Dynamics Shift For The 2024 Election After Failed Assassination Attempt
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We are this week doing Live at the Bream live from literally inside the Fiserv Forum here at the Republican National Convention, getting ready to kick off on Monday. It is Sunday when we are having this conversation. Joining me, Mary Catherine Hamm and Juan Williams. Thank you both for being with me. I think we're still all sort of digesting this assassination attempt, essentially, that we saw last night.

Juan, how does that impact the conversation here at the convention? Well, it absolutely changed the conversation first thing this morning. I mean, you think about what we've been discussing for the past two weeks. It's Joe Biden's poor performance at the debate and whether or not he was going to drop out or be forced out of this contest.

This morning, the conversation is about Donald Trump and about the idea that America feels so unsettled in the aftermath of that assassination attempt.

Well, Mayor Catherine, I know that you've said what we watched happen last night and President Trump's reaction to it. I mean, it's a moment in history and it really may have a political impact. Yeah. And I think it's not it's interesting because you feel crass talking about the political political impact of it. But it's more than that, because his moment of defiance, his moment of resilience, you

meant something to Americans who are like, okay, he's safe, meant something to those rally goers, to his supporters. And as we move forward, having faith in our system, as Juan notes, where people feel very unsettled,

Having him react that way and react the way in his statements that he has is very reassuring and as important to the process. He used the word love, I think, three times in his statement today. And I think it has the power to change some minds, frankly, because people in this country don't like to be pushed around. They don't like to be told you might not get to have this guy. Death could be.

the result. And so I think that could have political impact. Psychologically, it's a huge thing to see him in that photo under the stars and stripes that way. And in addition to using the word love, he also used the word unity. And while we've talked about if he comes here, you know, the piece of the editorial board in Wall Street Journal said he needs to use this moment to talk about unity. We have to be able to have

but it's got to be civil. And his message here, I would imagine, is being tweaked after the events of last night. Oh, I can't imagine that everything isn't being tweaked. Excuse me. I think we're in the midst of a sort of

storm and in a storm everything gets tossed about and right now that includes political messaging so what you saw last night is interesting to me it's not only that former president Trump I think is shifting in his message because a lot of his message has been in fact bombastic and at times about you know go get them and bloodbaths and the like I think that mess they people wanted him on the Republican side wanted him to shift

to a more inclusive, calming message for a while. I think now he may see the advantage in that.

And also think about the messaging that came from President Biden last night, that, you know, this is wrong. This is scary. It should be stopped. The same thing came from President Obama, President Clinton, President George W. Bush. They all, as if you saw a moment of coming together across political to say, you know what, there's no need now to escalate to go tit for tat. We have to calm down.

Yeah, and I mean, that seemed to be the message from everybody last night. It was great to see bipartisan condemnation of this very quickly. I mean, there were some outlier crazies that had some things to say on social media, but we're going to get that no matter what happens, even in an event like this. But it moves now to the next phase of...

We're devastated. This has got to change. But how did this happen? And Mary Catherine, that's going to be a huge part of the next wave of this conversation. For sure. And that will be happening contemporaneously with a presidential campaign. I mean, the amount of news we've taken in in the past two weeks is just I mean, I lived through 9-11. So that was obviously the most consequential news moment of my life. But

This one is coming pretty close. And I think Juan is correct that Trump has a real opportunity to maintain this tone and look defiant, resilient. And you know what? Frankly, it's OK to be a little angry when you get shot. Right. But his tone has been incredibly presidential and restrained.

I do want to take issue with there are a few media figures in the media aftermath who were lecturing Trump about his tone, right? The man has just been shot. He's got his fist in the air and he's saying fight. And some people took issue with that. And I just think

Frankly, that's insanity. His rhetoric in that moment is not the concern. The rhetoric is not the issue when he has been shot. And I think there tends to be a double standard with many in the media on political violence because they sort of discount it on their own side, whether it's riots in the street in 2020, the congressional baseball shooting, which frankly was not a very long story. It lasted just a couple days in the news cycle.

And so I think they sort of want to disappear those. And in this case, I think we're going to be talking about this for a long time, as we should. And it will be partly because of these repeated investigations that must happen. Yeah, and there have been a lot of calls for both sides to take down the rhetoric, that there are people who say things that

an unhinged follower of theirs, and it doesn't take many. I mean, from what we understand about the shooting, everything we know at this point, this is a lone actor, a lone wolf. He alone is responsible for what happened there. But there's a lot of talk about changing the conversation and how we can all have a chance to do that. You saw Bill Barr, though, the former attorney general, put out a statement last night in the aftermath of the shooting saying, when you refer to somebody as an existential threat to democracy,

That's very specific language, and it needs to stop being used. Right. I think that's why you're seeing the Democrats pull ads as of now that attack Trump as just that, this existential threat.

But the thing about it that you have to remember is that the Biden campaign wants this to be a choice election. It's not a referendum on Biden, because I think Biden would, in everybody's estimation, Democrat or Republican, lose that contest. But if it's a choice against Trump...

And the idea that Trump is anti-democratic, that Trump has radical agenda. Project 2025 has gotten so much attention for laying out some of these proposals. Which he denounces. He denounces, but I mean, they're all his people. Yeah, right. He says that it's not his official platform. But you're right. There are a number of people from his administration who helped craft that, certainly. Right. So I think...

Right now, you're in a moment where people are, as we said, in a storm and everyone's trying to find themselves and find their allies. But I wanted to get back to something you were mentioning, Shannon, which is I don't mean to sound, you know, Pollyannish, but 90 percent of the American people are not extremists. Oh, I think it's more than that. Right. I mean, when you look at it, it's these far right, far left people. And yet they dominate the conversation.

They dominate the conversation, especially on social media. And it's like you're going into a hole deeper and deeper and deeper. Who agrees with me? Who agrees with me? Anybody who has a slight disagreement, you're not really one of us. I think this is so damaging to the American identity because it really separates us out. And I'm hopeful that, in fact, the trauma that we're all going through in this moment has a

I don't know, healing? Could it be healing? Like a scar heals over or something? That people say, you know what, I can't take this anymore. A bit of a wake-up call. Just saying, have I played a part in this? You mentioned social media, and that is a place where algorithms figure you out, too, and they're going to feed you what agrees with you and what you want to hear. And I try to tell people, I think we all know this, but social media is not the real world.

I mean, when you can just go after people without having to say things to their face, where you can fall down these rabbit holes that are echo chambers for you, whatever your belief is, it's a dangerous place.

No, Twitter is not real life is a evergreen statement. And you should attempt to find people who disagree with you reasonably and to hear their point of view and to try to even put yourself in their shoes and understand why they believe this policy or this idea. To the political situation moving forward, I think the contrast that Biden wants to make is being made by events, not by campaigns. It was made by the

the debate versus this day. And I think those two images is very, it's very hard to overcome as a branding for both of these campaigns in the mind of the American public. Now, there aren't that many voters who are going to move in mass from one camp to the other, but you don't need that many. You need tens of thousands in a couple, a handful of states. And so the, I think the fence sitters are a very interesting bunch right now. Double haters. Does the double hating happen?

extend to or does make them rethink like, well, I don't like this guy, but I don't appreciate this attempt on his life. And that could move people in a defiant direction to go that way. I'm curious what you guys think, because it's getting no conversation right now. The very public kind of civil war in the Democrat Party about whether Joe Biden stays atop the ticket is

How do you think the events of the last 24 hours impact that conversation? Does it quiet? They say, all right, this is a moment in history. Let's stick with this guy. He's essentially our nominee. Or do you think that that conversation ramps up again? I think it's less likely by the minute that Joe Biden withdraws and the assassination attempt on former President Trump

I think adds momentum to that because what it does is it takes attention away from the conversation about getting Biden out among Democrats. So now that seems like a subset. Everybody's talking about what's going on with Trump. The focus goes back to Trump. Some people were saying before this convention, the convention could actually help Biden because all the media focus is on Trump. Well, this sort of extends that point that there's going to be so much more attention on Trump.

And his base and Mary Catherine was saying some of the people who may have been on the line are all going to be focused on Trump and maybe move towards Trump by his defiant stand. But for Joe Biden, I think what he wants is people to move on and say, well, there is no other Democrat right now. You know, people talk about Kamala Harris, the vice president, but he's he's making the point.

I'm looking okay in the polls. You know, look at the Fox poll. The state polls don't look as well, especially the swing state polls. But it's not beyond the margin where he can make the case to Democrats. This is something I can do. I can repair it. And he's going to. That's what he wants to do, apparently. And.

And so I think this in some ways helps him in this moment. Yeah, to quiet that other conversation. You mentioned our Fox News polls, which would have gotten a lot more attention from us on Fox News Sunday and other places today. But obviously the conversation is about the shooting on Saturday night. But the polls were interesting in that they showed us, obviously taken prior to the shooting, but after recent events,

the debate, President Biden's press conference at the wrap of NATO, and it showed basically still a dead heat. It was 49 Trump, 48 Biden. We also had

numbers where you looked at President Biden versus some of the other, or excuse me, President Trump, some of the other names that have been floated as potential replacements for President Biden. And they were all pretty tight too, within a point or two, showing that at that point, the race, Mary Catherine, had not moved. Yeah, I said, not to quote myself, but I said on your show on Fox News Sunday two weeks ago, if Democrats want to pull any sort of switcheroo, a technical term, they must have unanimity of

of plan and purpose and quickly. We are now two weeks from my saying that, and there is not unanimity of plan and purpose. So I think every moment that passes, Juan is right, Joe Biden is more likely to be the nominee to stay in that inertia works for him. And this news story takes him out of the discussion. And I thought a week ago,

This whole campaign will be nothing but a discussion about Biden. Now, how could it possibly be a discussion about Trump? But here we are with that on our plate. So I think it does work for Biden. And I think, frankly, his argument is not without merit when you look at these polls. Yes, the battleground polls look much worse. He was behind before the debate. He's behind after the debate. He doesn't look to me like a candidate who can change the face of this election or has the energy or wherewithal to do that.

However, it's close. It's striking distance. His inner circle can say that to people. And they can also say, you don't have a plan for fixing this without disrupting the entire mechanism of the party running this campaign. Yeah. And I think you're right. If they're going to do this, if there's going to be a change at the top of the ticket, you've got to have a plan. It's all going to be coalesced and put together before.

that announcement will come. Zero indication President Biden wants to go anywhere. He's got another big interview on Monday night. So folks will be watching that. We're told that it will be, NBC says, unedited. Like we saw with ABC, it will be what we call in the business live to tape. You're going to sit down, see my interview. It's on tape, but it won't be edited in any way. So that'll be a big one to watch. Also in our polling, there was a lot of information in there that people are very skeptical. More than 70% believe that the White House has been transparent about

with how the president is doing mentally, his acuity and his health on that front. This was an administration that promised it was going to be the most transparent, and yet people feel like

It hasn't been. Yeah, you said has not been transparent, right? What's that? Right. More than 70 percent say not transparent, not transparent. And I think that's really something that hurts the Biden account, because, you know, one of the things that Democrats have as a vanity is that, oh, you know what? We're honest. It's the Republicans that aren't honest about Trump and all of his excess and convictions and impeachments. And I can go on. But wait a minute.

What if you're not honest about the liabilities of your candidate and the fact that he has? I mean, that what we saw at that debate was chilling. That guy was that guy looked vacant. And so if you're looking at that and you're in the American public and you're saying, I think the Democrats tell lies, too.

And now, yes, I know. And you're saying, wait, look at this Biden White House. What has been going on? And what you've seen is a celebration in the part of conservative media saying, we told you all along that this guy wasn't right in his head.

And then Biden comes back and says, I had a bad night. Well, I don't know. From my perspective, if you're going to play in the Super Bowl, if you're going to play in the World Series, get ready. You know, I mean, you should be prepared. Get a good night's sleep. He was overprepared. I don't know. I'm just saying that was a horrible performance, Shannon.

That was scary. Clearly it was a rough night. And it seemed to many people, to the consternation of some who were ready for him to leave the ticket, that he's been better outside of that night, that his NATO press conference was much more cohesive. There was a lot of praise for his command of foreign policy issues, you know, leaders and countries and conflicts and all of those kinds of things. But still at the same time here, Catherine, our poll showed, I think it was about 62 percent said yes.

maybe even 63, somewhere right in there, that they believe whatever is going on with the president and his mental acuity is actually national security. Yeah, I think what you saw in media and political circles in realizing what was happening post-debate, they sort of, the scales fell from their eyes. A little bit of denial left the room. Voters were already there. Almost 70% of voters said long before that debate that they thought he was too old to serve another four years. So this is just the elite sort of catching up with voters.

with voters. Now, that means that some of this might be baked into people's votes. And they're like, well, I kind of knew what I was dealing with. Although seeing it starkly like that, I think made an impact on people. As far as his press

press conference goes, I think it was like marginally better maybe than the debate. What's interesting to me is that a lot of people talked about how the low expectations for Biden would hurt Trump in the debate. And that didn't happen. What's ending up happening is that the low expectations for Biden are hurting people who want to get rid of Biden because when he clears that very low bar over and over again, and he sort of slow walks this from one event to another, he gets closer and closer to the point where you cannot replace him.

And so I think that interestingly tripped up a section of the Democratic Party, not Trump. Well, an ironic moment to me was in his rally in Detroit. There was a moment where he said something about akin to the fact that the media had turned on him. Not those exact words, but something about the media. And there were tons of boos in there. That's something we're used to seeing at Trump rallies where he's like the dadgum media and points him out and people boo.

in the media. But one, it's an interesting moment to see President Biden feel like he's on the receiving end of that now. He talks about the elites and people who have abandoned him. It puts him in a very different place than he's used to being. Well, you know, this is a sort of behind the scenes thought, but

The conflict between the Biden White House and the New York Times in specific, let me just name one institution, is very real. They've never seemed to operate in sync. And I think many people on the right would think, oh, no, they're both liberals, you know, so they're Democrats. But actually, what you've seen is that the New York Times has been more critical, more open to what Mayor Katzen was talking about, questioning his acuity and the like.

And critical of his foreign policy positions. Critical, for example, in many cases of his stand on Israel with the Palestinians. So these are points where the Biden White House position is, how come you're not talking about Trump? Why don't you focus on Trump instead of always being critical of us? And they're like, no, you're the president. You're in power. He may be the former president, but we're reporting on you.

Now, this extends, Shannon, into then other media in the country. And I think that at the moment, this raises a very intriguing prospect that you touch on. The Biden team, Biden campaign saying we're being set upon by the elites. The elites are out to get us, including the elite media.

As you know, we were driving into Milwaukee. There was a sign up there, a pro Trump sign saying, go after the left wing media elite. Well, now maybe there's going to be a billboard that says, you know, from the Biden team, go after the I don't know, the left wing media elite. Right. They don't like them. But, you know, the one thing that I can say is America loves a morality play. And if the morality play is the old guy is getting up off the mat and fighting back.

People might be, oh, maybe there's going to be, you know, a second act for Joe Biden. We'll have more Live in the Bream in a moment. The world of business moves fast. Stay on top of it with the Fox Business Rundown. Listen to the Fox Business Rundown every Monday and Friday at foxbusinesspodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.

Okay, before we go, and keeping in mind, if you're listening to this, this is being recorded on Sunday at 930 local time here in Milwaukee. Who do you think the VP pick is going to be? And do you think it's, do you think that any of the recent, whether it's the debate, whether it's the shooting last night, do you think any of those things factor into the way that President Trump is making his decision?

I want to, I'm going to make a guess. Okay, good for you. But I want to be clear that it's a guess. Yes, that's all this is. One of the things that I unabashedly appreciate about Trump is that I'm not even sure he's decided. Right. Exactly. You may be thinking about it right now. And that means it can't leak. The pageantry, the bachelor rose ceremony nature of these events. Who gets the final rose? Look, I appreciate it. So I just want to say it's a guess. But I would say strategically...

for, say, a suburban mom voter that a Governor Doug Burgum might be a good pick. Youngkin would also be a good pick for Virginia who has a track record of attracting those kind of voters. Can I just be straightforward and say I think that he's too tall? I have heard that. Because standing next to each other? Yeah.

So I'm just going to say that. But Youngkin would also be a good pick on this front. I think Burgum is the one that's more available and would reassure some of those voters. So I'm going to make that guess. OK, I like it. Well, I have two guesses, Shannon. I think that if you're picking up on what Mary Catherine was talking about, wanting to create some outreach, some support.

extending an alms to those who, especially in the Republican Party, have not been willing to vote for him, you would think, well, why doesn't he pick Marco Rubio? Rubio, I think a lot of people would fit, say fits that notion of ready to be president, but also reaching out to Latinos,

There's a question about both people being from Florida. With Burgum, there's the issue of abortion, which is a real vulnerability for Republicans and the Trump campaign. Well, I should say, Youngkin is a version of Burgum without that particular problem because he's been strong on a 15-week mark. Right. It is an important point. But Burgum is aligned with Trump in that neither one of them want a national measure on abortion. And Burgum's been telling us that. I mean, from the first time I interviewed him months ago, he said he just didn't think it should be done at the federal level. So...

But you're right. He's got, what, a six-week ban there in North Dakota that he did sign. Right. And Trump mentioned this. Trump said that is an issue. And, of course, we're not talking about J.D. Vance. And J.D. Vance, you know, I don't know what Mary Catherine feels about beards, but apparently Trump doesn't like them. They come and they go. They come and they go. They come and they go. Well, I don't know. But, I mean, J.D. Vance in some ways would very much appeal to—

To the Trump base, because he is a strong conservative. And I think there'd be lots of people who say, you know, but why are you picking someone who just doubles down on your message? You don't need to do that. Right. That's more of the same. I think Trump has all the Rust Belt appeal and more than Vance has shown. Mm-hmm. Just...

period. So I don't know why you would need that unless he wants to bequeath sort of his America first more national conservative policy future to this younger figure. But I'm not sure Trump really cares about policy that much. Right. That's not his number one. He wants somebody who, like he said, can be president on day one. And if that person helps him,

It can be about that, too. I think Rubio would be helpful to your point. One, I think the legal headaches of having the double Florida thing just causes issues for you that you don't need to have. But you know what? He's good in a courtroom, it turns out. Yes. But, you know, I think for Trump, it's also how you look. I think Mike Pence looked.

like a leader, you know, and had the here and everything else. And he had the evangelical vote. Yes. Which Trump very much needed in 2016. You are too practical, Ms. Shannon Green. I'm just saying. That's the truth. I'm thinking about, you know, presidential elections and how they're won. You know, I must say on behalf of my son that he thinks Ben Carson is in this game and that people aren't paying attention. Yeah.

And I can tell you, he could go anywhere. He could. And I have not counted out Tim Scott either. They have been very close and work together on a lot of important things. OK, this has been live. Well, you're going to be listening to it on tape, but we're recording it live and in person at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as we get ready to kick off the RNC. Mary Catherine Hamm.

Juan Williams, thank you both very much for being on Live in the Brain. Well, it's a dream for me to appear here. Thank you. Come back soon. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

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