Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
It's Monday, July 15th. Right now on CNN This Morning, Donald Trump, just days away from becoming the Republican nominee, rewrites his speech in the wake of Saturday's assassination attempt. And questions unanswered about how the attempt on the former president's life unfolded and the potential motive of the gunman. Plus... You know, the political record in this country has gotten very heated. It's time to cool it down.
Cool it down. President Biden with an Oval Office plea to the American people for unity. And then, at a time of crisis, how Americans can look to advice from past presidents about how best to come together.
It is 5.01 a.m. here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is 6 a.m. on the East Coast. A live look at the Fiserv Forum, the home of the Republican National Convention, where later on this week, Donald Trump will accept the Republican nomination for president of the United States. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It is wonderful.
to have you with us as we, as a nation, are grappling with something awful. A candidate, a convention, and a campaign all fundamentally shaken by a senseless act of violence. Donald Trump will wake up this morning here in Milwaukee for the opening of the Republican National Convention. And for the third time, Donald Trump will become the Republican presidential nominee less than two days after he narrowly escaped death. I really see something that said, take a look at what happened over there.
Those bullets fired from a rooftop approximately 150 yards away where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks lay as he aimed at the former president. Secret Service agents quickly shot and killed Crooks, but not before one person was killed and Trump and others injured. That show of defiance in the face of death.
Donald Trump telling the Secret Service agents protecting him to wait before raising his fist in the air, telling the crowd, fight, fight, fight, and giving us this now iconic photo taken by Evan Vucci of the Associated Press. Trump sustained a wound to his right ear, his life saved by a matter of inches. And the former president is aware of just how close he came to death. He told the New York Post last night, quote, "'I'm not supposed to be here. "'I'm supposed to be dead.'
By luck or by God, many people are saying it's by God. I'm still here. One person in attendance at the rally was killed in the attack. Pennsylvania's governor said that Corey Campatore, a firefighter, died a hero as he used his own body to shield his wife and daughters. Two others were critically wounded but are in stable condition. In an address from the Oval Office last night, President Biden said America cannot allow political violence to become normal.
We cannot, we must not go down this road in America. There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. It's a sad reality that we do indeed have a history of these kinds of events, but
hopeful that we can come together in this moment. Joining us now on this critical Monday morning, Matt Gorman, former advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign, Jason Osborne, former senior advisor to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, Stephen Collinson, CNN senior politics reporter, and Shane Goldmacher, national political reporter for The New York Times. We're also joined by Bakari Sellers. He is CNN political commentator and former South Carolina state representative. Welcome to all of you this morning. Thank you so much for being here today.
Stephen Collinson, I would like to start with you as our viewers who've gotten to know you a little bit understand. You are someone who here at CNN kind of thinks about the world in which we live, takes the sweeping kind of point of view about what this means for our country. And, you know, I
I'd kind of like to just set the stage with you on this morning. Donald Trump is going to be here. We're expecting his speech later on this week. The tone, the tenor, everything about this campaign has changed this morning. That's right. I think this is a foreboding moment for the country. Things can go a number of ways. The trauma of an assassination attempt against a presidential candidate is
is something that we haven't had to deal with for 40 years or so. None of us obviously remember the trauma of the 1960s, the political assassinations, but I think I'm beginning to understand a little bit now
about how that throws the country off its axis and opens potential paths to a dark future. I think the most important line of the President's speech from the Oval Office last night was when he talked about how the founders provided a framework for reason to triumph over brute force. I think that's the choice now before the country. A lot is going to depend on its leaders,
in particular how former President Trump responds to this moment. He's at a crossroads personally, politically, in his life. And the country is looking for stability and not a path that begets more violence. And I think that is the backdrop of this convention right now.
The reality, Shane, is that Donald Trump does have a chance to unify the country. He said so himself in some of these. And he did these two interviews, The Washington Examiner and The New York Post. There are going to be people now who are going to be willing to watch his speech at the RNC who maybe weren't watching it before. And, you know, it's
Peggy Noonan wrote about that moment as well for him. That became an iconic photo. She says this, quote, when they trundled him off and he threw up his fist, pumped it at the crowd and shouted, fight,
My relative, she's called a relative to talk about it. The relative says, well, that's over. Meaning the election, meaning you don't give America an image like that and go on to lose. You give America an image like that and it enters political mythology forever. It was epic. She writes, whatever you feel about him, whatever your stand, grant him one of the greatest gangsta moves of American political history.
She then goes on to call a journalist to talk about President Biden. But the reality is, I mean, this is a remarkable political moment for so many reasons. Yeah. I think we're going to learn a lot about Trump even before he takes the stage this week and where he...
they're going to see what kind of convention he's going to hold. And they've said it's going on as usual, but there are definitely going to be some changes here. And you've seen just in the rhetoric that he's taken, the fundraising messages that he sent out, he's using the word unity. This is not a word that has defined the Trump 2024 campaign. He's running on a whole set of different issues, but unity certainly hasn't been one of them. And so it's a real question what what he's going to do this week, because that not that has not been the tenor of the Trump candidacy. Right. He has been a divisive figure since his emergence on the national stage.
And he has painted a dark picture of America. And so he has a chance, as people are going to be looking at him anew, to change that picture a little bit. And I think it's really interesting to see just how many times Joe Biden has come out in the last two days to speak to the country about this issue.
He spoke in Delaware that evening. He spoke again from the White House in the middle of the day. And he doesn't give a lot of Oval Office addresses. And he did so again on Sunday night. So I think both of them, there's a potential for both of them to come together at this violent moment and say, this isn't the way we need to be. Well, certainly Biden facing his own political crises that I'm sure we'll touch on later on.
in the show. And Bakari Sellers, actually, let me bring you in on that point, just in terms of President Biden's role here and kind of the way he framed this. I will say he didn't shy away in his address last night from saying he's going to continue to contrast his plan for the future with Donald Trump's plan for the future. But at the same time, it was a clarion call for us to turn away from what we saw happen in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Well, first, I mean, I think that many people, including myself, thank God that President Trump is still alive today. And we always would echo the same sentiment that President Trump, excuse me, that President Biden relayed last night, which is that political violence has no place in American discourse. You know, I do want to reframe the conversation a little bit, though. I mean, this country, this is not as if we just forgot the things of the 1960s or 70s or 80s.
This country has seen so much pain. This country has seen so much violence. This country has seen so much bloodshed. And there are entire generations of voters that still remember when King was assassinated or 1968, where in February you had the Orangeburg Massacre. In April, you had King being assassinated. Then six weeks later, you had RFK being assassinated. And so those are still voters in the country who feel that, who remember that. I mean, we still recall Gabby Giffords.
We still remember Steve Scalise. We still remember just recently the plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. And we still remember what happened
Yeah, we still remember what happened to Nancy Pelosi's husband. And so what we see, though, and what I'm proud to see is that this president stands up during those times where instead of mocking or ridiculing, he tries to bring this country together and does what a president should do. But you still have to prosecute the case.
And you still have to win this election and you have to show the American public what the difference would be between a Joe Biden presidency and a Donald Trump presidency, because this race, regardless of whatever imagery is shown, as we saw today, is still extremely close.
Very close. And Jason Osborne, you have worked for President Trump in the past. One thing that, you know, I think that is different from some of the eras that Bakari Sellers was referencing, yes, voters remember Martin Luther King, but the speed with which information moves in our era, the fragmentation of the way people think about it, and the Wall Street editorial,
Wall Street Journal editorial board has a message out this morning that I thought was interesting coming from them. I think it's also correct. They write, you'd like to think members of Congress know enough to not indulge in conspiracy theories without evidence, but then democracy doesn't always produce the brightest bulbs. I don't know if I...
Okay. The latest, though, to meet the public's lowest expectation for our supposed leaders is Rep. Mike Collins, the Republican from Georgia's 10th District, who sent a tweet on Saturday that Joe Biden sent the orders. It is hard to imagine a more incendiary message in the wake of an assassination attempt.
And he goes on, they go on to say, it's hard to imagine a more incendiary. Mr. Collins was retweeting and amplifying a tweet that quoted President Biden's remark last week. I have one job, that's to beat Donald Trump. And he, of course, used the word bullseye. Mr. Biden, the journal says, was employing a metaphor. However inept, given our current political distempter, he wasn't giving orders to anyone to shoot Mr. Trump.
and if he wanted to do so he wouldn't do it in public mister collins is among those who think mister by the next the mental acuity to be president but then he accuses him a master mining a conspiracy now they also want to say people on the left also should not engage in political conspiracies but that is going to be the baser impulse that all of our politicians are gonna have to resist in this moment
Yeah, and this is my ninth convention that I've worked and what I can say is over the last several days and particularly well the last 48 hours We have seen a completely new Convention platform right in the direction that came down from Trump is this is his convention so that kind of speak from Mike Collins is not hopefully is not what we're gonna see on the stage over the next four days and
The scripts are being written as we speak. They've been thrown out and redone. And folks are going to get on stage and they're going to talk about unity. They're going to talk about the vision that Trump has moving forward. And I think Trump's talks yesterday or his interviews yesterday
set the stage for hopefully what we'll see for the next three, four months, right? I don't think you're going to see a lot of the Mike Collins type rhetoric that comes out there. Or if you do, you're going to have a lot of folks tamping it down and dismissing it, whereas two weeks ago, you may not have.
I think it's a rare moment where each Biden and Trump, it's in their both of their political interests to do what they're doing right now. Biden being a kind of consoler, if you will, having that national leadership role, consolidating his part as a left, the Democrat nominee, which was in doubt for quite a while now. And for Trump, who's winning this race intensively,
Being the uniter, you don't have to throw Hail Marys. You're up three or so points nationally in a lot of swing states. You can be a little bit more conciliatory. Yeah, very interesting. All right, we're going to continue this conversation over the course of the next hour. We're going to show you a little bit more of President Biden trying to set the tone in that Oval Office address. There's no place in America of this kind of violence for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions.
plus the latest on the investigation into the gunman behind Saturday's assassination attempt. And Trump ally, the Congressman Byron Donalds, will join me live later on.
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.
A former president was shot, an American citizen killed, while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing. We cannot, we must not go down this road in America. President Biden using a rare Oval Office address to address the nation last night in the wake of Saturday's assassination attempt against former President Trump. Biden asking Americans to lower the temperature in politics while acknowledging the incredible division in the country.
Yes, we have deeply felt strong disagreements. The stakes in this election are enormously high. I've said it many times that the choice in this election we make in this election is going to shape the future of America and the world for decades to come. I believe that with all my soul. Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy. It's part of human nature. But politics must never be a literal battlefield, a God forbid, a killing field.
Never be a battlefield. Bakari Sellers, you mentioned Martin Luther King Jr. And maybe it's an Instagram cliche, but the words that he offered to us, darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate.
Only love can do that, I thought was resonant in the wake of what we saw. And you mentioned the lessons that we as a country learned throughout that period in history. And I'm wondering kind of what your view is about what we know about how we emerged from that, if you feel like we emerged from that and what that can tell us about what we need to be doing now.
I'm not sure we emerge from that. I still think we're kind of in that period of uncertainty, trying to figure out how we have these very difficult discussions. I mean, for the panel that's there, I do want individuals to recall right after King was assassinated, RFK was assassinated, and Democrats still lost that election. I'm not sure that the sympathy vote that individuals think exists in this country actually does.
But even more so when we're having these discussions about how we move forward.
I'm not sure that looking to Washington, D.C. I was listening to you recall and recite the Wall Street Journal op-ed piece. I'm not sure looking to Washington, D.C. or to state capitals is where you should actually look. Most of this leadership is going to come from within our own communities. It's going to come from the barbers and the beauticians. It's going to come from the people who pick up your trash, the teachers of the day, because we realize that there is no world where we take
lessons from people like JD Vance, who tweeted just nonsense yesterday, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who did the same thing, or Mark Robinson, who's speaking at the RNC, who said that people really need to be killed sometimes. And so I would ask viewers, particularly during this moment,
To find that leadership within yourself, to find that love within yourself, to find that light within yourself. Because if you're looking to pick it up from those individuals you see on TV or Washington, D.C. or whatever state capital you may reside in, my fear is that we'll continue to go down this path of disdain because we're just too fractured in this political celebrity culture that we live in.
Yeah, well, look, I will say that I found the journal editorial relevant because they were calling out those D.C. people and saying these are not the kinds of voices. So your point, Bakari, is taken. Jason Osborne, briefly, Mark Robinson, I mean, Bakari raises that point. What do...
What should the bar be for the RNC in saying, like, hey, we cannot accept this kind of rhetoric right now? Well, I think the message is getting down, hopefully slowly, but surely, that, you know, this is Donald Trump's week. This isn't about any individual running for their race. This is about Donald Trump and the vision that he's going to put forward for the next four years of his presidency, should he win.
And I disagree that there's this sympathy factor aspect of it. I think there is what Donald Trump showed the other night and what he's continuing to show now and what hopefully he will be able to show the rest of this week is that there is a strength behind him and there's the ability, he recognizes he has the ability to change the path forward for his campaign.
that there is a unity aspect of this. He identified a few different issues where there is discourse in this country about different issues, clearly defined lines that folks on the Republican side and Democrat side have disagreed. How do you bridge that gap? And I think he wants to do that. And I think we'll see that in his speech, you know, maybe today or on Thursday. We'll see about that. OK, coming up next here.
I think a lot of people in the crowd just thought it was fireworks going off. I knew immediately it was gunshots. The latest on the investigation into the attempted assassination against former President Donald Trump. And former Congressman Joe Kennedy is going to join us with his perspective on this moment in history. Don't miss it. Women here, fainted. Men, Secret Service men standing by these tears.
This morning, a nation in an all-too-familiar shock, reeling from an assassination attempt against a president and a presidential candidate, and mourning the victim of the attack, 50-year-old Corey Campator, who died shielding his wife and daughter from the bullets. For some, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump was a rude awakening to just how polarized American politics have become. But for others who've watched the recent rise in threats to lawmakers, the violent attack on the Capitol, and the
say that it was just unfortunately almost a matter of time. Joining me now is someone whose family has been devastatingly affected by America's painful history of political violence, the former Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy. Sir, very grateful to have you here today. Good morning. Thanks for having me.
I'd just like to first ask for your reflections. You lost your grandfather and your great uncle, of course. They both meant a lot to the country. The country lost them as well. But you have a unique perspective on this. How do you take in what we saw? And what is your message for the country in this moment? Look, these are hard times, I think, for all of us. It's hard times for our country.
I think oftentimes, as understandable, Americans are seeing what's playing out on their television screens and think of this as, you know, politicians or people far away. They don't see the human side of this. I talked to a number of my former colleagues in the House and Senate over the weekend.
Folks are scared. They're scared for our country. They've got to be out campaigning over the course of the months ahead. Many are nervous about their own safety. You've got to be out with people. It's part of the job. Shaking hands, town halls, parades. What the implication of this is and what this might mean for them, I'd urge some of those lawmakers and candidates that are using some of the rhetoric that the prior panel highlighted,
what if it were your family and your wife and your kids that you were trying to get back to? And if you saw some of, you were the victim of some of these threats, as by the way, almost everybody is at this point. But it doesn't have to be this way, right?
we can choose to take a step back from that brink, highlight the differences which are real between our political parties and our candidates without entering into the vilification that starts to create a sense of normalcy for this type of violence.
You are working right now as the special envoy for Northern Ireland, which is a place that has grappled with political violence in a really terrible way. What lessons have you learned in that work? And what have you learned that could help us through this moment?
I think what's transpired in Northern Ireland over the course of the past 30 years should be instructional and instrumental to the United States. This is a place that went through a brutal history of 30 years of conflict.
And you now have a new generation of political leaders there that are saying, we're not going to go back to that. There are real big divides about the future for Northern Ireland within the political system in Northern Ireland. And yet those leaders are making space for alternative viewpoints. They are saying that Northern Ireland is big enough and bold enough to make sure we can have that debate without entering into the vilification and the trauma that society there has experienced. And
You know, we talk about and obviously my prayers along with, you mentioned it before, I've been with Mr. Compertori and his family and other victims yesterday and obviously former President Trump and his family.
There were thousands of people that watched an assassination attempt on live television. There are thousands of people there that are going to experience some level of trauma and that are going to be impacted by this. We need to create the space here to process it and to try to heal going forward. This cannot be where we go to as a country, where people are scared about participating in a democracy, about being a forum for discussion and debate and disagreement.
It's not about making sure there's no disagreement. Democracies need disagreement. It's about being able to have that disagreement without the vilification and the threat of violence that shuts down that debate and shuts down those forums. Because if we do that, we do lose our democracy. We lose our country.
Sir, President Biden gave an Oval Office address. He obviously has been grappling with his own political crisis as Democrats have tried to decide if he is the right person to remain at the top of the ticket. How do you think he is handling this moment and how would you like to see him proceed?
I think President Biden, over the course of the weekend, in particular last night, did exactly what not only many Americans would expect that he would do, but he did it in a way that was quintessential Joe Biden. It was empathy. It was grace. It was creating, again, that space to bring people together.
This is a commander in chief that has now, you know, had been running essentially against Donald Trump for several years between the prior election and this one. He called President Trump immediately after the assassination attempt, wished him well, checked in on him and his family.
pulled down political advertisements in the midst of a contentious period of a campaign as we're going into the conventions and there's going to be a lot of rhetoric there by Republicans, as is the case in a convention. But he pulled down those ads beforehand. He's talking about trying to find ways to bring people together. And I thought Bakari Sellers said it very well. This is going to come not just from political leaders, where it should come. And
others have to meet now president biden where he was which which some have failed to do but it's going to come and spread through communities right through our leaders in those communities through preacher preachers and pastors and teachers and non-profit leaders where we all have to model this and where we see people going down a different path to pull them back from it because you can't expect this to be solved by uh
speech is however grand at a convention or from an Oval Office. This is something that at this point is inside all of us and we all have a responsibility to do better. We do. Sir, very briefly, your uncle has been running for president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Do you think that he should have Secret Service protection in the wake of what we saw? Yes. I have...
some disagreements with my political disagreements with my uncle. He's still family. And certainly, given what we've seen and what I know Bobby has experienced over the course of the past several months on a campaign trail, he needs to have that protection, as any candidate for office at this point, I think, is going to need. All right. Former Congressman Joe Kennedy, very grateful to have you today. Thank you very much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you.
all right still ahead here on cnn this morning a changed race how both trump and biden's campaigns will move forward all right welcome back uh president biden donald trump both say they're trying to unify a divided nation after saturday's deadly shooting trump tells the washington examiner he has written a speech a new speech for the rnc he says quote i basically had a speech that was an unbelievable rip-roarer it was brutal really good really tough
Last night, I threw it out. I think it would be very bad if I got up and started going wild about how horrible everybody is and how corrupt and crooked, even if it's true. Had this not happened, we had a speech that was pretty well set that was extremely tough. Now we have a speech that is more unifying. Here was President Biden addressing the nation from the Oval Office last night. He says there is no room for violence in politics. Republican convention will start tomorrow. I have no doubt they'll criticize my record and offer their own vision for this country.
I'll be traveling this week, making the case for our record and the vision, my vision of the country, our vision. I'll continue to speak out strongly for our democracy, stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law, to call for action at the ballot box, no violence on our streets. That's how democracy should work.
So Shane Goldmacher, you could almost hear me. Trump in that interview said he's going to give a unifying speech. But also he he said, well, if I were calling them these names, but actually they are those things. You can sort of see the the the person that Trump is come through there. So I guess my question is, is he is he going to continue on this line? Because we know that he's different on the teleprompter than off.
I mean, history would suggest that there is one Donald Trump and it's the Trump that we all know. And he can have moments of different elements of presenting differently, but he is fundamentally who he is. He is running for president because he thinks there are problems in this country and he sees deep problems and he casts them darkly. That's been the beginning. And what we see this week is this is the third consecutive time he's getting this nomination. And so you see a Republican Party that reflects his vision and it's expected throughout the week there's not going to be a big dissent.
dissent. It's going to be Trump's party. But I have to just one on one of your points, right? I mean, I think when you I can only imagine what it's like to almost be killed, right, to have a bullet whiz by your ear that that has to change somebody. And I think Joe Kennedy said it pretty eloquently in what he was speaking about. And I think what we're seeing right now is Trump realizing that what happened to him could have gone completely another way.
And it impacts him, right? And so I think he is being who he is that we don't see necessarily on camera and at these rallies. And I think we're going to see kind of a stronger Trump talking about unity and then over the course of the next few weeks demonstrating what that really means. My question would be, therefore, is Trump, despite everything that's happened, capable of unifying the country given...
the turmoil of the last, well, ever since 2016. You know, clearly he's seen as a personality by at least half the country who himself has attacked democracy. Obviously, the attack on Saturday was a heinous attack on democracy himself. But also, I was at the Capitol on January 6th. I mean, this is not the beginning of this.
that could be unified. It seems like the incentives for division are greater than the political incentives for unity. I'm not sure we're ever going to see a presidential candidate or president get above 60% approval rating ever again, unless it's an absolute national crisis like a 9-11. I just don't... I think those days, regrettably, may be gone.
But also, there's short-term message alterations. You saw President Biden postpone the speech on democracy in Austin, Texas, this unity speech now that it's going to be focused on on Thursday. We'll see if it lasts longer than a couple weeks. Short-term, yes. All right. Jason Osborne, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. I think we're going to see you later on in the week. Yes. All right. The rest of the panel is coming back in just a few moments. Still ahead here on CNN this morning, Congressman Byron Donalds joins us live as the Republican National Convention begins here in Milwaukee. Plus...
Where do we, where does America go from here? Some are looking back to leaders from our past to try to pave the way to a better future.
Welcome back. Just a day after surviving an assassination attempt, the former president, Donald Trump, arrived in Milwaukee, where he will formally accept his party's presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention this week. The security lapses at Saturday's rally, though, are raising new safety concerns about this largest gathering of the GOP in the 2024 cycle. The mayor of Milwaukee telling CNN there will be no changes to the city's convention security plan.
We've worked at this for some 18 months, some 18 months, and Milwaukee is designated a national special safety or security event. And this is the highest level that you can possibly get in terms of the designation that we have for the Republican National Convention.
All right, joining me now is Republican Congressman from Florida, Byron Donalds. He is a strong supporter of the former president. Congressman, thank you very much for being here. It's good to be with you. So first, have you spoken to the former president since the attempt on his life? I haven't had a chance to talk to him personally. We texted back and forth.
that night, late Saturday evening we texted, talked to some of his senior team yesterday. He's in good spirits. He's excited to be in Milwaukee. And now I don't want to speak for him, but knowing him, his mind is on getting back to business, getting back to working hard for the American people. And the assassination attempt
which obviously would be chilling for anybody. What it has done for the president is given him a new sense of purpose, focus, and energy to move forward with this campaign and get back into the White House.
We heard from the former president in a pair of interviews yesterday. He says that he has changed his speech for here at the RNC, that he was going to give one that attacked President Biden as crooked and other things, but that he's not going to do that. He's going to give a speech that's more focused on unity. Is that the right path? And what tone do you hope that the former president strikes? Well, it is. And I think it's the right path because, look, we have major disagreements in politics. We know this.
But it can't go to that level. It cannot go to where now people are being targeted for assassination, where you have violence between citizens. We're allowed to have disagreements as part of the American way. We have disagreements as families. We have disagreements within businesses, in politics, obviously.
But when something like this happens, it requires you to reassess. The president has done that. Unity is going to be our message this week and not just this week, for the rest of this campaign and going forward in our country. Because at the end of the day, no matter how much we might disagree vehemently on these issues, we are all Americans. We're one country.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page is calling this morning for people who engage in conspiracy theories from the right and the left, specifically members of Congress. They named Congressman Mike Collins, who referenced Biden in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. They said that those people, right and left, should be ostracized.
from our conversation, that we instead should be having a conversation that focuses on some of the things that you just outlined. Do you agree with the Wall Street Journal? Well, first thing, I never get into the business of ostracizing anybody.
people have their opinions no matter what no matter how much you might agree or disagree I think the important thing is that we actually operate with the facts going forward from what happened Saturday in Pennsylvania there are going to be congressional hearings on this I sit on the oversight committee I know chairman Comer has already started to begin that work for us to get to the bottom of what happened whatever lapses occurred make sure that if somebody has to be held accountable that there's an opportunity to do so but the biggest thing is the
Obviously, President Trump is safe. We had a former fire chief lose his life protecting his family in Pennsylvania. The biggest thing we want to make sure now is that whatever that lapse that occurred is fixed and that we proceed going forward. People are going to have their opinions and their viewpoints, but let's make sure the American people have the facts.
So, obviously, the Secret Service agents who rushed that stage when those shots started to be fired are heroes. We don't want to lose sight of that. But also, there clearly was a massive security failure, as you allude to, and there are going to be these congressional investigations. Who do you hold responsible right now? And I should also ask, have you asked President Trump about how he feels about what the people...
that he was left unprotected. Well, I haven't talked to him about that specifically. I talked to a couple of my colleagues who served in the military, who have done advanced work, have done security details. They've laid out some of their concerns. I think it's easy to just point to maybe local police or Secret Service. I don't want to do that right now. I want to make sure I have the actual facts
of the of the hour by hour in terms of how they can visit how they set up the advance work except for before i come out with a conclusion uh... last but not least you know if the president has selected his vice presidential running he's run out of time to do it is i do not know what is going to make any news here no i'm not going to make it this morning but look i'll tell you this the president you know he's gonna make a great one and at the end of the day you know the vice presidential nominee along with president trump
They are going to essentially be, they're going to be our leaders moving forward. Obviously, I fully anticipate he's going to be the 47th president of the United States. So the tone today really is, is really where the president has been going for quite some time. If you've watched him on the campaign trail, yeah, he'll, you know, everybody has political barbs. We all know that. But his primary focus has been the welfare of the American people, the security of the American people, and America being a great nation once again.
- Congressman Donalds, thank you so much for this. And you're gonna stick around and be part of our panel here. So thank you.
All right, let's turn back to where we do go as a country from here. I want to show you Abraham Lincoln during his inaugural address just before the Civil War. He said this, quote, the mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this land will yet swell the chorus of the union when again touched as surely they will be by the better angels of our nature.
And then-President-elect Biden echoed those words from history, and he called for Americans to unite after the 2020 election. Our nation is shaped by the constant battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses. And what presidents say in this battle matters. It's time for our better angels to prevail. And, of course, his DNC speech
In Delaware our panel is back and I have to say I mean as I have been thinking all of you about how to approach this because this is one of those moments where I think everything that we all say and do whenever you have a platform it is important to recognize and find the better angels among us and obviously we have seen some people conduct themselves in ways that I would prefer not to highlight here. There are a couple people though who I think we should try to lift up.
And we did hear in particular, you'll see at the end of what I'm about to play, Steve Scalise, who himself was a victim of political violence at a baseball practice, a congressional baseball practice. I talked to him extensively after this happened to him. He handled what happened to him with incredible grace. And he's doing the same in this moment. We also heard from the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, who similarly is someone who has been in a place that lifts this country up. Let's watch.
In a certain way, Kristen, politics should be kind of boring. What we have got to see is serious discussion of serious issues and not this kind of harsh rhetoric that we have heard for the last number of years. What can we do better? And I think, look, I mean, clearly we have differences politically. That's not going to change. We don't stop talking about those. But frankly, we ought to get back to just talking about those political differences. This is a moment.
where all leaders have a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity. Where all leaders need to take down the temperature and rise above the hateful rhetoric that exists and search for a better, brighter future for this nation. Stephen Collinson, the reality is, you know, when I started out in this business,
Have been considered myself a patriotic American. I believe very strongly and what we are capable of what America has Accomplished in her many in her many years. We have had our struggles This is not the America that I wanted to be covering This is not the kind of campaign that I want to be covering right now How do you look at what we can all do as individual citizens to move forward? I?
The question the President raised in that speech, the question of the better angels of our nature, that is the battle in America between its better angels and the things that have been tearing it apart for nearly 250 years. That's what we're seeing right now.
I hate to be a cynic, but I remember being at the Gabby Giffords service in 2011. I was there too. It was devastating. For the young girl, Christina Taylor Greene, that was killed. People were talking about the better angels then. It was time to unify. Same after the Steve Scalise shooting at the baseball practice. People talk about it, but people need to live it. And that was back to what Bakari was saying, one of the...
the legacy of Dr. King was that he was a leader who lived the example of his teachings. And we're going to see now whether our leaders are able to do that. Congressman? I'll tell you, I think our leaders are. And the biggest thing is that we have to be confident in our arguments as opposed to just arguing.
you know and it's not just uh politicians elected officials it's it's news networks it's social media platforms everybody today knows that headlines sizzle so the the more sizzling the headline people might click on it uh chiron's people do watch that headlines and editorial rooms that matters but also the words that come from elected officials we do have that capability but we have to be focused on our arguments actually standing out for themselves and
and not trying to raise the temperature in order to get attention or get more focus on what we're trying to say. - We have to demand better ourselves as regular people, right? Our leaders reflect us. Are they more polarized? We are also just as polarized too. We have to stop looking to them. We have to do it ourselves too. - Yeah, it is the responsibility of all of us. It is the responsibility of our elected leaders, yes, to lead, but it is the responsibility also of each of us as voters
We need to look and see how are our politicians acting, what are they saying, and do they deserve to be able to lead us? Thanks to our panel. Thanks to you for joining us. I'm Casey Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.
I'm Oprah Winfrey, and I am delighted to introduce you to my podcast, Super Soul Conversations. You can listen to some of the most universal, powerful life lessons. I hope these conversations will help illuminate your path to all that you've been meaning to be and all that you were meant to be.
You want to feel better about your life, where you're headed? Subscribe to my Super Soul Conversations on Apple Podcasts and begin the journey to your best self.