Former Rivals Unite, Iranian Plot Unveiled, RNC Floor Fight
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It's Wednesday, July 17th, right now on CNN This Morning. Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period. Let's send Donald Trump back to the White House. Donald Trump's former foes uniting behind their nominee at the Republican National Convention and...

A move from the DNC to virtually nominate President Biden ahead of their convention reignites that growing dissent inside his own party. Plus, U.S. officials learn of an Iranian plot to try to assassinate former President Trump in the weeks before Saturday's shooting. And the rivalry between two former colleagues flares up on the floor of the RNC here in Milwaukee.

All right, it's 5 a.m. here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 6 a.m. on the East Coast. A live look at the Fiserv Forum as we get ready for day three of the Republican National Convention. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us. From challengers to cheerleaders in Milwaukee, a string of Trump's former opponents in Republican primaries going back to 2016 take the stage to bend the knee.

Let's make the 45th president of the United States the 47th president of the United States. The only way to make America wealthy and safe and strong again is to make Donald J. Trump our president again. God bless Donald J. Trump. You heard first there from Ron DeSantis. Or is that Ron DeSanctimonious? That was Trump's nickname for him. You heard from Marco Rubio.

Trump called him "little Marco," disgusting, a nervous basket case. And then there was Ted Cruz during the 2016 election. Donald Trump retweeted a post that implied Cruz's wife, Heidi, was unattractive. That's an understatement. And then he falsely hinted that Cruz's father was somehow involved in the assassination of President Kennedy.

So a source told me that Trump made a point to early up his planned appearance in the convention hall last night to make sure that he would be there to listen to his formal rivals, compliment him and his vision for America. And we showed you Ron DeSantis. But really, the heart of the night was Nikki Haley, his former, Trump's former, U.N. ambassador, who also spoke. She had a longer speaking slot than Ron DeSantis, actually. The crowd was

inside the RNC seem to not have entirely forgiven Haley for challenging and insulting Trump throughout the 2024 primary election. Let's take a look at how she was initially received. Nikki Haley. Thank you.

You can hear, though, there are those mixed cheers and some of those boos. Haley was trying to speak to those Republicans who've hesitated to support Trump. Even after she dropped out of the race in March, she continued to receive hundreds of thousands of votes in states across the country, including over 12 percent of the vote right here in Wisconsin. Haley told the crowd that Trump had asked her to speak, quote, in the name of unity. The message to them is simple.

You don't have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me, I haven't always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree.

All right. Joining me now, Lonnie Chen, former policy director for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, Stephen Collinson, CNN Politics senior reporter, Matt Gorman, the former senior advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign, and Karen Finney, former spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. Welcome to all of you. And Matt Gorman, I want to play for you. This is a moment we were touching on earlier in the show, but for those who are just waking up at 6 a.m. on the East Coast, we have

that moment where Nikki Haley described what brought her there tonight, namely this invitation from Donald Trump. Let's play what she said, and then we're going to get a chance to look at Trump's face right after. Watch. President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity. It was a gracious invitation, and I was happy to accept.

I don't think you could hear the reaction on set when we saw that, but Matt. We need our friend Philippe Rains to do the Trump impression of she actually wanted to speak. At least that was what the lip reading, amateur lip reading saw to me. But yes. And look, I will say that that was the first part of the speech. She was smart. She got the endorsement out of the way. She didn't try to make

you know, the crowd or anybody work for it. So that way the crowd got on her side. It was a good speech. And it also touched on, and DeSantis is to an extent, keeping America safe, right? Foreign policy, her experience in the Trump administration is- A safe place for her to be politically. Absolutely, absolutely. And so it was a good speech overall. And I thought she did the job really well.

But Lonnie Chen, you arguably and, you know, feel free to correct me in terms of where you stand now. But this the Nikki Haley wing of the Republican Party is one that you find yourself, I'm sure, pretty comfortable in. You advised Mitt Romney. You've done a lot of high level thinking about foreign policy issues, kind of her space. How do you think she did last night in terms of clearly she had to do this if she wanted to maintain her representation?

viability as a future Republican presidential candidate. But how would you assess how she was able to potentially try to reach out to more voters? Yeah, I mean, I agree with Matt. I thought she did a great job. And I think given her assignment, which was to endorse, I mean, that was her assignment. Let's not mince words about that.

I thought she did well, and I think she does sort of carve out a path for herself electorally in the future if that's what she wants to do. If she wanted to find her way into a national security position again in the Trump administration part two, we could potentially see that happening.

And, you know, the challenge, of course, is still the question of whether her voters follow her. I think that is the big unanswered question. How much of the support for Nikki Haley was about Nikki Haley or separately what she represented in this campaign? And I think that's something that we will discern as we go on. I mean, the Trump campaign reports that they've got support from 94, 95 percent of Republicans.

If that's the case, then all of those many of those Nikki Haley Republican voters will vote for Donald Trump. I think the question then becomes, you know, how about those independents maybe that supported Nikki Haley in open primaries like in New Hampshire? So we'll see where it goes. But I thought she did great last night. Yeah, I'm not sure if I have New Hampshire here, but I want to tick through some of these vote boards guys just put up.

these graphics that we have that kind of show you where Nikki Haley's support was. Here in Wisconsin, Donald Trump, 79. Nikki Haley, 12%. Michigan, 68.1% for Donald Trump, 26.6% for Nikki Haley. Pennsylvania, Donald Trump, 81.9%. Nikki Haley, 16.4%. Georgia, 84% for Donald Trump, 13% for Nikki Haley. Indiana,

78% Trump, 21% for Nikki Haley. Indiana is actually kind of an interesting one, although it's not going to be on the map for Biden, for sure. Stephen Collinson, this is a significant chunk of people. However, the thing that seems to me to be the game changer here, as fascinated as I have been by those voters and to see what they were going to do, is Joe Biden's complete collapse on the debate stage.

and the way that it has become so much harder for Democrats to plausibly argue that he is a better choice than Donald Trump in the fall to people who maybe voted Republican their whole life. Exactly, and a lot of these voters that were voting for Nikki Haley were Republicans who were disaffected with Trump in 2020. They were looking for somewhere else to go, and the president, Joe Biden, was very successful in getting a lot of those voters. I think you're right. I think the president's debate performance

hurt him with this group. These are important voters. They're suburban voters. All of the events that Haley was holding in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, they were on the edges of the big cities, lots of female voters. So although she only won a couple of primaries,

This is a potentially important vote in an election where you could see a handful of states and a few thousand votes decided. But I think just talking to Republicans here so far, there's a strong sense in this party that Trump is going to win.

The unity that that breeds, I think, will make it a lot easier for some of those voters who still have reservations about the former president to jump to him this time. Well, and I have to say, Karen Finney, if you had told me that here in July at the Republican convention, we would be talking about Democrats being divided, I would have asked you, like, what are you smoking? Because that's clearly not going to be the case in this party, the Republican

Party has been divided for the last, you know, quite frankly, eight years that I have been covering Washington under Trump and then Joe Biden. But the reality is there still is this big question hanging over your party. Well, but it's July. And I think what we've learned in the last week, every day is about a month. So there's a lot that can happen between now and... Not an unfair assessment. I'm just going to go between here and Friday. Forget about here in August, right? And there's a couple of things. I think one of the most important things to remember...

The issue landscape has not changed. If you are worried about a national abortion ban, that has not changed for you. And you are more likely to say, I will vote for 50% of Joe Biden over 100% of Donald Trump because that is a fundamental concern for me.

And so when we talk about how Democrats are going to continue to do outreach to these voters and try to make the case, a lot of it's going to be around the issues that are driving this election and the very different visions of the country. They don't like hearing demonizing immigrants. They don't like, you know, they care about climate change. They see that inflation is coming down. They don't like trickle down economics. I mean, again,

There are some issues that I think really driving this campaign that have not changed, that if that is what you care about, you're not going to all of a sudden just say, well, now that Nikki Haley likes him and he seems like he's a nicer guy, I'm going to I'm going to go with Project 2025. I'm I'm flashing back to Donald Rumsfeld and his like you go to war with the army that you got because I you got you do have some issues that are potentially potentially places where you can motivate folks. But

Candidly, it's an uphill battle. All right. We're actually going to talk much more about this in our next block. Still to come on CNN this morning, that growing revolt inside the Democratic Party over plans to speed up Joe Biden's official nomination. Plus, more details on an Iranian threat against the former President Trump. And is Donald Trump now a changed man after his near brush with after his actual brush with death? Getting shot in the face changes a man. Is your father a changed man?

I think actually, yes.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. What are some of the social service agencies that have supported you and your family growing up? That's Dr. Robert Waldinger. He's a psychiatrist, a professor, and a Zen master. What kind of relationships actually help us maintain happiness? And what should we do in those moments where we have setbacks and things that don't work out? Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, welcome back. Do you remember back when the biggest story in the presidential race was whether or not President Biden was going to step aside?

I sort of do. Feels like a lifetime ago. It's really only a week or so. Those concerns are once again bubbling to the surface inside the Democratic Party. CNN has learned that there is a growing revolt over a DNC plan to virtually nominate Biden before August 7th, well ahead of next month's convention in Chicago. One Democratic congressman tells CNN, quote, if the election were held today, he would get crushed. We have got to do something about it. Now,

Now, the two party committees are getting ready to meet this weekend, depending on how those meetings go. State party delegates could potentially start casting ballots as soon as Sunday. Karen Finney, you, of course, are very familiar with the rules that August 7th date is important because it is the date by which the state of Ohio says you have to have a nominee if you want to be on the Ohio ballot. This push is to actually do this virtual roll call well before August 7th, potentially take us behind the scenes and help us understand what the options actually are here.

Well, so this decision was made back in May. We should start with that because they realized that in order to make sure we did not face legal challenges, you had to essentially do it virtually. But here's the thing. We're talking about a whole committee of people. So what happens is an email goes out and says, now you may begin voting and you have to have a certain number of days to vote. So it's not, I think the way it's been characterized is that

is that it's some sort of in the middle of the night, people are going to jump online and vote. And that's not that's really not what it is. And it genuinely is about making sure that our nominee is able to be on the ballot in Ohio in the fall. But this can I just say this goes back to something two weeks ago when members of Congress started talking about this fantasy land of replacing Joe Biden on top of the ticket.

I kept saying on our network, they do not know the rules. They do not understand the rules of our party. They do not understand. None of them were paying attention to the very fact that the date was moved up because of, again, it was in the New York Times, by the way. Nobody was hiding it.

Not to mention the fact that by getting 14 million votes during the primary, Joe Biden got the 3,900 of the 4,000 delegates he needed. Each of those people ran in their local communities to become delegates. And members of Congress, the way our voting works, they get to vote on the second round. So that means 3,900 regular folks in our party vote before members of Congress vote.

have a vote. So again, they were sort of, my mother used to say when I was a child, negotiating with power they don't have. I'm going to steal that one. It's a good one, right? And you're like, oh, you're so right. But again, it's, you know, they didn't understand the rules, not to mention many of them don't understand the challenges and

If we were even to consider removing President Biden from our ticket in terms of what that means financially, what that means logistically, what that means for ballot access in the fall. Yeah. So the problem is things like Stephen Collinson, Congressman Adam Schiff running for Senate warning in a private meeting.

His party would suffer overwhelming losses in November if President Biden remained at the top of the ticket. And if you look at some of these, we're going to talk more about this later, but some of these Senate races, it's just devastating. And this conversation has flared back up.

Yeah, and I take your point about the rules and the way that millions of people have voted for the president. I think what a lot of people outside politics wonder is, and there is, I think it's fair to say, a growing sense of despair among many Democrats, Democratic voters who are not involved inside politics,

that this ticket is the one that's going to drive them to defeat. So I think a lot of people are saying, well, they might be the rules, but is there a chance to change course, given that we saw a version of the president that wasn't available to us when the votes were being cast in the primary? Well, or a year ago, people could have made that decision. Fair enough. We're going to push pause on this conversation. We're going to resume here in just a few moments. Up next, a state of emergency in upstate New York following a string of severe storms. Plus, the

The Secret Service under intense scrutiny after sources tell CNN there was already a credible threat on former President Trump's life from Iran. All right, welcome back. The cleanup continues this morning in part of upstate New York. The National Weather Service confirming a tornado touchdown in Ontario County earlier this week and downed power lines, knocked out electricity and damaged some homes there. Let's get straight to our weatherman, Derek Van Dam. Derek, good morning to you. What are we looking at?

Yeah, these are impactful storms for upstate New York. Here's some damage video coming out of Rome. And this is actually from a confirmed tornado, according to the local National Weather Service office. You can see some of the roofs that have been damaged and some of the trees that have been toppled. Now, thanks to those storms, there are over 100,000 people, customers, I should say, without power within the state of New York. But it's not just New York. Look at Pennsylvania, New Jersey, into parts of Massachusetts, even Illinois and Indiana from storms that occurred

Sunday into Monday. We have had nearly 1,000 storm reports through the course of this week, and there's more severe weather possibilities today for a large chunk of our population on the East Coast. Philadelphia, D.C., Richmond, and New York, damaging gusts of wind and large hail a possibility. Not much going on right now, but there's certainly the potential for some flash flooding. Flood watches in effect for parts of Missouri and Arkansas.

Two to four inches of rain locally for this area. The good news is that there's a cold front that's going to bring some relief. So one more day of the heat along the East Coast before things cool down. Casey. All right. All right, Derek Van Dam Forest. Derek, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Coming up next here, Donald Trump's former national security advisor, John Bolton, is going to join me next to talk about that threat from Iran against the former president. Plus, the verdict's in for Senator Bob Menendez and his corruption trial. That and more in our morning roundup.

All right, welcome back. CNN has learned that authorities here in the U.S. have obtained intelligence in recent weeks about a plot from Iran to try to assassinate Donald Trump, a development that led the Secret Service to increase security around the former president. And this was ahead of that Saturday rally. It's important to note that there is no indication that the would-be assassin who attempted to kill Trump on Saturday was connected to this Iranian plot.

But the existence of the intelligence threat from a hostile foreign agency and enhanced security raises new questions about the security lapses at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and how a 20-year-old man managed to get access to a nearby rooftop and fire those shots that injured the former president. Joining me now to discuss the former U.N. ambassador, Trump's former national security advisor, John Bolton, who also was the subject of an alleged Iranian assassination plot. Mr. Bolton, good morning.

Good morning. Glad to be with you. So, Ambassador, can you just bring us inside, as you absorb this news, what you think this means, why the Iranians would be doing this, and give us some insight into what it's like to have the Iranians after you in this way. Well, it's a lot of fun, what can I say? Look, it's been pretty clear, I think, since...

the Trump administration quite correctly sent the head of the Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, to an early exit. He deserved it. He was a terrorist. He had killed Americans. He deserved exactly what he got. The Iranians

in response decided that they were going to take some measure of retaliation. They specifically mentioned Trump and a number of others of us since Soleimani's execution in January of 2020. So this has been a continuing problem. It

It's kind of surprising to me, at least, that it's arisen now. But I can tell you I don't have any more insight into whatever the information was about Donald Trump in this particular case than anybody else watching the news.

But given your understanding of kind of the landscape, we talk a lot about how sometimes foreign actors have been trying to interfere in American elections and that wreaking havoc is something that could potentially benefit, say, the Russians or the Chinese, depending on how you think through it. Your understanding, given how the Iranians look at it and think about

the world is that this would be directly related to sole money and is unlikely to be related to so in more general chaos or how do you think we should be thinking about in those terms well it certainly could be related to more general chaos but the iranians do have a fixation on sole money and uh... uh... we know this uh... gun in the somewhat unusual position that uh... a lot of the facts and circumstances regarding at least one iteration of uh...

The threats against me are online at the Justice Department in the criminal charging documents against a fellow named Shaman Poursafi of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, where they were trying to hire a hitman to take me out. And unfortunately for them, fortunately for me, they were talking to a confidential human source of the FBI. So these threats by Iran are not

internet chatter. This is the real thing. And it is something to be concerned about. And I do think Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, and others would like nothing better than to cause disarray in an already highly conflicted U.S. political season.

Well, we're very glad that you are, in fact, okay and that it was that confidential human source. And I really appreciate the insight you're able to bring to us because of all of that, I will say, considering the outcome was fine. Let me turn to ask you about the horrible attack against

former President Trump at his rally on Saturday. The U.S. Secret Service has been, I should say, the director of the U.S. Secret Service has not been terribly direct in the wake of that in terms of trying to account for the failures. I'm wondering where you think the agency did fail here and whether the top, the director of the agency should resign given what happened.

Well, it was obviously, with respect to Donald Trump, a tragedy avoided, not avoided in the case of one of the rally-goers. Look, I'm a protectee of the Secret Service. I have been before. I am now. That doesn't make me a security expert. I'm sure that the review that the president has ordered into this whole affair will turn up a lot of information. There are going to be congressional hearings. I just assume leave it at that for the moment.

Yeah. I...

Considering you are a protectee, one thing we have heard from some corners of the right is a denigration of some of the agents that you could see in that frame carrying, helping get Donald Trump off that stage. They threw themselves in front of any potential additional bullets that might have been coming his way. Some of them, some of this right-wing commentary is around the women agents in particular. Is it your experience that that has any bearing on a Secret Service agent's ability to do their job?

on your behalf or anyone else's? No, look, as I say, I've been a pro-techie before and am now, and I have never once seen anything other than the highest professional behavior from all of these people, as in the case of the FBI agents that I've been in contact with and have been with the FBI over many, many years in a number of different capacities.

Look, these people work long, hard hours in unforgiving circumstances with their lives on the line. It's easy for people who sit and watch television to critique them as if they know what they're talking about. I'm not going to be one of them. As I say, I think we wait for the investigation and see what the real facts are as opposed to what can be illusory in a couple of second clips on a television camera.

Briefly, sir, before I let you go, another former U.N. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, addressed this convention here. She gave her full-throated endorsement to Donald Trump. Were you surprised? And do you think that's what she should have done?

Well, look, her political future is up to her. I think Donald Trump is unfit to be president. Needless to say, I'm not in Milwaukee. But the battle goes on. And I think ultimately for the sake of the country and certainly for the Republican Party, people are going to do what they want. I am unalterably opposed to Trump. And, you know, that may or may not...

eventuate in him being defeated i don't favor joe biden you let me make it very clear cuz i don't think he's fit to be president either it's going to be a bad four years for the united states whichever one of them wins are you gonna vote for joe biden even after that debate performance of course not i didn't vote for him in twenty twenty i wrote in dick cheney 'cause i wonder right i wanted to vote for real conservative republican and i'm inclined to vote for dick again this november her height ambassador john bolton thank you very much for your time this morning i really appreciate it

All right, new this morning, another troubling sign for the Biden campaign. Democratic-funded polling obtained by CNN shows Biden losing ground to Donald Trump in a number of key states, including the five that Biden flipped against Trump in 2020. Polling, some other different new polling also looks at certain Democrats' chances in a matchup against Trump in battleground states. Sorry, this is the same polling. Four of those Democrats, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer,

all outpacing Biden at panel is back. Stephen Collinson, there also are the this is polling from Democratic donors. We don't normally report on it, but I have to tell you the overwhelming amount of, you know, internal data that I've seen from various campaigns and people. Some of it is we know Stanley Greenberg, for example, John King has reported they're trying to get this data to the president that just shows this massive gap in the way

of his debate performance, it doesn't necessarily seem to be reaching him. And then even when you look at the Senate candidates that are up here in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, you can see this is from the Times and the YouGov polling. These are actual numbers here. I mean, these gaps are enormous, like sometimes over 10 points. This is typically, I mean...

This is not how this normally goes. And it shows you just why Democrats are so concerned that the president is going to be a massive drag on their chances of retaking the House, keeping the Senate, which, I mean, is basically gone at this point. But where are we in this conversation? We were talking a little bit about this earlier. It's clearly stuck in

The president doesn't want to engage in it anymore. In fact, he has been pushing back aggressively privately with people on Capitol Hill. But the data just keeps getting worse. Yeah, I think we have to have a little bit of humility. We don't know how voters are going to end up working. But I can't remember an election where the numbers have been this bad for an incumbent president this close to an election where

The approval rating is sort of low, mid to high 30s. That's historically an area where presidents never win re-election. The thing about the president, though, is he has always overcome the odds. So that may be something that's playing into his own psyche when he sees this and his belief that he can still beat Trump. And the other thing to say is that Trump

nationally is also very unpopular. It's not like there is a younger, new Republican candidate that is surging to public attention. Everybody knows what it was like to have Donald Trump as president. So I think that maybe some of the things are factoring in, but

This, you know, this close to the election, it looks terrible. Lonnie, a lot of my Republican sources are starting to talk about Minnesota in particular is one that is floating to the top of the list. Basically, they're talking about expanding the map. Minnesota, New Hampshire is kind of the next one on the list. Virginia further down. New Mexico seems to be a wild card. Then there's Nevada, which frankly, sources on both sides of the aisle are telling me is likely to go for Donald Trump at this point. How realistic do you think that is? And where are the conversations that you're part of? Well, look, I think

I think it's realistic. I think if you're talking about Minnesota and New Mexico and Virginia, that tells you everything you need to know about where the election is. It's almost immaterial at this point because the pathways for the president are so limited versus the pathways for the former president, Donald Trump. So, I mean, I just think about this in terms of optionality.

And the Trump campaign's challenge, in my view, is going to be figuring out where do they allocate resources? There's so many places, if you look at the polling now, where they can put points on the board versus for the Biden campaign. It really does still come down to those Midwestern states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. If they're unable to clear through those states, I just don't know where else they can go at this point. So the conversation about places like Minnesota is interesting, but

But ultimately, like whether they win Minnesota or not is not the issue because if they're winning in Minnesota, they're winning everywhere else. So I just think it's about pathways. And right now Trump has many more pathways than Biden does.

And real quick also, you look at the down ballot, that split where you have Biden say at 42% and Jackie Rosen at 47, the era, at least it seems, of a presidential race going one way in a state and a Senate candidate winning it of a different party, that era has really come to an end. In 2000, there were 10 of them. In the last two cycles, there's been one, Susan Collins in Maine.

So it's very unlikely that suddenly all across the country you're going to have Trump win these states in the presidential level. But Jackie Rosen, Sherrod Brown and all these other Democrats survive. It just really doesn't happen much anymore. Very briefly. Don't forget Georgia. We did have Republican governor reelected and Democratic Senator win. But what I would say, though, is, look, it was always going to be a tough map for Democrats.

One of the things, though, that I think we're in a cycle where Democrats, it's becoming a life-fulfilling prophecy. The more we talk about how afraid we are of losing instead of how we're going to win, voters are seeing us as losers. They're looking at our candidates and saying, and I don't mean that in the Donald Trump way, but in the...

If you don't believe in yourself that you can win, voters are sort of saying, well, then why am I going to? Why should I? Why should I vote for you? So I keep saying to my Democrats, you have to believe you can win to even get on the board and the attempt to win. So fair enough. All right. Coming up next here, a former Trump White House adviser about to be released from prison, heading straight to Milwaukee.

to speak here at the RNC. Plus, we're going to speak with Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller about what we can expect from the former president when he speaks tomorrow night. And on that note, we thought we'd take this occasion to remind you about one of the more surreal moments in RNC history. Remember this? Clint Eastwood at the 2012 convention in Tampa, Florida. Oh, I remember. What? What do you want me to tell Romney?

I can't tell him to do that. He can't do that to himself. You're crazy. You're absolutely crazy. You're getting as bad as Biden. The warmth of your words, the expression of friendship, and yes, love, meant more to us than you can ever know. You have given us a memory that we'll treasure forever. And you've provided an answer to those few voices

that were raised saying that what happened was evidence that ours is a sick society the society we heard from is made up of millions of compassionate americans and their children from college age to kindergarten that was shortly after an assassination attempt on his life ronald reagan thanking his fellow americans for their message of support and communicating a message of unity

This is one that former President Donald Trump has also embraced in the days after Saturday's assassination attempt against him. His son, Donald Trump Jr., now telling Axios that Saturday's near-death experience has changed his father for good. Getting shot in the face changes a man. Is your father a changed man?

I think actually yes. I think we're trying to certainly de-escalate some of that rhetoric. I think it lasts. I think it lasts. I think there are events that change you for a couple minutes and there's events that change you permanently.

And joining me now to talk more about this is Trump campaign senior advisor Jason Miller. Jason, good morning to you. Thanks so much for being here. Good morning. You have worked for the former President Donald Trump for quite some time now. And I just want to put the same question to you that Mike Allen there put to Donald Trump Jr., which is, do you think that Donald Trump is a changed man after what happened on Saturday?

Well, when somebody tries to kill you, you have an assassination attempt, of course it's gonna change your life, it's gonna change your outlook. And I think we've seen that from President Trump ever since Saturday. You look at the Truth Social posting that he put out Sunday morning, where he talked about the resilience in our faith and our defiance in the face of wickedness.

This is a different country that we're in right now. Literally, when you're putting an attempt on somebody's life, this is going to change everything. And American politics has become such a tinderbox. It's so negative, so nasty. Somebody has to take that step forward and say, "This isn't the way to do it." Doesn't mean we don't have serious issues that we don't have to tackle. The tone has to change.

Is this what we saw on President Trump's face the first night of the Republican National Convention? Because when he did come in, I mean, he obviously had a hero's welcome from the crowd when they saw him for the first time after this attempt. But you could see emotion on his face. And I have to say, of all these years of covering him, it struck me as something we don't normally see.

Well, you walk into a room with some 10,000 people and everybody's cheering and literally it's within 48 hours of an attempt on your life. That's going to impact you. And I think that's even what you're going to see with the president's speech tomorrow. I think he's going to talk about his firsthand experience, but also how this applies to what's going on in society today. These challenges we have with people who are suffering from the economy or from the

open border, all these things. We've seen so many of these everyday voices. They've been the first two nights of the convention. We'll see it tonight with additional everyday voices and obviously with Senator Vance. But that's President Trump, I think, is going to have a very powerful message tomorrow. So can you tell us a little bit more about the speech? I mean, he has in some interviews that he's done with print outlets on the phone, he has talked about how he previously had, you know, he refers to him as Crooked Joe Biden, and he was going to go very hard

after the Democratic president, but that he has decided to tone that down. Can you give us a little bit more of a sense of what was changed, what is out and what's in? Well, again, we're still gonna talk about those important issues, but the tone of it, the approach is gonna be notably different. President Trump has spent much of the last several days dictating what he wants that speech to look like, really in real terms saying, I wanna say this and I wanna go into the following. Because

What I've really been upset by, what I've seen in many places in the media or many places of political pundits and such, where there's a talk about this need to unify, but then this immediate pivot to whataboutism. I don't think that has a place on either side right now. It doesn't matter who it is. We cannot have a country

they're literally attempts on people's life if you're running for office i mean we are not some banana republic some third world country that might be normal place in certain countries but not in the us i think we can all agree that political violence has no place uh the way we saw on saturday in our in our discourse we have unfortunately as a country a sad history of it um but

I completely understand where you're coming from. Let me ask you, as we wrap up here, there has been some recent criticism on the right of the Secret Service agents that swarmed President Trump. Some people noting that there were a lot of women Secret Service agents on his personal detail and calling into question whether or not they were up to the job.

And Eric Trump actually was on with my colleague defending them because one of them in particular was apparently a member of his detail. I want to show you what Eric had to say, and we'll ask you about it. I've been very outspoken in terms of the people on that stage. I've probably said this 10 times now.

The people on that stage love him. They would take a bullet for him. And obviously they ran right in front. And they demonstrated that. One of the females on the stage, she was with me for three years. I know everything about her. She would take a bullet for me. She would take a bullet for him. As courageous as they come. Same with everybody else that was around him. The head of his detail was on that stage. Believe me, the last thing that they wanted was that to happen. And they did all the right things.

So he says that she would have taken a bullet for Eric. She would have taken a bullet for him. What do you what would you say as the person speaking on behalf of the Trump campaign to people who are criticizing that detail, those women and men who swarmed the president that day? Well, to echo what Eric was saying and what Eric was saying really reflects what President Trump has been saying both publicly and privately. Everyone who's a part of his detail, they put their life on the line any time for anyone to make sure to protect them. And there shouldn't be any criticism. You saw the way that they pounced literally on top of President Trump within seconds.

putting their own bodies in the way. You can't criticize people for that. All right. Jason Miller, thank you very much for joining us this morning. Appreciate your time. Thanks for getting up early, too. I know you've had a lot of late nights. All right. It is 55 minutes past the hour here. Here is your morning roundup. I have never, ever been a foreign agent. And the decision rendered by the jury today would put at risk every member of the United States Senate in terms of what they think a foreign agent would be.

Democratic Senator Bob Menendez responding to the news of his guilty verdict. A jury found the New Jersey senator guilty on all 16 counts in his federal corruption trial. He says he plans to appeal. Police shot and killed a man yesterday about a mile away from the RNC here in Milwaukee. The officers involved were from Ohio. They were in town for added security. Police say that the man killed had knives in both hands and was trying to attack someone.

Today, former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro is expecting to be released from prison and his plan goes straight from lockup right to here in Milwaukee and the Republican National Convention where we expect him to speak.

All right, now there is this story. A long simmering feud between Congressman Matt Gaetz and Kevin McCarthy boiled over again here at the RNC yesterday, and it resulted in this awkward moment captured during a live CNN interview. Let's watch.

One who's not coming back and then the other part that you have is one person who raised the issue. He's got an ethics complaint about paying sleeping with a 17-year-old. So that's the way they would go. So that's the biggest challenge we have.

So that angle, obviously McCarthy has the microphone in that angle and he powers through it. The social media sort of angle kind of shows you a little bit what was out of that frame, which is Gates walking right up there. Matt Gorman, I mean, this is very, there it is. This is very personal between these two men.

But it also, I mean, it also kind of puts on display, you know, some of the broader themes we've been talking about too. I disagree in that part. I think this is a very personal feud between these two guys about, you know, whether it's a

I think stuff with Gates and how that kind of went with McCarthy. Your words on the morning as a communicator, I'll leave it there. And it is, you know, it is personal to say the least. And yeah, bubbled over on the floor. Got to give McCarthy credit. He was hitting those talking points, even with somebody in his line of sight. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes. He, well, he's had some experience with it, I would say. So briefly, let's just go around. We're expecting J.D. Vance tonight on stage. Lonnie Chen, what are you kind of looking for tonight? I am looking for a full articulation of the sort of populist agenda of the Republican Party, you know, particularly some of the things that on which he and President Trump agree, whether it's issues like trade or the embrace of unions. I think it is a

direct turn in economic policy and foreign policy as well. So I think we're going to see that. Stephen Collinson. This is a big moment. This is somebody that's going to be at the center of our political lives for the next four years and probably many years beyond that. If he wins. Even if he doesn't, he's still, you know, he's already at the top of the list for potential

MAGA candidates in a future Republican race. The energy. The people aren't going to probably remember 10 years from now or even 10 months from now what he said exactly. But if he brings a youthful energy to this stage, he could usher in a new era. I mean, he could also put a chair next to him and talk to a chair. And then we might be talking about how many years after 2012 we are now. But he can't bring a dog because that's been done, right? Look, mostly the tone. How

what not just the policy differences, but what is the tone? Because his tone on Saturday after that horrible event was quite harsh and not in the sort of spirit of what I think this convention is. And we'll see if he got the memo. This is J.D. Vance's big chance to introduce himself to a country that still really hasn't met him yet. Thanks to our panel. Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

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