, the actual language of the Constitution that, you know, Trump's going to argue what he's going to argue. His rhetoric is kind of beside the point.

He's pointing to the appointments clause. And it's article two, section two, clause two, which provides the exclusive means for appointing officers of the US.

All must be appointed by the president and confirmed I by the Senate if they are inferior officers, like she said. Okay, I'll accept for purposes of this decision that Jack Smith, as a special counsel, is an inferior officer. She's like, but I actually have questions about whether he would qualify. Then Congress may vest the appointment in the president, the courts, or the heads of departments, like potentially an attorney general.

But they didn't. That's what Mike's saying. They didn't do that. There is not a special counsel statute saying, we will allow the AG to create this kind of special prosecutor and go out there and take cases. And then also she bounced them based on the appropriations clause, saying this prohibits money from the treasury going out to people if it hasn't been appropriated by Congress, which this hasn't. So that's how she got here.

Look, it'll be appealed to the 11th Circuit, which is more conservative, and then it'll go up to the Supreme Court, potentially, we'll see. But here's what I really want to get to, because the decision is what it is for today. So what are the practice? I'll ask you this one, Dave, to start. To start. What are the practical effects of this decision now on this case, the election and January 6, that case?

Dave Aronberg
Well, this case was never going to go before the election. The trial was never going to happen before the election once Judge Cannon got on it. And I think that Judge Cannon doesn't get the benefit of the doubt here, because she has made very controversial rulings from the beginning on this case that led her to be taken off the matter by the 11th Circuit. So this is going to the 11th Circuit, and then I think it goes to the Supreme Court. But I think that Jack Smith now has the ability to try to get Judge Ken removed from the case.

Megyn Kelly
And as far as she so found, she found exactly as a sitting justice of the United States Supreme Court found Clarence Thomas. She's such an outlier and so crazy in her decision that a US Supreme Court justice felt the need to outline exactly this position.

Dave Aronberg
When a referee makes the calls every single time for the same team, you have reason to doubt the impartiality of that referee.

Megyn Kelly
Where was that argument with Judge Mershon back in the New York state supreme? Please. Overwhelmingly, he ruled in favor of the prosecution. He gave Trump a few, but overwhelming. That's not how you go. Zero chance that Judge Eileen Cannon is getting DQ'd on this case at any point. That's my view. Mike, does January 6 go away, too? Because Jack Smith, if he's illegal in one, he's illegal in all.

Mike Davis
Well, this decision by Judge Cannon is only binding on that case in the southern district of Florida. It's not binding on Judge Chucken in the district in DC. It's persuasive. And I think that Trump can point to it and ask for a dismissal. But look, here's the bottom line. These President Biden, these Biden Democrats, they tried to bankrupt Trump. They tried to throw him in prison for the rest of his life.

They tried to throw him off the ballot. And now one of these anti Trump people tried to kill him.

President Trump is unstoppable.

Sean Parnell
Right?

Mike Davis
He's going to get elected in a landslide on November 5. He's going to take office on January 20, and these federal cases are going to go away on day one, as they should.

Megyn Kelly
Um, does this mean anything, Dave, for either the Hunter Biden prosecution, which is different, because it had a special prosecutor, but that special prosecutor is a us attorney. He has been appointed and confirmed. So in my view on that case is he's still legit, he's okay, or the Robert Herr investigation of President Biden, which has concluded without charges. But there is some cleanup going on there right now as congressional Republicans try to get the audio tape or videotape of his interview of Joe Biden. But he is not a federal officer at present. Right. And wasn't when he was acting as special counsel against Joe Biden. So does this have any effect on those two?

Dave Aronberg
I agree with Mike. I think this is just confined to the southern district of Florida. And as it works its way up to the Supreme Court, then the breadth of the ruling could potentially affect all future special counsels. It shouldn't affect the stuff in the past. I mean, Robert, her, John Durham, David Weiss, Robert Mueller, we've seen special counsels over and over again, and this is the first time that one has been tossed out because of being unconstitutional. I must add this.

It's true that the federal regulations say that the attorney general does not provide the day to day supervision of Jack Smith, but the AG does ensure that Jack Smith adheres to Justice Department protocols and the AG can review major investigatory steps. So it's not a totally independent special counsel, it's an inferior officer. And that's why I think the 11th Circuit is likely to overturn this. But after the immunity decision, which I totally got wrong, I thought it was going to be much more limited. And Mike Davis got it right. Who knows where the Supreme Court's going to go on this.

Megyn Kelly
And the thing is, you're right that nobody joined Thomas and his concurrence raising this issue about Jack Smith and whether he's an appropriate special counsel. But one of the criticisms Thomas got for pointing this out was this wasn't raised in the immunity case. So usually the Supreme Court won't opine on something that's not immediately before it and requiring them to opine on it. It was sort of an extra add on one of the reasons it was an extraordinary thing to read. But the rest of the justices haven't tipped their hand at all. The fact that they didn't join him in the concurrence doesn't surprise me at all because it wasn't before them. But I don't know that we're able to say how they're going to decide this. But in any way, Mike, in any event, Mike, you tell me it's irrelevant because Trump has dodged a serious bullet, legal bullet. He dodged an actual bullet pretty much on Saturday. And this is huge. The obstruction piece of this case, forget the withholding classified documents. The obstruction piece, where he didn't turn over all the documents when demanded, was the most problematic of all the legal warfare against him. And it's, for right now, gone. And if he does win in November, as you just predicted, all he has to do is pull that horse back by the bridle and say, we're not pursuing this case anymore within the DOJ, and then it's officially done. There will be no appeal. Any appeal in process will be ended. It's truly over.

Mike Davis
I would say this, that President Biden should be very happy that the Supreme Court and the Fisher case ended those political persecutions of those January 6 defendants. I think President Biden should be very happy the Supreme Court said that the president of the United States is immune from criminal prosecution for his official acts. And I think President Biden should be very happy that Judge Eileen Cannon said that the special counsel is unconstitutional under both the appropriations clause and the appointments clause because guess what? President Trump's going to be back in office on January 20. And Joe Biden is the biggest winner of these cases.

Megyn Kelly
Donald Trump weighing in, telling Bret Baier, I'm thrilled that a judge had the courage and wisdom to do this. This has big, big implications, not just for this case, but other cases as well. The special counsel worked with everyone to try to take me down. This is a big big deal. It only makes this convention more positive. This will be an amazing week. My God. I mean, I think we can all agree it's already been an amazing week. Let me ask you, Dave Lawrence Tribe, you know, leftist lawyer at Harvard and professor, and he is saying DOJ must appeal right away and then said an alternative path would be for the DOJ to abandon the special counsel regulation and just refile the case without a special counsel in DC. Like go through a us attorney, just refile the case in DC. Or I guess they could refile it in Florida, too. I'm assuming he doesn't like that jurisdiction because it go, it would go back to Judge Aileen Cannon, who he doesn't like. But even he says that would be optically terrible and set a terrible precedent. Do you think that will happen?

Dave Aronberg
Democrats are so worried about optics because from the beginning, Jack Smith could have filed this case in DC, but they didn't like the optics of that. They want to do it where the crimes allegedly occurred in the southern district of Florida. I thought that was a good move because if he filed it in DC and if they go ahead and refile this in DC, then I do think that Trump and his legal team would have a valid claim that there's a venue problem here because the obstruction that's being alleged occurred at Mar a Lago in South Florida. The illegal retention of documents really occurred down there. And so I think it is possible they could refile this in DC under Merrick Garland and the attorney general's office. But I think then they would be buried in venue arguments for months to come. And then, of course, you're right. If Trump becomes president again, then this whole thing goes away, you guys.

Megyn Kelly
I mean, I think this is the day we can officially say he did it. He did it, Mike. He pulled the inside straight. Yes, there was a conviction in New York. He's not going to jail for that. I just show me otherwise. He's not. Maybe they'll get a jail sentence. It'll be suspended. There's, Trump's not going to serve any real time on that.

Georgia's gone for now and probably will stay gone because it's going up in appeal whether she was improperly left on the case, Fannie Willis because of her affair with Nathan Wade, an absolutely self inflicted error that she never should have done. I'm sure she's kicking herself and so are Democrats for such a stupid move in a case. And now January 6 has been gutted by the immunity decision and the January 6 Supreme Court decision, not to mention potentially this Aileen cannon decision, which could be persuasive. And the worst case of all for Trump, Florida just went away. He did it.

Mike Davis
Mike Davis, he's Teflon, Don. He dodged the real bullet. He dodged these legal bullets. I would make one clarification. President Trump has not been convicted in New York yet. He has been found guilty by a jury. And I actually think that this, well, until the judge convicts and sentences and the judge has moved back the date from back to what was September 18, I actually think there is a reasonable chance that Judge Mershon declares a mistrial in that New York case because of the presidential immunity decision where they got evidence from President Trump's top White House staffers, OPICs, and then President Trump's deputy chief of staff for operations. They got Madeline, I forgot her last name. But they got evidence from those two White House officials that is subject to presidential immunity and that the Supreme Court made very clear in its decision that you can't use evidence that is subject to presidential immunity, that for that legal ground alone, there should be a mistrial.

Megyn Kelly
Dave, what do you make of my assessment? Like, he fought, as somebody famous once said, he fought the law, but the law did not win. It's my take on the famous face. It's incredible.

Sean Parnell
It is.

Dave Aronberg
Remember, it's not. There was nothing nefarious about getting Judge Cannon as his judge. That was just bad luck for Jack Smith. Jack Smith asked for this to go to the West Palm beach division. That limited the number of judges. And once they got Judge Cannon, this case was never going to be heard before the election. And then as far as the other cases. Yeah, Fonny Willis, that was a self inflicted wound there. The case in New York did happen. I have to disagree with Mike. I think Judge Mershon is going to sentence him in September. But then I thought the strong case in DC, the election interference case, I thought that would go before the election, too. And then the Supreme Court stepped in and said, nope, not so fast. So, yeah, he has been lucky. And sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Megyn Kelly
Good gracious. What a time. Mike. Dave. Thank you, Dave. Enjoy your honeymoon. And all of our best to your beautiful bride. She's a lucky woman. When we come back, we turn to former President Trump surviving the assassination attempt at a rally on Saturday. We have two former Secret Service security experts joining us to get into exactly how this happened and how we're going to get to the bottom of it. And then the incredible media meltdown.

Sean Parnell
Our.

Megyn Kelly
Nation today at a crossroads facing a moral dilemma less than 48 hours after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. It's a story for honest that we feared we would have to report on one day, and not just us. A lot of you wrote in to us about it. Some of our friends in more right leaning and honest media talked about it and then got ridiculed and ripped.

What happened in tiny Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday evening threatens to undermine everything we hold dear.

There are serious questions about this tragedy that killed one, injured others, including the former president and presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in this presidential race, Donald Trump. An investigation into the security failures is already underway on multiple levels, both internally at the Secret Service and now several House and Senate committees are doing a deep dive in which there will be hearings and testimony that is compelled of those involved. But we cannot ignore the unhinged rhetoric from politicians and yes, some in the media around this event.

We're going to look into all of that. But first, I want to walk you through what we've learned about the attack. And thank you for joining us on our Saturday evening live stream. As things were unfolding, for those of you who missed it and would like to watch it, it's posted on YouTube, still under live.

Here's what we know so far for sure. As Mister Trump delivered remarks, a would be assassin managed to climb onto a rooftop that was about a football field and a half away from him. Anywhere between 130 and 150 yards are the estimates, separated a killer from the former president of the United States. Mister Trump almost died on Saturday.

Almost died very clearly.

He almost got his head shut off on national television.

That's what happened. Keep that in mind as you read the media and their write ups of this event.

Eagle eyed spectators actually noticed the Mandev. They noticed the civilian. He was not any sort of black outfit, bulletproof vest. He wasn't trying to impersonate secret Service.

And they called out to law enforcement for help. You can hear the alarm in their voices that they're like, he's right there. He's right there. Looking for any law enforcement unseen, which, yes, was outside the secret service security perimeter, but within eyesight of where the president was then speaking and couldn't find anybody.

However, eventually someone got the word because based on the video we're about to show you, law enforcement did get involved moments hereafter, but dragged its feet. Watch this.

Look, they're all pointing.

Mike Davis
Yeah, someone's on top of the roof. Look, here he is right there.

Megyn Kelly
Looking at this. Right there. See him? He's laying down. See him? Yeah, he's laying down.

And Scott, I'm here with you fighting.

Sean Parnell
Michael to get a Senate.

Mike Davis
What's happening?

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, look, here he is.

Because we have millions and millions of people in our country that shooters readjusting his body, getting comfortable, in position.

We have people that she can't be here.

It's much tougher than it happened. Again, that video is horrifying. There's no other word for it, a killer lying in wait. The people down below, these are middle aged women, men, they all see it. If you watch the video, you'll see, I don't know, maybe ten who are looking at him, pointing, saying, there he is, there he is. And if you look behind them, they are 15, 20ft away from the back of the Trump crowd.

How is that outside the security perimeter, by the way?

There appears to be little to no urgency from the people tasked with protecting the former and possibly future president. How is it that for that amount of time that we just saw on video, we don't know how long it went on? Prior to that, no one from law enforcement swarmed the area, never mind the rooftop.

What's more, we've learned that one officer, local cop, actually did confront the shooter. We believe it was in response to these civilians, went up on the roof, we're told, but retreated when the gunman pointed a rifle at him, which allowed the gunman to then open fire, reportedly immediately thereafter on Mister Trump and the crowd.

It's truly unbelievable. And yet the former president survived, perhaps only thanks to God, who I believe must have been protecting him that day. I just, it's just there's no other logical explanation.

A man was killed trying to save his wife and his daughter, and it's horrific what happened to him.

The leader of our country, former and possibly next, was spared.

We're going to show you a clip now. You will hear Mister Trump speaking, and then he slightly tilts his head to the side, and I do mean slightly. He was gesturing, gesturing toward the slides he had brought to show the illegal immigration problem off to his right. And that is why he tilted his head ever so slightly.

Shots ring out. He grabs at his right ear. The time is 611 pm, roughly six minutes into his speech. Watch.

Charles Marino
Take a look at what happened.

Megyn Kelly
Look at this. An inch or two in the other direction and we could be talking about the unimaginable. Within seconds, his secret Service detail would surround him. An image from the scene widely circulated over the weekend shows a female agent here on screen, left, crouching down behind all the other agents who are protecting Trump. And it does appear that she is frozen in fear. That's an assumption. We'll wait to hear her explanation about why she's there. Were there concentric circles that you're supposed to form around the president? I don't know.

Doesn't look good.

This is a woman who is trained to take a bullet for her protectee. She appears to be the one leader who was unable to holster her weapon. In separate video, according to a published transcript from CNN, a female agent is also heard asking, what are we doing? What are we doing? Where are we going?

It is unclear whether that's the same agent as well. Listen here.

A mail agent is then heard instructing people to take the former president to a spare limousine less than a minute after the first shots rang out. Law enforcement confirms the shooters down, taken out by a sniper. And that brings us to the moment that will go down in history.

As the agents attempt to move him, Mister Trump tells them to wait. Wait. He doesn't know whether there's a second shooter, by the way, neither do the Secret Service.

And with blood dripping down his face, he lifts his fist into the air. The same fist that just touched his bloody head where he took a bulletin that grazed his upper right outer ear and mouths the words fight over and over, watch, trying to tell the crowd he was okay.

They would be okay. We would be okay.

He understood on some internal level what they needed and what the rest of us needed. Who would have the presence of mind and the courage to do that. I heard someone online, forgive me, I can't remember where I heard it. It was a podcast saying he reacted the way every man alive wishes and hopes and praise he would react.

God forbid they found themselves in that situation. I think that's right.

Our country still does value courage, bravery, resilience, temerity, strength.

And it's one of the reasons people love Trump. He's the embodiment of it.

For our YouTube audience, if you haven't seen this, please go look at this moment as Mister Trump lifts his fist in the air with the american flag waving behind him.

Not for nothing, but he was shot at 06:11 p.m. a. Couple people have sent this to me. 611 pm.

You read Ephesians 611 in the Bible?

It reads as follows, in part, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

611 he was shot. And that's 611.

Listen to that. Put on the full armor of Goddesse so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

I'm almost emotional reading it. It's just what happened to him and our country this weekend is extremely grave and extremely important. And we are all so lucky it wasn't worse than it, than it was.

We'll get into the victim of this attack and the disgusting attacks on him still his memory, 50 year old firefighter, father of two young girls who are grieving today, along with his widow. And they attack him for his politics, for a silly political joke he made online one time. Where, where is their soul? Where are their hearts?

Today, Mister Trump is in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the opening of the Republican National Convention. He says he's tossed out his original speech and will call for a new effort at national unity.

Tucker Carlson has apparently spoken to the president and said he's changed.

He thinks he's changed, that taking a bullet in the face will do that to you.

In a statement released on Sunday, the former president also acknowledged it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening to him.

He paid tribute to the other victims and said, in this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand united. And he went on to say, I truly love our country.

He told the New York Post, he is supposed to be dead today.

As for the man who tried to kill him, here's what we've learned. 20 year old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified by the FBI on Sunday. The feds say he was not known to the agency prior to the attempted assassination. As you know, we normally do not name mass shooters on this program because they desire infamy and we decline to help. We've made an exception, given that this is a presidential assassination. The name is already ubiquitous. The feds say there was no indication of mental health issues, though I've got to be honest. Tough to believe. Let's wait. He had a limited social media presence. Also interesting, his politics are unclear, but we're going to learn more about all of that.

State voting records show he was a registered Republican, but federal Election Commission documents show a donor with the same name, age, and address gave money to a democratic fundraising group on January 20, 2021, the day of President Biden's inauguration. All right, I am, I am telling you this because the moronic left wing press has spent the past due date two days saying he's a registered Republican. He's a razor Republican, you absolute inane idiots.

Yeah, he seemed like a big Donald Trump fan, didn't he? What are you saying?

Like, he, he secretly was a Republican, so we can't blame this on democratic ref rhetoric. What is your point? He loved Trump. Is that what you're. He killed him out of love?

Is that where we're going to go? I mean, like, just stop. Just stop that.

I don't understand the insanely stupid argument that is being made over that. And the same outlets that are reporting he was a registered Republican are nine times out of ten, ignoring the fact that he was making donations to the Democrats. At least this one. All right, so I don't know why he registered Republican. I don't know why he donated to a Democrat group. I do know he shot Donald Trump. So just stop.

Stop.

CNN and the New York Times reporting that the man's father is a registered libertarian. His mother's a registered Democrat. My mom's a registered Democrat, too. That doesn't tell us what his politics are. Both parents are licensed professional counselors, which is sort of interesting. According to state records, the shooter was from an affluent area. He used a gun that had been legally purchased by his father.

His father told the local press, I don't want to talk until I know what the hell is going on. And I've spoken to law enforcement.

The shooter's been described as a loner, was apparently rejected by his high school's rifle team. Here's a former classmate.

I didn't have any interaction with him, but he was like a kid that was always alone. He was always bullied every day. He was just an outcaste. Uh, yeah. I mean, he would sit alone at lunch. I mean, he was just an outcast. And you know how kids are nowadays. So they're gonna see someone like that and they gonna target him because they think it's funny or whatever. So it's the best way I can describe it.

It's honestly kind of sad. Like, I don't want to say this is what provoked it, but never know.

Sean Parnell
And you said he was a loner?

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I want to say he was a loner more because he was just.

He was quiet, but, like, he was just bullied. Like, he was bullied so much. So much.

He was just made fun of, I guess, for the way he dressed or his appearance.

Sean Parnell
How do you dress?

Megyn Kelly
Like, they were just saying jeans. He'd wear hunting outfits sometimes.

He would always wear a mask. Even after Covid, he wore a mask.

The shooter did belong to a local gun club, which has a 200 yard rifle range. Remember, he fired at former President Trump from less than that.

Various news outlets have reported that he had explosive material found both in his car and at his home. And there are some reports that law enforcement believes he may have expected to survive the shooting and unleashed further carnage.

Now, as we continue to piece together what went wrong, we are faced with a choice.

Who do we want to be as a nation?

Perhaps we can glean the answer from another tragic event, at another time, when our nation seemed irretrievably broken.

On the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, he wore a wool and silk lined coat.

It was the same coat he had worn just a month prior to deliver his second inaugural address.

Inside are stitched the words one country, one destiny.

Are we one or are we not? Are we worth saving or aren't we?

Do we want what's best for our nation, for our children, or don't we?

Is this the country we want them to grow up in?

Let's hope for all of our sakes we can find our way back to one country, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Can't help feeling that bit by bit, these horrific events, as awful as they are, may eventually not immediately push us closer to that. Just don't think that the reasonable, normal american citizen wants to live like this.

Joining me now, we bring you three experts to analyze the Trump assassination attempt on Saturday. Sean Parnell is a decorated combat veteran and host of Battleground with Sean Parnell. Sean has been on the program many times. He was within feet of Trump at the rally on Saturday and has spoken, had spoken on stage earlier that afternoon. Charles Marino, former secret service agent and author of Terrorists on the Border and in our country, and John Spears, a special forces sniper and sniper, trainer for law enforcement and military and author of Warlord of the Unraveling. Guys, welcome all of you to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Sean, you were one of the first people I thought of on Saturday. I knew you'd be there.

Tell us what you experienced and what stands out to you now, 48 hours.

Charles Marino
Out, so much, Megan, and your intro is fantastic. And you mentioned spirituality and faith and religion. And let me tell you, I've been on the stage with President Trump five times now.

And from the moment that I walked into that rally. And people can call me crazy or whatever, but there was something different. There was something in the air. And the reason why I know this is because on June 10, 2006, in Afghanistan, and I've not really told this story before, I was blown up and wounded, pretty seriously fractured my skull, got blown up by a rocket propel grenade.

And I was unconscious, but I felt something. I didn't know if I had already died or what? But I felt like something was beckoning me to get back in the fight. Something that, like a spiritual presence that really felt like my grandfather, who I lost the day before I went to Afghanistan, when I was on that stage speaking, I felt that same damn thing. And people, for 48 hours have been sending me images of the flag because I guess the wind had blown it and, you know, kind of got it tangled, but sent me images of the flag from different angles, just convinced that there was something going on. It was surreal. Call it an omen. Say it was something spiritual. I don't know, looked like an angel. And they fixed the flag moments before Trump came out on that stage.

And again, I just talked to the president 30 minutes prior before he walked out, but there was something in the air. I mean, again, people call me crazy or whatever, but there was something different about that day.

And you're right, President Trump, he called for this. Oh, hey, you know, you got my favorite immigration graphic. You know, I go off script, I tell my people, like, I hate this teleprompter stuff, and they get the graphic up there. He looks once because he's got these screens behind him, was right there with him, and he looks twice, and then six shots ring out, and I could hear the bullets, just the trajectory of the bullets. I could hear them going supersonic, cracking through the air right above my wife and I, and I saw President Trump grab his ear. A second later, the Secret Service was on him. And then I heard thump, thump of the counter sniper team. Then another couple of rounds, which was almost simultaneous, and those rounds hit people directly behind me.

It was a crazy, chaotic day, but I wanted to bring up the faith component because I don't care what people thought. Say, think, believe. Everyone has different beliefs in this country, and we welcome that.

But there was something in the air that day, and it felt different.

Megyn Kelly
Wow. I believe you.

And you were not only so close to the president, Sean, but you were close, as I understand it, to some of the, the other victims who were hit. The man who died is named Corey Comparatore, age 50, husband, father of two, and his daughter Allison posted on, I think it's Facebook today, saying, in part, he was the best dad a girl could ever ask for.

My sister and I never needed for anything. He could talk and make friends with anyone, which he was doing all day yesterday and loved every minute of it. He was a man of God, loved Jesus fiercely, and also looked after our church and our members as family. He died a real life superhero. She says the media is not going to tell you how quickly he threw my mom and me to the ground. They are not going to tell you that. He shielded my body from the bullet that came at us. He loved his family. He truly loved us enough to take a real bullet for us. And I want nothing more than to cry on him now and tell him, thank you. Oh, my God. This is hard to read. This poor young woman, I don't know how old she and her sister are. They look like they're maybe in their mid to late teens.

Firefighter, already in public service and gone too soon. Age 50. Just for going to a political rally to support a candidate.

He jumped on his family. Sean, I want to ask you what you saw in terms of those around you and what your instincts were in terms of protecting those around you.

It's no accident he's been in combat.

Charles Marino
Yeah, hundreds of times in firefights. And I'll tell you something.

We often talk about the exceptional nature of this country and the fact that we are indeed an exceptional nation, but we're made exceptional not because necessarily of our political leaders, although some are inspirational and great, larger than life. Certainly Trump was that day. But our nation is exceptional because of the people. And Corey was one of those people. And there were so many patriots that day that stepped up to help other people. You know, the pathway to a meaningful life is acts of service through others with nothing, no expectation of anything in return.

And the people at that rally that day stepped up, Megan, in a way that I'd never seen before.

And when the shots rang out here, the rounds crack overhead, and everybody in the crowd just kind of froze for a second. And I heard people saying, they're just fireworks. And I said, they're not fireworks. It's a sniper. Everybody get down. Everybody get down. And people looked at me like I was crazy. And I already had my wife.

Been in lots of firefights in my day, but I've never been in one with my wife.

But I got her down in the prone on the ground flat. And there was my friend. JD Longo is the mayor of slippery rock. Marine combat fed. His wife was pregnant. And to my right was 95 year old Misses Fogel, whose son is languishing in a russian prison, has been completely ignored by the Biden administration.

Everybody froze. And in that moment, one thought was going through my head, and that was trying to ascertain the position of the shooter. And within seconds, it was one of two locations, water tower or building.

And then immediately, immediately I checked myself and I said, there's no way, because the secret Service would almost certainly have those places on lockdown. And the next question was, you know, you have to ascertain the location of the shooter to figure out whether or not you can move people and how you move people, right? How you use cover and concealment to get people out safely. Because the reality was secret Service had their mission. They were on the present, right? You had local law enforcement, SWAT, insert teams that were on, looking for an on the shooter. Some were helping with casualty evacuation, but the truth is they were stretched way too thin.

And the real question was, you had 30,000 plus people there, one exit. How the hell do you get those people out of there? And when you get shot at for the first time, everybody has this experience. At some point, you sit down and you say to yourself, like, holy shit, someone just tried to kill me that's never met me before.

They tried to wipe out everything that I was, that I am now, everything that I ever will be.

And it takes a long time to wrap your mind around the existential enormity of that.

And not everybody in the crowd. I'm sure there had been people in the crowd that had been shot at before, but there were likely 30,000 people in that crowd that were experiencing something like that in that moment and needed to figure out a way to get them out of there. But the last thing I'll say is this, because I didn't see Trump fully stand because the Secret Service was around him. But I heard the crowd erupt in cheers, and I knew that President Trump had showed himself to the audience.

But what does it say about the strength of the people whose life was in danger? And by the way, we were operating under the assumption, and when talking with the law enforcement, as we were helping with evacuation and helping with the casualties and helping with wheelchairs, we were operating under the assumption that there were two shooters because there were two big pieces of machinery behind President Trump and a hydraulic line on the one behind him had popped and broken. So we thought there might be another shooter out there, but every single person in that crowd stayed there with him. They didn't rush, they didn't stampede, they didn't hurt anybody. And damn it, like that right there is what makes this country exceptional. Not the evil shooter who tried to do something terrible that will forever have altered the trajectory of this nation. But the people in that crowd that day supported one another. And to me, that's a major part of this story.

Megyn Kelly
Could not have said it better myself. Sean. That's exactly right. You know, it's the old Mister Rogers. Look for the helpers. And the helpers were everywhere that day, from the emergency doctor who tried to save the life of this poor man as he was dying and then realized it was not possible to those who didn't cause a panic, if they had caused a panic and run for their lives and there had been some sort of a massive herd trying to get out, people always get hurt and sometimes killed in those scenarios. And that is also to Mister Trump's credit for refusing to exit that stage until he held up his fist to show everyone he was okay and reminding them what the mission is here, right? To fight. Fight for what you fight, Megan.

Charles Marino
That's leadership.

That's what it means to be a leader, to show people to stand up in that moment where the rubber meets the road, to show them that you are there with them. And in that moment, Trump exhibited the leadership that this country desperately needs. And within 12 hours of someone trying to kill him, the guys out there saying, no, we need to unite, we need to come think about that. That's leadership. And Trump proved it on that stage.

Megyn Kelly
And by the way, you know, a credit to all of those who helped, those in the crowd who were older, who were scared, who didn't know what to do. And I've got to give a shout out to some of my colleagues in the press who were there. The New York Times featured an interview with a guy named Doug Mills today, their photographer. And that man did a great job of taking the pictures that we continue to show. They are iconic photos. And he talks about how he was scared. He's covered president's back to Reagan and he's never been present for such a thing. And yet he continued to press his shutter. And that's the reason we have the images we have and we know some of the trajectories of the bullets. I mean, it had to have been very scary for the photogs in particular who were within a couple of feet of the president, but did their jobs and documented true history in the making. We're going to take a quick break and we will be back. Sean, thank you. Chuck and John, stay with us. And we're going to start the next segment.

So much to digest with them on where we went so wrong.

This just breaking from Reuters, this is their reporting that the Trump campaign will announce its pick for Donald Trump's vice presidential running mate at around 04:30 p.m. eastern today during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, citing a source familiar with the matter. We'll see whether that pans out. But if that's true, we only have a couple of hours to wait. For what it's worth, we know that at least Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Doug Bergam and Glenn Youngkin are all in Milwaukee. I can't, there's a lot, there's a lot going on today. Are you feeling it, too?

And one of the things that's going on, going to go on today, tomorrow, and in the weeks to come is an investigation into how this happened.

How did this happen? Yes, we're looking into the shooter, and they're trying to get his phone unlocked right now, with court permission.

The FBI is trying to see what's on there that's critical. It doesn't look like so far they found any sort of a manifesto, something that would make it obvious he had a very limited social media presence. He was on one of the lesser known social media companies, and there was very little on there, and he hadn't been using it for months. Again, we reported to the, at the top of the hour, he's not known to have had mental health problems, though. Again, put an asterisk on that. Right. We'll see. See about that. I mean, clearly, anybody who does this to innocent civilians and tries to assassinate a president has got some mental issues. That doesn't mean they're legally insane, but we'll find out.

And they're trying to unlock that phone, which will be a treasure trove of information. And I have pretty high confidence they'll be able to do it. But in the meantime, we need to figure out how the Secret Service went wrong and local law enforcement went wrong. Obviously, there was a catastrophic failure. And here with me to help in that analysis is Charles Marino, former secret service agent and author of terrorists on the Border and in our country. And John Spears, special forces sniper and sniper, trainer for law enforcement and military, and author of Warlord of the Unraveling. Guys, thank you again for being here. So, Chuck, as a former Secret Service guy, let me start with you. Can I ask you a question?

We were just talking with Sean about how a lot of the crowd looked stunned. Some went down immediately to protect themselves or their family, covered their family members. President Trump, 1 second it took him to go down. Is that part of the training when you have a president, you know, by the Secret Service, like you hear gunshots? Cause I just don't think, I don't know if it's human instinct, as soon as you hear it, to drop down as quickly as he did.

Sean Parnell
Yeah. If you actually listen closely, Megan, you can hear the agents as they're responding to cover him, yelling at him to get down. And the reason why they're telling him to get down is because there's armor there on that stage behind that stars and stripes pipe and drape. So they want him to immediately get behind that and then pile their bodies on top of his to give him the protection. That's that inner ring of the concentric rings of security that you were talking about. That's the last line of defense for the Secret Service. They trained for a whole host of scenarios, including the worst case scenario that we saw yesterday, the attempted assassination. So there's a lot of training there. But the work of the secret Service, the efforts are put in on the front end, which is why we send agents out to do protective advance of sites prior to any protectees going there. That is to be on the proactive side and to identify and mitigate threats like the building that the shooter ultimately got on top of. The Secret Service is responsible for creating the overall security plan. So whether we're talking about the inner, the middle, or the outer ring of security, they own that they are responsible for coordinating, that they are responsible for working closely with state and local law enforcement who are supporting them to make sure that the plans are implemented effectively.

Megyn Kelly
And that if this outer perimeter was where the rooftop was, and we know that that's the case, the Secret Service doesn't get a pass by saying, well, that was outside the perimeter, and we handed that over to local Pennsylvania state troopers or local law enforcement. They're also responsible for that, too.

Sean Parnell
That's exactly right, especially since that building is naturally going to come up to the attention of the countersnipers. So it's going to fall within the security plan and only being, you know, 125 yards away with a direct line of sight to the stage that's just outside that middle ring of security. So absolutely, you're going to have your attention drawn to it as an agent, as you're standing on the stage where the president's going to stand, and you look out and you see that elevated threat there. So you've got to go out as an agent and make sure that in your overall security plan, you are drawing attention to that building, to local police and making sure that you are helping them implement a plan to post that building, to secure it, to put somebody on the roof, whatever way you need to do it. You need to make sure nobody had access to that building. And that's where we see the fail. Anytime you see agents having to respond the way they did within that inner circle, that means something failed in the overall security plan and failed catastrophically, which.

Megyn Kelly
We, of course, saw with our own eyes. So what of these reports, Chuck, that, you know, we showed the video earlier of all of the people, the civilians on the ground, saying, he's right there. You can tell it's not a sharpshooter shooter. He's got, you know, tan shirt and white pants. Or maybe it's the reverse. He keeps moving his body to readjust like he's getting comfortable. I mean, you can just tell. Even I, as a layperson, can see this is not a security official. And these laypeople themselves were very clued into this guy did not belong up there and appeared to be a threat. Maybe they saw the rifle. It's just you don't hear them say that during the clip, if I recall correctly. So what if this report that they were the ones who saw, my God, the guy's up there. And then I don't know if local law enforcement heard them say that or local law enforcement was already on it. They certainly didn't appear to be already on it. And that they went up there and this guy turned his rifle on them, and the guy went back down the ladder and then started shooting. Maybe I've watched too much tv, but in my head, as this plays out, of course it shouldn't have been allowed in the first place. But once you're up there as a cop and you see a guy with an AR 15, you don't go back down the ladder. But what. Tell me what's real.

Sean Parnell
Yeah, look, the threat should have been engaged right there. I'm convinced the shooter was on a suicide mission as he was making his way to the building. If he had been confronted by law enforcement, the shooting would have started between him and the law enforcement officers. I think the fact that he made it to the roof and was spotted by a police officer up that ladder and no action was taken is really dereliction of duty, if true, but the reporting of a suspicious person with a weapon started much sooner. So it tells me that amongst the investigation, we're going to find that there was a significant gap in communication, because if the president's detail had known that there was a. A suspect, armed, who could not be found by local law enforcement within the area, then you would not bring the former president to the stage. You would actually keep him in the armored car until the situation was resolved. So it tells me there's a communication breakdown. But as far as the investigations that are going to come out of this, Megan, I can tell you, it's going to expand well beyond just what happened at that site. You're going to see people looking at the HR hiring practices of the secret Service.

You're going to see them looking at training. You're going to look at them looking at operations and resourcing. Was the former president Trump detailed? Given all the resources that they needed to match the threat level, they're really going to be under the microscope. And there's no way to sugarcoat it. They've got a very, very rough road ahead, and rightfully so.

Megyn Kelly
All those questions we're going to get into here, and yes, I agree. I mean, just on what we've heard so far, there are real questions about whether he was adequately staffed. And let's just be honest, about five foot five women standing in front of a six foot three man as his protector. It's absurd. It's not a question of sexism. My God, this is a joke.

You don't put a five foot five woman in front of a six foot three man as his protector. The headshot was right there. Had there been another shooter, it would have been easy to take him out. I mean, that this circle around President Trump was exposed, had a massive flaw in it. This is later when they were getting him into the car. And here's the one woman who can't reholster her weapon. Again, I hate to be so critical because I can't holster a weapon, but I am not working as Secret Service.

Let me just bring in John, because you're a former sniper, and John, you know, all credit to the sniper for taking out the shooter quickly. I mean, I'm sure this is not an easy thing to do, but a lot of people are wondering, like, if you're the sniper, that I guess he would be called a counter sniper. The guy up there, we know, working on behalf of the good guys, why wouldn't that guy have noticed another man on a rooftop 150 yards away? Not even, like, does he have an obligation to do something before and to notice this before shooting starts?

John Spears
We can answer all of that pretty easily by applying rational knowledge about how these public venue operations are carried out. Right now, what's going on is there are two prevailing narratives, not even 72 hours after the failure at the event.

And these two narratives are very destructive to the country.

One is that the factory building about 125 yards from the venue podium where President Trump was speaking, that that building was somehow outside the security perimeter, and we can deconstruct that. That's absolutely false. The other narrative that is still prevailing is that the reason there's some perceived delay in the countersniper successfully engaging the shooter is that there was some order from secret service at a higher level to not shoot, or that there are policies or procedures in place that keep them from responding to a threat unless they receive permission.

And both of those narratives that are still persisting are very harmful to the country.

The answers behind why those things aren't true may not necessarily be complementary to the local law enforcement involved, but it's way less damaging than letting the country believe that any of those things that happened were purposeful or purposeful negligence, because that is absolutely not what happened.

Megyn Kelly
Yes, because just to. Just to add to that, there was a report from a woman named Susan Crabtree. She's the White House and national political correspondent for real Clear politics. And she, citing a source in the secret service community, has reported quite a few things, and one of them is that it is not protocol for Secret Service to shoot until after the target has shot first. And then NBC News came out this morning and reported as follows.

The roof. This is, again, citing a Secret Service, I believe source. They say this roof was a well known, high priority vulnerability. It had been identified a day before during a security walkthrough.

The countersniper team. Two people were on site, and they said countersnipers do not need permission to shoot prior to engaging a suspect, and said protocols here were not followed. Now, I don't know what that means, but what do you take away from that? John?

John Spears
Rules for use of deadly physical force never require a threat to fire first before returning force to end that threat, that simply does not exist. That's completely false. I don't want to speak about specific policies or procedures of any agency, but, I mean, as a general principle, rules for use of deadly physical force is that a threat is evident, that they have the intent, the means, and the opportunity to present that kind of deadly threat. And a person who's not supposed to be where they're observed with a weapon. And, of course, as a lawyer yourself, you understand what it means to evince a deadly intent that requires no level of authorization at any higher level.

Megyn Kelly
A sworn officer. Does that mean this got this sniper, didn't see him? Like I got to imagine, your secret Service sniper. You're up there, you see this guy with an AR 15, not in any sort of law enforcement gear, and presumably you know where your fellow law enforcement officers are stationed on nearby roofs. And you don't. It does. It has to mean he didn't see him, doesn't it? Unless he just misunderstood the threat.

John Spears
I will provide you what is likely the explanation for the events that we saw.

Having spent 20 years working with law enforcement, special operations, snipers, and public venue support for SWAT, I can tell you what is most likely. What happened. Part of this starts with the fact, believe it or not, that secret Service is such a professional organization that demonstrates such a high level of respect for local agencies that they work with. So it's very uncommon for secret service to work with a local SWAT countersnipers and micromanage them or over instruct them.

Right. Most likely what happened is they said, okay, that factory building, you, local sniper countersniper team, are going to occupy security and take that building as your overwatch position as part of the operational plan. Check. What they are unlikely to say is, hey, guys, you're going to observe from the roof, right. You're not going to go inside the building and try and observe and control the scene. Right. You know, you're not going to set up an area where you have dead space where you can't visually access your area of responsibility. Right. I mean, we know it's a hot day, but you're not going to do that, right. I mean, secret Service, they're the highest level of professionals, just like about all of the federal agencies I've ever worked with, and they don't go into a local scene and micromanage like that. So it's what we call there's a lot of implied tasks and implied competence working with the local agencies.

So I can definitely.

Megyn Kelly
Is that possible that there was a local law enforcement officer in that building responsible for that building, who just didn't secure the roof?

John Spears
I won't tell you how I know that, but I will leave it that my conjecture, based on knowledge and experience, is that there was a basic lack of tactical acumen, and that is most likely what happened, which is why you do not see a countersniper team on that building.

Megyn Kelly
Wow, Chuck, your reaction to that, that they just, local law enforcement was supposed to cover the building? They didn't. And Secret Service may have been just too deferential to local law enforcement in their expected expertise.

Sean Parnell
Yeah. So to the point I made earlier, that would still be unacceptable and fall back to the Secret Service, because as the overseer and creator of the plan, you're responsible to make sure anything that you're requesting, especially at a special interest location like that building, that those things are implemented. So if it's possible that a police officer or two were assigned to that building and they didn't show up, and they didn't do what was asked, and it was identified as a significant threat to the protective, then that's still a problem. As far as the use of force curriculum, it's actually broader for the secret Service while they're conducting their protective mission. There is no policy in the secret Service while conducting protection that says you have to wait to be fired upon first.

That's absolute nonsense. So you have free reign to do what's needed if there's an identifiable threat.

So that goes back to the communication as to whether or not permission was sought. I don't know about that. However, there needn't be permission sought. If there was a threat, an imminent threat that was identified, the countersnipers are clear to take that out and mitigate that.

Megyn Kelly
Chuck, do you think that the countersniper, you know, the one that we've had, continue to see on the top of the other rooftop? Maybe my team can lay in some graphics here and some video so we can see what we're talking about.

Was that a secret Service guy or was that a Pennsylvania guy?

Sean Parnell
It was a hybrid.

You had two special operations teams there. You had the counter snipers that you see, and then you have the counter assault team that you saw come to the stage heavily armored with the helmets on the. That was also a hybrid. So what you have is a secret service component. You had a two man team on the counter assault team. You had a split two man team on the counter sniper team, and they were supplemented by either local and state law enforcement.

Megyn Kelly
So we don't know the guy who actually shot the shooter. We don't know whether that was a federal agent or a local agent.

Sean Parnell
We don't.

Megyn Kelly
And we don't know why he didn't shoot him prior to the shooter beginning his shots.

Sean Parnell
We don't.

Megyn Kelly
Go ahead. John's saying he's got his finger in the air. What?

Sean Parnell
Yeah.

John Spears
Well, it's, again, helping to deconstruct these. These two terrible narratives that are out there. You know, right now, the biggest thing that we have to fight is, is this terribly destructive idea that there was conspiracy or that law enforcement at any level was waiting to seek permission to engage a threat or something like that. Chuck alluded to it earlier or flatly said it.

The problem with these interagency operations almost always comes down to unreliable intraoperative communication.

So I am revealing no source known only to me.

I am betraying no confidence from people on the scene who have spoken to me, of which there have been several who have been students of mine over the years. Who are in that factual job and were there. I'm betraying nothing.

This morning, Secret service has already, in a polite way, introduced the idea that there's a local law enforcement failure that contributed to this.

One of the local chief law enforcement officers already revealed these issues, that the countersnipers assigned to the building probably saw the shooter, accessed the roof, but weren't able to do anything about it, that they contacted patrol on the ground.

And, you know, this has already been revealed by one of the local chief law enforcement officers, is that one patrol officer was forced to heft another officer from a position to access the roof to see the shooter. And before that officer could engage the shooter, he fell.

There was no ladder involved. So that's already been revealed. And out in the media, we know that's the case.

It's just what Chuck was talking about. The communication problems between these agencies that are kind of thrown together.

It's very difficult. So what I saw of the videos of the countersniper who successfully identified and very, very rapidly engaged the shooter was that he didn't have audio communication to guide him onto the threat.

You see him take his eye out of the optic to get visual access to the scene and then get back on the optic and immediately drove that optic to the threat. And, you know, as evidenced by the audio, the shooter unfortunately got a. Any shots off, but the threat was eliminated by that countersniper as faster, faster than any other human could have ever done.

Megyn Kelly
It was amazing. Keep going. Yes.

John Spears
The problem was with the interoperative communication and having those countersniper teams aware of the fact that there was a threat on the roof. And the other thing that probably, and many of us have been in that experience before, the other thing that likely added to a delay was the counter snipers knew that at the factory building that that's being occupied by good guys, by another countersniper team. And there was most likely a delay that was due to what we would call deconfliction.

Right. It takes some amount of time to visually acquire what you're trying to find a. To process it and say, hey, who's on the roof? Is that a bad guy or is that a good guy?

And that deconfliction and that extra amount of time, you know, was a human and a systems error, you know, very much a systems error that, you know, when we look at failure of multi agency operations and critical incident failures in law enforcement, the inability to have good interoperative communication between the different elements is always a leading cause that's identified in the after action I want to tell.

Megyn Kelly
The police, am I wrong on that? No. Stand by. Standby. I want to tell you the report to which John is referring. The local Pennsylvania sheriff defended the armed officer who encountered the would be Trump assassin on the rooftop moments before the shooting, claiming it was the right call to retreat after the gunman pointed the weapon at him. Butler County Sheriff Michael Sloop confirmed Monday that a local officer made contact with crooks after being hoisted up to the roof by another officer, but fled when the sniper pointed his ar style assault rifle at the officer. Quote, I would have done the same thing. Absolutely, said the sheriff, quote, all I know is the officer had both hands on the roof to get up on the roof, never made it because the shooter had turned toward the officer. And rightfully and smartly, the officer let go, so was being hoisted, got a gun pointed at him, let go, to save his own life. And then the shooting proceeded by the bad guy as follows, as we all saw. Why are you shaking your head no, John?

John Spears
Well, I mean, that's very accurate. But at the heart of all of this, the root cause is a very inadequate assets being dedicated to President Trump and the campaign.

Megyn Kelly
That is the basic, and that's where I want to take the discussion now. So let me go with you on that, Chuck, because you mentioned it, and I, we've got to, we've got to look at the head of the secret service and this, look, I have absolutely no pardon for the female secret service officers who looked incompetent. They looked incompetent in the video that we've all seen, not necessarily on the stage, the one woman there seemed to be doing her best to protect him, just like the male agents, but she was too short.

But however, when they were bringing the president over to the vehicle, the secure vehicle, to get him away, it looked like, it would look like a bunch of sorority sisters who were hungover. The one with the ponytail whipping around, she didn't know where she was going. The other one who couldn't reholster her weapon.

Not one of these women inspires any confidence. And by the way, if they're 30 years old, it would be a lot. I mean, they seem very young, and they don't seem in control or command at all. Look at this woman. She doesn't know what she's doing. She's got it. She gets her sunglasses back. Okay, great.

This woman on the left looks like the one who was crouching earlier, though I can't say it for a fact. Okay. But, and I want to talk about the diversity effort but before we go there, Chuck, the whole weekend, all I could think of was, fine, let's have that discussion. But let's first talk about who didn't secure the scene. The person who didn't make sure the rooftop was adequately secure is the person we need to be talking about. And I have no idea whether that's a female or a male. Do we know any? But then anything about who that is?

Sean Parnell
We don't. You're referring to what's called who was the site agent who did the protective advance ahead of time, and who was there to run the show the day of. We don't know who that person was. The level of experience, the gender. We don't know any of that.

I can continue here with the DEI program if you'd like.

The director of the secret service, Kim Cheadle, has created a program known within the Secret Service as the 34 30.

That is, the director wants to achieve 30% female agents and officers within the Secret Service by the year 2030 to expand hiring.

Megyn Kelly
They're aiming to have 30% women recruits.

Emily Jashinsky
By 2030, and even allowed YouTube influencer.

Megyn Kelly
Michelle Kare to train with agents.

Emily Jashinsky
But I'm very conscious as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women.

Sean Parnell
This program has created great contention within the secret Service.

And some of the questions that are going to be asked of the director is, have standards for hiring, for training, for assignments been lowered to achieve this program?

It's a very straightforward question, and now the director is in a position where she's going to have to prove that it hasn't.

And I hope it hasn't. But unfortunately, I don't think, speaking honestly, that's going to be the answer.

Megyn Kelly
I mean, it looks obvious. It's so absurd to try to paint this as female empowerment. Is it female empowerment to take a bunch of women who are obviously unqualified for the job and let them publicly humiliate themselves and endanger the lives of a president and his fans? Is that female empowerment? That's a national embarrassment for womankind. No one gets uplifted by such a decision, whether it's on a secret service detail or a Boeing plane. Diversity, equity, inclusion have no place in jobs that relate to safety and security. And frankly, they have no place anywhere, but certainly not in those jobs. Not in an or not in a cockpit, and not in front of the president's protective detail. It's deeply wrong. Look, I used to live in Arlington, and there was a woman in my, whatever townhouse unit who was about six foot two and strong. She was built, and she was a Secret Service agent. And I remember thinking, that kind of makes some sense to me. I could see that as long as she's weapons trained and she can do all the other stuff, and then you get the occasional female firefighter who matches that description, too. But it's, what, less than one half of 1%? Those are the only ones who should even be considered. And the, you know, the women who look like me, who are, you know, on the smaller side and could easily be run over by a five foot seven male, have no business being there. Chuck.

Sean Parnell
This wasn't necessary. I've worked with females my entire career, and the females that I worked with were fantastic. They were as trained as I was, as capable as I was both physically and with a firearm. And there was great comfort and trust when you were serving on protection, details of which I served on many. So to divide the agency like this has not been helpful. But this is where the director has focused since her time as director. And I think that's going to come up, because I don't think the priority of this director's attention has been placed where it needs to be. And that is getting the most qualified people into the agency and focusing on the operations of the agency, which is a no fail mission. You got to show up to work and get it right 100% of the time, each and every day.

The Secret Service is not the type of agency that needs to be kinder, gentler, and softer.

That's not it. That's not what the Secret Service does each and every day.

What you wanted to see with former President Trump being taken off that stage, I can appreciate the visual of the fist raised in the air. But if I'm there, his feet don't touch the ground.

He loses all say on being evacuated from that very dangerous situation.

And unfortunately, I fear, when it's looked at, that the answer was that they were incapable of doing so because they had incapable people around him.

Megyn Kelly
He talked today to the New York Post and Byron York about the fact that you hear him in the tape saying, where are my shoes? Get my shoes. And he said, he was hit so hard by the Secret Service, he was hit right out of his shoes. He was wearing shoes when he began the speech. But then they, they listened to him when he said, wait, wait. And I see. I take your point. And in that particular moment, they should be in charge, not him, because they knew that they had shot the one sniper, but they didn't know too much.

Sean Parnell
How many more?

Megyn Kelly
There was another sniper.

Sean Parnell
How many more? The assumption is always there's more. The assumption is it could be a diversionary attack, it could be split tactics, it could be everything. So. So the assumption is you get them up as soon as you can, you get notified, the threats down, at least the identified threat is down. And you move them, you get them out of there. Forget the shoes, forget stopping to reassure the audience.

I get it. But at that point in time, it becomes my show and we're moving.

Megyn Kelly
It could, it could have taken a moment where he dodged a bullet, all but dodged a bullet, and turned it into a situation where he actually did take a bullet. I mean, I see the danger.

I've got to ask you about resources, because, again, this is only from this one reporter who you guys are both saying does not have her facts right about shooter protocol, sniper protocol, that absolutely the Secret Service can shoot any threat without being shot upon.

But she also did report, and it's gotten a lot of traction online, that one of the reasons there may not have been appropriate resources for President Trump there was because, and she is sourcing two sources within the Secret Service community saying the only permanent agent from Trump's detail during the rally was special agent in charge Kern and that all others were Tempsde. Pittsburgh US Secret Service field office had a Jill Biden visit and designated a lot of resources to her. According to at least one of her sources, she says the advance work only occurred one day beforehand because of a lack of resources. Where were the resources?

It was the Jill Biden visit.

Let me get your reaction to that first, Chuck. Is that, is that possible right now? The Secret Service is denying that on the record, saying that is not true. She's wrong on that as well.

Sean Parnell
Yeah. I gotta tell you, it's not uncommon to have more than just one visit fall under a geographic area controlled by the same field office. The Secret Service historically has been able to walk and chew gum regarding resources even if they needed to fly them in.

So I don't know why that would have been the problem. I think they would have been both adequately staffed and the capability was there from a resourcing standpoint, for sure.

So I can't comment on that. I can tell you that it doesn't surprise me. It does not surprise me. Sorry. That they're both.

That they are both having to be staffed significantly once the first lady, and one is the former president and the presumptive nominee for the republican party. So they're both pretty high level.

Megyn Kelly
Yes. What do you make of that report, John?

I don't know whether it's true, but she's also in there reporting that many of those working around President Trump were temps.

I don't know what that really means within this context.

John Spears
Well, DHS secretary Mayorkas is providing the same level of protection to President Trump that he's providing to the border.

You know, I'm not the expert that Chuck is on dignitary protection, but a basic principle of body bunker as a tactic, putting yourself around the principle to shield them with your body from any ballistic threat, a basic requirement for that technique is that the people providing the body bunker are as big or bigger than the principle to provide them the protection. And exactly what you pointed out, Megan, what you're seeing is just the prima facie evidence that Trump has been assigned the b team or less.

You know, the last time we had a situation like this, I believe Teddy Roosevelt was president running for re election as a former president, and the same thing happened. He was almost killed by an assassin.

Megyn Kelly
I don't need a, I don't need Chuck's background to know that woman was too small to be protecting Donald Trump. It's obvious.

There's no offense.

I actually don't give a shit if she's offended or not. She's too small. She's not the right person for the job. Doesn't mean she can't be behind the scenes doing tactical planning in an office. That's, I don't care about that. But same with, with firefighters, you know, and then we've seen this in the New York City police officers who, you know, we said dancing like, many of these women are obese. Many of the men are obese, too. But men have a natural advantage of strength when it comes to their female counterparts. It's just we've crossed the Rubicon into a lack of safety for civilians and in this case, a former president, in the name of equity. And it's disgusting. I hope this is part of the beginning of the end, Chuck.

I do wonder about the Dan Bongino reporting because he is definitely in a position to know. He's got a lot of Secret Service contacts still. And he was on body protection for Obama. And he's reporting and sticking very certainly to his reporting that the agency officials, and I think this means the Secret Service officials denied requests for more security from Secret service supervisors on Trump's protective detail. So I, that's either DHS, he's talking about her senior secret Service, but that, that Secret Service supervisors wanted more protection for Trump and that it was denied. This spokesman for the Secret Service, Anthony Guglielini, denied that such a request and denial took place, though I will tell you, as a lawyer, I noticed some wiggle room in his answer. He says that's an untrue assertion that a member of the former president's team requested additional security resources.

All right, so he's saying that a member of the former president's team and that those were rebuffed. And then he says, in fact, we added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of an increased campaign travel tempo. I don't know whether that means agents or whether he can just say, you know, we had to give him a few more laptops and guns.

You know, what, what do you, what's going on here?

Sean Parnell
Yeah, very, very gray statement.

You know, I can tell you that the emails, once they're requested, which they will be from places like the Office of Protective Operations, are going to show whether or not requests were made and if they were denied and what those requests were.

Former President Trump, as we know, is a very high profile person by nature.

And along with that profile comes an increased threat level. That's just the way it is. The more vocal you are, the more people don't like you. That's just the way it is. And the Secret Service has to pay attention to that and adapt. So if there were requests made and they were denied, this is not going to help with the general theme of what happened.

Megyn Kelly
Will these congressional investigations, House oversight, House intel, and forgive me, I can't remember the committee in the Senate, but also the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats. I mean, it's kind of interesting that they, too, have said, we've got to investigate what went wrong here. I don't know that I trust the Secret Service to investigate itself. But do you believe these congressional investigations will get to the bottom of this, Chuck? I mean, I don't know why Kim Cheadle hasn't tendered her resignation already.

Sean Parnell
Yeah. You know, there's all, there's also requests now coming out of Congress for an independent commission to look at this, similar to the Warren commission.

So I think there's going to be a lot of developments here. I think that type of request would be very hard for democrats to push away. I think this needs to be a bipartisan issue, and I think this is a good way for agencies like the FBI and others to say, let us do our work, we'll present you with our findings, and then you can take those into consideration. But as far as the Secret Service doing an investigation of itself right now, I think it doesn't matter. I think the only way the Secret Service is reviewed is by independent agencies or outside agencies.

Megyn Kelly
Well, and Chuck, let me follow it up with, they're kind of underground at the moment. You know, we've had a couple pressers now from the New Jersey, sorry, I keep saying New Jersey, it's Pennsylvania state officials, the sheriff and so on. Secret Service wasn't there. Secret Service held a presser to tell us what they're doing at the RNC.

PS, the headline is they're not increasing security. They feel it's already adequately covered. They haven't spoken it. I mean, I'm not sure this is the kind of thing where it's like you got caught having an affair when you were up for a cabinet position, just go underground and say nothing is not one of those events. So what do you make of their utter silence right now?

Sean Parnell
Oh, I've said from the start I think it's a strategic error. I think you've got to come out and you've got to face the music.

You've got the line that there is an ongoing investigation.

But I think the media and the american public just want to be reassured that former President Trump is being protected the way he needs to be protected.

I think you can talk about that, maybe not in totality, but I think you can come out and reassure the american public that, yes, everything that needs to be done is being done.

Acknowledge that there was a failure in the overall security plan. There's no running away from that. I think you get that over with. You take the hit from a PR standpoint. You say there's ongoing investigations. You can't comment too much more on that. And then you reassure the american public that everything's been fixed and he's going to have the highest level of protection along with everybody else that the secret service protects. I don't know why they're burying their heads in the sand.

Megyn Kelly
Trump today, just today, is calling for RFKJ to receive secret Service protection, too. And if Joe Biden denies that now, I mean, he's just absolutely heartless. He's going to have to provide it. This is just too hot a political culture at the moment. You guys have been wonderful. Thank you for educating us both and giving us so much of your time. Chuck, John, all the best to you.

Sean Parnell
Thank you, Megan.

John Spears
A pleasure.

Megyn Kelly
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Megyn Kelly
Free offer details apply after a historic news weekend here in America, the media has proven itself to be incompetent yet again. That's one word for it, corrupt. Biased is another. Are two others. A stunning headline from the front page of the Denver Post declared, gunman dies in attack.

What in the actual f, when we first saw this headline circulating, we thought it was a joke, but it's real. That's how they're describing an attempted presidential assassination.

And the New York Times at first went with Trump, hurt but safe after a shooting. You know, like he was just, you know, was drive by, like he was in on the south side of Chicago.

No, there was no mention of an assassination attempt. Then there's forbes for the w, who in a now deleted article, asked reader Sunday, will surviving gunfire be Donald Trump's next appeal to black voters? Who's from a DEI writer? That's their beat. Everything must be seen through the DEI perspective. Here to discuss it all and more, two of our favorites, best known on this show as the EJs, Eliana Johnson, editor in chief of the Washington Free Beacon and co host of the podcast Ink stained wretches with Emily Jasinski as well. She's DC correspondent for Unherd. Ladies, welcome back to the show. Eliana, I know you got your time is short.

The media, I pointed out the heroic behavior of, for example, the New York Times photographer who continued to press the shutter despite grave danger all around him and got us these iconic photos. But the print journalists who actually have to write copy, different story.

Eliana Johnson
It's amazing. You know, we, I spent part of the weekend writing an editorial about this, trying to process this and thinking about the role of the press, which in past shootings, whether it was the 2021 shooting at a spa in Georgia, the media jumped to tell us this was symptomatic of right wing anti asian hate or Sarah Palin's use of a crosshairs imagery on a map that was attributed where they said when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot that Palin was responsible for this.

You know, I have no doubt that if it was an assassination attempt on Biden that we'd be hearing how the rights rhetoric was responsible for this. But instead, we're, we're not getting that in the news coverage. And the other interesting thing about this is I think there's no institution in american life that's done more to empower Trump for help. His rise and now resurrection, then the media in the belief that he's the weakest republican standard bearer. And Trump showed in his response to this how, how foolish that that is because he really did show grace under fire.

Megyn Kelly
Can you believe the fact that MSNBC took Joe Scarborough off the air this morning? His show did not airtain, reportedly because they're so worried that he or one of his panelists will say something incendiary about Trump, who's still recovering from this attempted assassination.

The network, once that hit, push back saying, oh, no, we're just enrolling breaking news coverage. Well, what's wrong with him? He can't do rolling. But you have lots of reporters who can go on his show. They don't trust him because they know he's, hashtag, part of the problem. Eliana, it is.

Eliana Johnson
Look, credit to the management of NBC and MSNBC that had a moment of sanity here because they're right. I think it's true that either one of the two hosts of that show, Joe Scarborough or Mika Brzezinski or one of their many, many guests would have said something that would have tarnished the reputation of NBC or MSNBC and their flagship show. But it is incredible that they have to pull that show from the air because they can't trust what the people are going to say to talk about major political news, which is their job.

Megyn Kelly
Right? News flash. I think you better have a talk with Jen Psaki, too, who was on Meet the Press over the weekend talking about how scared she is about the journalists here and how we really need, you know, President Biden to be a healer. Ok. President Biden is also, hashtag, part of the problem. And yes, it's fine to worry about journalists in general, but in this particular instance, the person in danger is Donald Trump, Jen Psaki, not random journalists. It's just absurd the way they approach these stories. So, Eliana, as we go into this news cycle this week with the RNC and we have a more unified type candidate. That's the way Trump is thinking. Do you think the media will respond accordingly by softening its coverage of him?

Eliana Johnson
I think the coverage will be a bit softer, but it's also turned softer on Biden, where you see there is no more talk of pushing Biden off the ticket. But I do think it's going to be difficult for them to go into this convention and be vicious and nasty, which is what every bone in their body is, is telling them they want to do. Look, everything right now is coming up Trump, starting with his response and the photographs captured of that attempt, which are historic and ending with this morning with the dismissal of the document case, the decision by Judge Eileen Cannon down there.

And so things continue to move in his direction. And I do think the cut, the media coverage will be less vicious and nasty because of it.

Megyn Kelly
We'll continue to have losers like Keith Olbermann. I'll tell you in the next block what he's saying. Eliana, thank you.

Emily. Thank you for sticking around. There's so much to cover. Very grateful to have you. And I'm sorry that it took us 2 hours to get to. I said to the island, any other day you'd be the whole show, as you always are. But my God, you understand today. Very extraordinary afternoon.

Emily Jashinsky
Well, and it was such fascinating content listening to people with knowledge of what happens inside the Secret Service and people who law enforcement passed with protecting the president. So it was riveting to even just listen to.

Megyn Kelly
Thank you. And it's interesting because that guy, John, too, while he was very careful about not disclosing exactly what his knowledge was based on, he's very well connected to all the players in this case. So we were grateful to have him as well.

So here's how I see the news today. All right, you've got, okay, you've got President Trump surviving an assassination attempt and creating one of the most iconic photos and moments of all time, leading even some Democrats to say, I gotta vote for that guy. I, there's no, like, that is a superhuman kind of strength that we all witness there. You can have that guy, or you can have the guy who falls up the stairs trying to get on the Air Force, one, who can't keep his words together, who can't spit sentences out, who has to go to bed at eight, who can only work four to 6 hours a day. I mean, truly, like, the contrast could not be more stark. And then he comes into today with the RNC about to, you know, get going. It's going to be a celebration of Donald Trump and finds out that the most problematic of the four legal cases against him is done. It's dead, at least for now and probably forever.

And that that could also affect Jack Smith's role in what's left of the January 6 case, which was already on life support today. In just a matter of moments, he's going to be announcing his vice presidential pick, which will imbue the campaign with another round of enthusiasm, not from the media, not from the left, but from Republicans. No matter who it is, some will be a little disappointed, some will be excited. But net net, these things tend to have a positive, uplifting effect.

And against all that, what you have on the democratic side is President Biden, before the Trump shooting, holding a conference call with angry House Democrats who are saying, get out. We can't win with you. And reportedly so inept on this call that I'm going to repeat what Jake Sherman of Punch Bowl News reported during the call with the progressive caucus. The president said, said out loud that his staff had passed him a note to, quote, stay positive. You are sounding defensive. Biden read the note aloud to participants on the call.

I'm sorry. And then last night from the oval, he got out there and tried to strike this conciliatory tone, let's go for unity, and continued to screw up his words instead of saying, we'll decide our differences at the ballot box, repeatedly said at the battle box and the transcription person at the white ones. There's just, and here's the end of my synopsis. Now, there's reporting via axios that some of the top senior leadership among the Dems who were most rabid about getting Biden out, have resigned themselves to the reality, in their view, that Donald Trump just won this election, that he's going to get a second term, and that there's really no point in expending any more further political capital in trying to get Biden out because the conclusion here, in their view, is foregone. I mean, it's, they know what it's going to be. So what do you make of this chain of events and where it leaves us?

Emily Jashinsky
It's just such a, not to untangle, but it's really the most remarkable state of affairs, I think, in modern american political history. It's crazier than 2016, the night that Donald Trump actually won the election. I think right now we're in a moment that's actually even crazier than that, because as you just laid out, Megan, the sitting president of the United States had a cognitive breakdown in front of the entire country. The last two weeks have been spent with donors actually revoking, saying they are not giving more money to the Democratic Party. You have high profile Hollywood stars, democratic lawmakers saying that they can no longer support the sitting president of the United States, not because of policy differences, but because he is too old, he is not capable of handling his duties. And then on top of that, you have this historic moment as you just laid out, Megan, of the former president of the United States getting shot in the head, just grazing his ear, obviously, but being millimeters away from death on national television at a campaign event.

And all of this is playing out as that former president goes into the pomp and the circumstance of the nominating convention. And so just psychologically, Megan, I'm trying to imagine what it's like to be Donald Trump right now. You survive by millimeters in front of the entire world. A bullet actually hits your ear. Those iconic photographs are snapped, and then you head into Milwaukee with a huge legal weight just about off your shoulders. A vice presidential announcement to make. And Donald Trump obviously revels in this type of pomp and circumstance. And then you're being coronated as the republican nominee. I mean, you have to imagine that the trauma almost has him going back and forth, oscillating between the trauma of that and the stress that it can put on your life. But also kind of walking, talking on air with all of this politically, personally laid out in front of him.

Megyn Kelly
This week, I've been thinking about that picture we just showed with the fist up in the air, this iconic picture with the flag overhead in the secret Service trying to get him offstage, the blood on his face. And I think Donald Trump's whole life, in a way, prepared him for this moment. You know, he is incredibly strong. He is a fighter. In the fight or flight contest, fight always wins with Donald Trump. And it's, of course, made him controversial. I mean, I have been on the receiving end of some of that myself, and it can be somewhat alarming for those who find themselves on the wrong side of him. But net. Net, it's what made him president. It's what made him, you know, incredibly rich and successful. It's what made him not roll over and, you know, get into the fetal position when he got indicted four times.

It's what made him an effective president. It's what made him stand behind Brett Kavanaugh when no other sitting president would have stood by that guy being accused of being a serial rapist by these loons who we didn't necessarily know were all loons at the time. Donald Trump didn't care. He stood by his nominee and he got him onto the bench, all of it. And it's what made him able in that moment, to raise the fist. Not only that, but he's a natural born performer. He, he hosted the number one show on television for a decade. He's really talented in front of the camera, has a natural showman's instinct for what works. I've told the audience before, he always sits down in an interview and says, the lighting's like this. What about this? There's a shadow here move that he understands almost like a reality show would, that there's a camera on him at all times and that it matters how he behaves. And on top of that, Emily, you've got his connection with the UFC. And before that, the, we loves going to these events where it's raucous and it's rowdy and it's rough and going into the ring, pretending he's in the fights himself, the showmanship of that and what people like to see in a battle, a physical battle where people could actually throw blows and all that. So he's sort of got a lifetime of being around conflict and understanding how to own the moment. I just think all of this fed into this extraordinary thing we saw, where actually under fire, he was able to maintain his composure, his strength, his messaging to the people.

Raise his fist in defiance and say, fight.

Emily Jashinsky
The WWE point is fascinating. And on top of that, I just want to add what a lot of people have already heard on the audio that was being picked up by the presidential mic that was still on after Donald Trump in the, were flying by, him flying towards his ear and all of that, you heard him say, let me get my shoes. And many people have pointed that out at this point, but I think it was a very, very conscious effort on Trump's behalf to understand he had cameras unrolling right in front of him. He turned to the crowd very intentionally. He didn't just mouth fight into the Secret Service people's face, into their heads as they were covering him. He intentionally sort of, you can see this maneuvers himself so that he's looking out at the crowd and saying, fight. He wanted to have those shoes on. He told Byron York after Byron said it looked like he wanted to keep speaking, he said, yeah, I did. That Byron had picked up on something accurate, and that's no surprise. And that's when you mentioned the WWE UFC point that really, I think the images of somebody with blood streaked across their face and a fist up in the air. The parallel is, it's almost eerie, Megan. But it was very much Donald Trump knowing that he had cameras on him, that there were video cameras and that there were actual cameras. And it's reality television. And the last point I would make is that he's extended the reality television onto truth social as well.

He has been reacting like we see people who are in the public eye do not presidents so much. But he's been reacting, dictating through reporting. We know he's been dictating his truth, social posts about all of this. He posted one not long after the shooting, a couple of the next day, just kind of bringing people into his mindset like he typically does. Sometimes it gets him in trouble, sometimes it works really well for him. But in this case, I think it's been working well for him because it's, it's inviting people into the moment with him.

Megyn Kelly
It matters. You know, we, I've heard Charles CW Cook, who I love over at National Review, not a Trump fan, say many times fairly, that in some ways Donald Trump might not be the most effective spokesman for America. In some ways, he can't go in depth on our historical importance and our founding fathers and all. I mean, if you can, I've never seen it. So I understand the point.

But he gets the visual and the strength of our country and how that should be portrayed in our commander in chief better than anyone. And that matters, too, especially because the other choice couldn't be weaker, both physically and cognitively.

And just in his presentation, you know, you have the chance to send this guy bloodied up with a fist in the air to go stand up to Xi and Putin if necessary, or you've got the other guy who I mean, truly is only working a smattering of hours, needs to go night night by eight, and is at the point now where his own staff is referring to his big boy press conferences because this one, he's actually going to take questions off prompter. That's just, one is provocative and one is scary to our adversaries. It's the choice could not be more clear. I can't wait to see the polls to see how this event has affected people who were on the fence. Right? That small group that we all said, well, they're not going to go, they're not going to vote for Trump. Now, by now, they know Trump. You know, he's got a ceiling.

Or does he?

Eliana Johnson
Yeah.

Emily Jashinsky
And Biden is clearly trying to get himself in front of camera. And I think that's his only choice, given that his sort of dominant characteristic right now, as people perceive him is weakness, is royalty. He wants to project this image of leadership that he's on top of the situation. We saw those photographs actually from the Situation room released after he was briefed with Vice President Harris. And that's what he's trying to do. And I think that's really his only choice. At the same time, though, he can't get through an Oval Office address without saying battle box, without saying former Trump instead of former President Trump. So it might not be serving him well because it continues to emphasize the split screen. I don't know if you've seen this meme that's pinging around, Megan, but it has Joe Biden versus stairs. It's a picture of Joe Biden falling down. And then next to it is a picture that says Donald Trump versus bullet, a picture of him standing up with his fists in the air. That's stuff that's pinging around tick talk. And the memosphere and pop culture world is going to be really powerful, I suspect, like you do, that it's going to show up in the numbers. And Joe Biden doesn't have any other choice. There's nothing he can do to mitigate that going forward. And the RNC has been, in this sort of trumpian way prepared for the moment that Donald Trump now is going to take advantage of. It's in Milwaukee again, I'm from, not far from Milwaukee. This is intentionally chosen.

Brilliant, brilliantly chosen to, for Republicans. We can't take for granted how smart of a choice it was to hold this convention in Milwaukee. He has the teamsters president speaking. He has the mayor of East Palestine, Ohio, speaking.

And they also remember, even in Butler, Pennsylvania, they were at a farm show. That's where he did this rally. I mean, it's really fascinating how the republican messaging is now draped in ways that we've come accustomed to with these trappings of Trumpism that are now, they've set the stage for something really powerful, quite literally set the stage.

Megyn Kelly
Just a dip into vice presidential news. I hate to spend too much time on it, because by the time our podcast hits, people will know who it actually is. But right now, CNBC reporting, it's not Rubio. And there was an earlier report that no one knew that all the last finalists were saying as of up until today that not, not one had heard whether they were the choice or not. I don't know if that's true. If so, I think it's you, Megan.

Emily Jashinsky
Megan, I think that can only mean one thing. It's, it's you. It's Trump. Kelly, 24.

Megyn Kelly
I got enough problems. I don't need to add that to the list here. You mentioned Biden last night, and I do need to play some of that because he attempted to, you know, be the sober leader from the Oval Office. There were first reports that he was going to put this on tape, that he couldn't even do a two minute address from the Oval Office live. And then we heard, oh, no, he's going to do it live. And I got to tell you, like, I have my doubts on whether he had originally planned on doing it live. Whatever. He did it live. He did screw up his words. And here was the message. All right. Now, he got a lot of praise for this message, but I've got a different take on it. Watch.

Sean Parnell
I want to speak to you tonight about the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics tonight.

I want to speak to what we do know.

A former president was shot, an american citizen killed, while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing. Violence has never been the answer, whether it's with members of Congress of both parties being targeted and shot, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on January 6, or brutal attack on the spouse or former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, or information and intimidation on election officials, or the kidnapping plot against the sitting governor, or an attempted assassination on Donald Trump. But in America, we resolve our difference at the battle box.

Now, that's how we do it. At the battle box, with bullets.

The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of would be assassin.

Megyn Kelly
Okay, first of all, the need to both sides, the attempted assassination of a former president is abhorrent.

This is in a category of its own and does not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as what happened in Nancy Pelosi's husband out in San Francisco with some deranged druggie. Or the plot against Gretchen Whitmer, which we know involved an unhealthy amount of his federal agents trying to lure people into threatening Gretchen Whitmer.

Or January 6.

If you're going to go January 6, why don't you mention BLM and all the riots they held, right. The presidential attempted assassination is in a league of its own, and he knows that. So the attempt to both sides, it is repulsive. And not only that, Emily, but the nerve for him to say, we're going to, we really need to lower the temperature as it's his DOJ that is prosecuting Donald Trump in not one, but two federal cases, one of which just got dismissed this morning, no thanks to him. He didn't say, and therefore, I am withdrawing the law fair against Donald Trump. And after the past, just few days since his non compass mentis performance at that debate, when he started to go in a downward spiral and panic, the rhetoric he's been using against Trump has gotten more severe, pointed and problematic than ever. Here's just some of what we've heard from Joe Biden recently.

Sean Parnell
Donald Trump is. Donald Trump is a convicted criminal.

Donald Trump is found liable for sexual assault. Here's what the judge wrote, quote, Mister Trump raped her.

No, I mean Mister judge's line, not mine. DONaLD Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. But there's no question the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans, and that is a threat to this country.

Megyn Kelly
And then, of course, saying, we need to put him in a bullseye, like, spare me the lower the temperature talk until you do it yourself.

Emily Jashinsky
And, you know, it's not just Joe Biden either. And at a moment of political violence against the right, the right thing to do, the morally correct thing to do is give that its moment. We know that's what the left would be demanding if the parties were reversed here. And I think actually that's correct. I think it is correct. It's not to say that there isn't culpability for extreme rhetoric on both sides. I think we all know that our political rhetoric is at a high level right now. We're all well aware of that. But when it happens against the right, against a former president, against the nominee for the republican party, maybe pause. I mean, I thought that was shockingly tasteless to invoke acts of violence against the political left or attempted acts of violence against the political left at a moment where a man was slain, slaughtered in the bleachers, his bleachers, his blood is smeared over the bleachers because he went to a Trump rally in rural Pennsylvania. To even think, to even think. As Wolf Blitzer and Margaret Brennan, both mainstream media figures, in addition to the president who made those invocations in his Oval Office speech shockingly tasteless, if it were reversed, the media would be calling their own out for it. They'd be calling Joe Biden out for it. And frankly, they would be right. They would be right to do that. They're not playing by their own rules. But, you know, that's not something we can come to expect from them. It's just a matter of how Biden handles this going forward, because his, his campaign is predicated on the idea that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy.

And now a lot of people on the left are saying, take the temperature down. Well, you know, can you make the argument that he's a threat to democracy while also making the argument the temperature needs to go down? Maybe. We certainly haven't seen them attempt it yet. So far, I'm really looking forward to.

Megyn Kelly
Margaret Brennan condemning the new Republic for merging Trump's face into Hitler's, and the Washington Post for doing the same. Jeff Bezos was out there condemning this attempted assassination on President Trump. You know, it was so sad. This shouldn't happen in our country. It was your publication that did the same thing. Trump on one side with a profile right next to Adolf Hitler with their heads merging and said, yes, it really is okay to compare Donald Trump to Hitler. Spare me your empty platitudes. In the wake of the man almost being murdered on national television, who do they think they're kidding? And Margaret Brennan of CB's who I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but like, traditionally, has been not the worst offender on this. Like, of all the liberal media, she's usually not that bad, was the worst. I really think she was absolutely the worst. And how she reacted to this, not only did she have an actual republican shooting victim, Steve Scalise, sitting there, but she insisted that he specifically instruct members of his party to rein in the rhetoric and not blame. Like, first of all, Steve Scalise does not control all Republicans magically. And that's the wrong question to be asking him. And then had this exchange with Robert Costa on their Saturday night coverage. Watch this. Sat 16.

And it should be noted, many of Trump's supporters on social media tonight extremely angry. This is still a politically charged moment as much as it is a crime investigation in a security moment. Many people already in this country very angry at the other side, not just on a partisan red versus blue level, but we cover it all the time here at CB's News. There's a visceral nature to the emotions that pour out on the campaign trail. And to that point, Bob Costa, I was just texting with Robert O'Brien, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump, who sent out a statement saying, we've got to take the political temperature down. He and Mike Lee, the senator, issued this jointly, we've got to take the political temperature down, as evidenced by what happened in Pennsylvania today. So two key Republican Trump supporters calling for the rhetoric, the political violence, the threats of it to be lowered. That is in stark contrast to the head of the Trump campaign, one of the top Trump campaign officials. You were reading statements from earlier.

We are also looking at social media posts from other Republicans who are quite angry. Well, we're entering, though, a period of extreme political charge with the Republican National Convention.

I mean, just talk about getting the focus wrong. That that was not the story on Saturday night and it's not the story today.

Emily Jashinsky
And maybe stop texting Margaret BrenNan if she treats you like this, if she treats people like this, maybe stop texting her to stop trying to get your name mentioned on national television in the aftermath of a tragedy. I'm not ascribing ill motives. I think it's just honestly time for people to learn that if your former president, the former president of your party is nearly assassinated on international television and that's the response of somebody in the chair like that in mainstream media, maybe they're not capable of covering you with fairness and maybe you should think about tactically how you respond to that going forward. But I don't know how that's, I think it's a big lesson for everybody. I don't know if you remember, Megan, when those pipe bombs, horrible situation, were sent to CNN Newsrooms.

Obviously a terrible incident, much, much smaller scale than what we saw play out on Saturday. And the entire conversation was about how horrible the ride is. You weren't allowed to quote both sides. And again, I think that's right. When something happens in one direction, it's appropriate to talk about that and to remember that these are people, too. But of course, now it's just both sides, both sides, both sides. Those aren't the rules they play by. They're not the rules they demand everybody else play, play by. But now, of course, we can only talk about how it's both sides, not how the political right has been demonized in these ways, which is the story.

Megyn Kelly
On the night that the political rights leader almost died. That's the story. You want to get into rhetoric while the man is still got stitches in his ear or however he recovered from that. Then let's do that. Let's talk about the rhetoric leading up to the assassination attempt. What led to that? That's the story, not the anger in response to it and condemning and a man dies.

Emily Jashinsky
Family.

Megyn Kelly
Yes, exactly right. And Margaret Brennan was definitely part of the problem. Jamie Ganglia, oh, my God. At CNN. Look at this. I'm, how clueless can you be sat 17.

I do want to say there was one thing that when I watched the tape, I found odd because of all of the heated rhetoric, and that is that after he was hit, former President Trump got up and said, fight, fight, fight.

I think what we're hearing from people is that's not the message that we want to be sending right now. We want to tamp it down.

You're an idiot.

Exactly wrong on all fronts. It's exactly what we needed to hear. It's what most normal people wanted to hear and were inspired by as one of the most inspirational moments of our lives of recent history. To see a man under fire like that coming out and saying, I'm okay, and putting his fist in the air and saying, fight. Continue fighting for our ideals. What planet does this person live on? How bad is her Trump Derangement syndrome that she thinks it was a negative message?

Emily Jashinsky
Shouldn't we fight? What led to a man having to shield his family and sacrifice his own life and have his blood smeared all over those bleachers in the Butler farm show in Pennsylvania? Shouldn't that be the reaction to anybody? The man was just shot at. Donald Trump was just shot at, pushed to the ground by Secret Service, stood up. That's fighting in and of itself. Was it, should he not have done that? I don't know, Megan. I'm curious what you think about whether or not this was in the other direction. If people would get suspended for saying things like that.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, they would. Absolutely, they would. But you get a total pass when you're on the left. There's been no, I asked my team this morning, has there been any blowback on the new Republic for that Hitler cover? Have they weighed in at all? Have they, have they apologized? It was only eight or nine days ago. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Then you've got Representative Benny Thompson. You saw this, I'm sure, Democrat, Mississippi, who, he offered condolences, you know, so sorry. This is sad, you know, political violence bad and Benny Johnson. Sorry. Thompson is the same person who tried to pull President Trump's secret service protection in light of his conviction, as in, you know, being found guilty as a felonite in New York state. It was called the Disgraced act, denying infinite security and government resources allocated toward convicted and extremely dishonorable form of protectees act. So he can spare me the kind words now. And not just that, but his staffer, Jacqueline Marsaw was out there.

She's a field director for him. And she posted on Facebook, I don't condone violence, but please get some shooting lessons so you don't miss next time. Oops, that wasn't me talking. And then in a follow up post she wrote, that's what your hate speech got you. So now she's been fired. But what kind of an office is Benny Thompson running where he thinks President Trump should have lost his security and he's got staffers like this?

Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, I was going to say he's running an office that gleefully did a media debut for that bill, that piece of legislation. They went across Mediaev and just were so smug and again, gleeful about it. If people go back and roll the tapes the way they talked about that bill, it was, I mean, again, you would be forced to answer for this, not just involving firing a staffer who said something insane afterwards, but for your own conduct and your own culpability in creating that atmosphere by introducing a bill like that. So, I mean, it's just says so much that our, you know, it's kind of too little to late from people like Jeff Bezos because this should have been happening a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, almost ten years ago. At this point, as we were all reacting to the rise of populism, there was just no grace given to the people who looked at Donald Trump and saw a hero, which is unthinkable to people in coastal newsrooms. I get it, it's unthinkable to people in Hollywood, but there's just never been any grace. And the reaction has always been counterproductive, even by the left standards. If you hate populism, stop giving reasons for people to love populism because you are punching down at them relentlessly, relentlessly. Even when their champion is shot in the head. The punching down continues.

Megyn Kelly
Two points. One because I promised it earlier, Keith Olbermann actually out there over the weekend suggesting Trump wasn't actually shot, saying, the strangest parts of this are 12 hours afterward and no authorities are confirming Trump's assertion that he was shot. And there seemed to be few media questions as to why they haven't. What an idiot. Read the news, confirmed multiple times by the Secret Service, by Trump himself. But he doesn't believe a word that comes out of Trump's mouth. He can't deal with it. Anything would make Trump look sympathetic. It's just rejected. And then there's Jack Black, emblematic of many people in Hollywood who, just like that staffer for Thompson, got on stage at an event that he was playing for his band this weekend and said this.

Happy birthday.

Sean Parnell
Make a wish, kanga.

John Spears
Don't miss Trump next time.

Megyn Kelly
Don't miss Trump next time. To the laughter of, I guess, his canadian crowd, they, their big lamentation today is not the rhetoric of the left. The president, never mind the right. It's that the shooter missed. Which takes us where emily, in the, in the call to unify and lower the temperature.

Emily Jashinsky
I mean, it's just the, Keith Olbermann just starting with him.

There was also an advisor to Reid Hoffman who put out a memo, apparently to journalists after the shooting, suggesting very seriously that it may have been staged. Dmitry Melhorn, just jaw dropping stuff from somebody who's really a part of the democratic mainstream, is an ardent Biden supporter, even after the debate has doubled down on support for Biden. And I think what that speaks to is how the left, and the Jack black quip, too, how the left likes to act, that it's only on the right that those toothless rubes see these elections as being existential, that they really are, their ways of life are really threatened by who's in the Oval Office and who's not. But the left sees it the exact same way.

They just don't get any flak for when they talk recklessly about it, except from people on the right. Left will point to that and be like, oh, you know, you see five, Fox News did a bunch of segments on the Jack Black thing. So, you know, we're even here and we're not, we're not even at all, because it's, it's, we all know you don't even need to do a study of it. We all see it very plainly that there's a grave imbalance in how this is talked about from one side to the other.

Megyn Kelly
Reed Hoffman himself, who is speaking at this muckity muck conference out in Sun Valley this weekend, I clearly called for someone to make a martyr out of Trump. And I have several sources who were in the room who heard it. And now in the wake of all this, and his staffer, you know, suggesting the whole thing is a conspiracy theory, that it, you know, somehow made up or orchestrated, he tries to come out and say, oh, I didn't mean it that way. His whole thing is, I, you know, Trump said all these terrible things, bloodbath, all the misrepresentations. And then he said, Peter Thiel said, oh, all my lawsuit work against Trump was turning, turning him into a martyrdeh. And I replied that I wish that Trump would martyr himself. And then he adds this, meaning, let himself be held accountable for his assaults on and lies about women. Of course, I meant nothing about any sort of physical harm or violence, which I categorically deplore.

What a joke. And I replied to him on Twitter as follows. Your very attempt to both sides, it reveals your insincerity. I have multiple sources who were in the room when you said it, and everyone took away the same meaning. You want Trump dead. You're not fooling anyone. None of these people are. We're keeping the records. And people's professional reputations ought to change as a result of these reactions to an attempted presidential assassination.

Tomorrow is going to be a huge day. We're going to know Trump's vp pick. We're going to have the Lester Holt interview of Joe Biden, and we're going to find out, I guess, what direction democrats are going to go now that they appear to be stuck with this guy against Trump. Trump who's attained almost superhero status. Emily, what a time to be in news.

Emily Jashinsky
Seriously. It never stops, but it never comes quite this fast.

Megyn Kelly
It's great to see you. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Megan.

Thanks to all of you as well. We will be here for you tomorrow.

Busy week ahead. See you tomorrow.

Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.