This is Gary and Shannon and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the
Gary and Shannon Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app Saturday afternoon. Take a
look at what happened over Those are the gunshots that rang out at that rally
in Butler, Pennsylvania. Apparently hit the President in the ear, thankfully.
That's all a lot of questions though, how was somebody able to take their
position with a rifle on that nearby rooftop. The Secret Service, of course
at the center of many of these questions. Brian Clark is joining us.
He's a correspondent for ABC News Life in New York with some of the latest
on all of this. Brian, good morning, Good morning, Thanks for
having me. So where do we stand in terms of the investigation. We
have a dead suspect, but there's gotta be some amount of work that's been
done over the last forty eight hours or so trying to find out exactly who
this was and what his motive was. Right That's one big area of the
investigation right now is looking at this twenty year old in western Pennsylvania who grew
up about an hour south of where the shooting took place. And what we
found is the fact that this is a guy who didn't really show much of
a motive, or at least nothing that's jumped out yet to the FBI.
There are no signs that he was working with anybody else. He appears to
be your standard lone wolf that carried out this kind of attack. ABC.
We've been able to track down some people he went to high school with.
He tried out for the rifle team at his high school and apparently was told
not to come back. Two of the members actually said he was a really
bad shot. Graduated in high school twenty twenty two. He graduated a community
college this past spring. He was working as a dietary aid at a nursing
home and there's been no reported problems. You know, the classmate have said
he was quiet, kept to himself. Some people said that he was more
of a loaner. They said that maybe he was bullied a little bit.
But we are getting that clear. I think we will get even more of
a clear pitch. Sure, his family is cooperating with law enforcement as they
try to figure out what caused him to do this. Brian, one of
my big questions about the Secret Service response to this is after the shots rang
out, they jump on top of the former president and then he is able
to have his head his chest exposed in front of that crowd for several seconds
after that, you know, and to me, it seems antithetical to what
the Secret Service is there to do, is just to shield him, especially
after there has been at least one threat that revealed itself. That's I think
one of the many questions that we're going to be asking of the Secret Service,
and I'll probably be asked on Capitol Hill as some Senate and House committees
want to hear more about what happened. And that is one because we've seen
it happen before where when there's a scare or when there's even maybe a balloon
popping something like that, you see the Secret Service jump on top of the
person and get them out of there. The fact that he was able to
get back to his feet and like you said, just kind of almost posed
there, and sure it reassured the crowd that he was all right, But
that does seem to go as he said, It seems to be ant ethical
to everything we hear about the Secret Service. So I think that's one of
the many questions that we're going to be looking for an answer. And my
understanding, as you mentioned, that Congress is going to have those questions.
Probably a week from today is when we'll see the head of the Secret Service
before Congress in some capacity. Right. Yes, we're going to hear you
know, President Biden's ordered this Blue ribon investigation, but these congressional committees they
want to hear for law enforcement as well. Everybody wants to hear some answers
about what happened from the Secret Service director, from the Director of Homeland Security.
I think we'll probably want to hear from you know, maybe people involved
in the FBI, local law enforcement in Pennsylvania. There's going to be a
big investigation here as to what happened. All right, Brian, good stuff,
Thank you, appreciate it, thank you. You know, the more
I think about the breaking news that the former President's going to announce his VP
pick today, the more I'm kind of shocked by that. Wouldn't you want
the attention to be on you for at least another day? Milk this thing?
Oh, I think that's exactly why he's doing it. I mean,
think about this. He's a hero right now, though, I meane a
lock he's a hero. Right now. The wave is very high. He
survived an assassination attempt by millimeters, right, Why wouldn't you just stay on
top of that wave. Why give the attention to anybody else. But he
got a huge ruling today from Florida where John jay Leen Cannon dismissed that classified
documents case. I would if I were advising him, I would say,
today's the day. Really, you're going to rule this week. This week
is going to be the coronation that you've been waiting for. Yes, but
tomorrow is kind of Today and tomorrow are kind of quiet days at the convention.
Things don't get really rolling until midweek, and I would think that you'd
want to ride this at least today, maybe even tomorrow tomorrow night. So
if we do hear anything new at least from law enforcement about what's coming out
of the shooting in Pennsylvania, definitely we'll bring that to you. President Biden,
by the way, has canceled, for the most part, a bunch
of different campaign events he and the Vice president were planning over the next couple
of days out of deference to the assassination attempt. And we do know that
he is still Biden is still planning on doing the interview with Lester Holt tonight.
This is another one of those NBC promises that they're going to air the
whole thing. I don't know how long that means, fifteen twenty minutes or
so. If that's what if they take a cue from George Stephanopolis. But
you thought security was tight when we were at the RNC eight years ago.
There are local, national, federal police every single place in Milwaukee, everywhere
you look, and it's important to explain what that is because I don't think
people realize how tight it was eight years ago, and that was without an
assassination attempt. Eight years ago. You and I had the opportunity, along
with producer Oscar to go to the Republican National Convention when it was held in
Cleveland, and we've both covered high profile events before, but I've never seen
security like we saw at the Republican National well at both of them both.
The Democratic Convention was a week later in Philadelphia, but the Secret Service lockdown
of downtown Cleveland was incredible. We've covered presidential visits that didn't have security like
that it was, and it is even more tight in Milwaukee following what happened
over the weekend. I mean, I'm not sure how much extra beef was
called in. I don't know how that works with the protocols, but they
say that a secret service. Local police departments from the east to the west
coast are just everywhere there. Coastguard choppers are seen flying across Milwaukee over the
weekend. It's impossible to drive anywhere. Streets blocked off with those concrete barriers,
trying to walk around them. I remember that too, trying to find
an entrance around the concrete barriers to cross the street. The entire section,
I would say, in Cleveland at least was about a six square block area,
because you had the parking garage that became sort of radio row and where
TV studios had set up. You had the arena itself where the Cleveland Cavaliers
play, and that was where the main events took place. The baseball stadium
is right there. But that was also a secure area because it was basically
just easier for them to cordon that off and there were only two ways you
could get in. There were only two gates if you were members of the
media or the public that we're going to go to the or a delegate or
something like that. There were only two ways that you could get in,
and both of them dozens and dozens of very heavily armed, full uniform Secret
Service officers, the magnetometers that you had to walk through, the bag searches
that you had to undergo, and you had to be badged the entire time.
You had to have your lanyard with your credential on it visible at all
times. So what does that conference call sound like? After everyone who I've
talked to in law enforcement, everything I've taken in from law enforcement officials,
people that have worked the job, have said, this was a major f
up. The fact that that guy was able to be on the roof,
and there's so many things that don't add up. How was he able to
be on the roof when they had Secret Service on other roofs but not that
one. The audio that made the rounds of the past forty eight hours of
the guy who said I saw this. I told the Secret Service, Hey,
there's a guy on the roof right there. Looks like a guy with
a rifle is going on that roof. This is the guy from that BBC
interview. Yeah, we noticed the guy crawling bear crawling up the roof of
the building beside us now. And I've seen video this morning. I saw
video of him crawling on the roof, not just this guy describing it,
but other cell phone video from people who saw him. And actually you see
him make his way up onto the roof and shimmy up towards the peak of
the roof so that he can peek over with his gun. I mean,
how okay, So beyond that your point of what was the conference called?
What did sounded like? From late Saturday into Sunday? For Milwaukee, They're
already at one hundred percent security, right, they are already doing regular bomb
sweeps in the arena. They're already doing regular credential checks on every person that's
within one hundred yards. I think they're bigger concern now is as we saw
in both Cleveland and Philadelphia eight years ago, was the free speech areas that
have been designated like there's just there's gonna be protesters h and they give them
a space so that they're sort of in view of the arena. And in
Philly we had to walk past them as we came into the arena for the
Democratic Convention. Their concern now is should we move that farther back, because
you don't know what's going on in some of those places. All of them
are watched, I mean all, but it is outside the actual secure perimeter.
So is there something? And also, let's just pump the brakes real
quick and thinking that there's a coordinated effort to assassinate Trump or anybody else.
This was a crazy twenty year old male. Right, We've seen it before,
We'll see it again. This isn't something you know, all the municipalities
issuing press releases over the weekend like we're on heightened alert. It's like this
was a crazy kid with a gun. Yeah, but I mean, I
think the question your point earlier was how does a twenty year old kidh a
have the knowledge of where the president's going to speak, be find a building
that's going to be uncovered. Now, I'm not saying there's a conspiracy theory.
I'm not saying that he had somebody on this side. How many questions
for me to move off the conspiracy theory at this point, the Secret Service
needs to come out and answer questions. We need to do a deep dive
on this kid's communicate online or on apps or encrypted apps, or what have
you. There's just too many why's right now for me not to feel a
little bit tinfoil hat like you might want to move away from the window because
of the chemtrails. The chemtrails. The shooter behind the assassination attempt reportedly bought
fifty rounds of ammunition hours before it went down. Guy bought the bullets at
a local gun store there in Pennsylvania before carrying out the attack. CNN reports
one of two local counter sniper teams were supposed to cover the building where he
was perched. It reportedly was meant to be a designated post in the operational
plan, so they're saying it was the local guys that So there was a
report also yesterday from the Associated Press that there was an officer who did respond
to people's calls of hey, there's a guy crawling on the roof with a
rifle. And there's a couple of different versions that I saw. One of
them was that an officer climbed up a ladder. There does not appear to
have been a ladder, but that the officer climbed up a ladder and came
face to face basically with the shooter. That the shooter turned his rifle towards
the officer, and the officer retreated or fell or something and didn't do anything.
Doesn't make any sense. That story in itself does not make any sense
because well, and then the second version of it was that two officers,
because there was no ladder, one officer boosted the other one up and he
literally stood on the other officer's shoulders to get a view of the roof.
That's when the guy turned his rifle and pointed it at the officer, and
in that moment the officer on top of the other one and slipped and fell
and came crashing down. Because you your reaction before the event, yes,
there should have been. They're also this is and again this is a secret
service question that they'll be able to answer, hopefully in the coming days without
giving up too much operational security. Here. If there's an outside officer,
if there's somebody from Butler Police Department or the Butler County Sheriff's Department, and
they see a threat, that's a that's not a I think it's a threat.
The guy literally has a rifle dressed in civilian clothing. He's not one
of us. Is there a word you call over the radio? Back to
command center or back across all of the chap This is a well oiled machine.
It should be a well oiled machine. And and and the fact that
it came out a local counter team or what have you, that's falling on
their shoulders. No, no, no, no, it's the Secret Services
party. They need to have all of those te's crossed and ives dotted.
If there's local guys that are assigned to that building, they need to make
sure those local guys are at that building. Before the event, there was
another Secret Service agent, longtime guy, worked for the Secret Service for twenty
two years. His name is Jeffrey James. And what he said was,
obviously, this is crazy. How could somebody with a rifle get that close?
His version of it was maybe he was so far under the radar that
they weren't even expecting him to be that close. Because the snipers that we
saw literally behind the president on the barns or buildings that were right behind him,
that they may have been looking out farther. I mean, these guys
are trained at one thousand yards easily, so maybe that's kind of what they
were looking at. Is there's no way there's somebody on this building that's this
close, because we know Butler County Police Department has it or something like that,
and they're looking farther out maybe, which is I mean, but still
you have to make sure if there's a team that's supposed to be there,
that they're there before the event. It's not on the snipers. That's not
their fault. And he was a very slight person. Distill does there's no
reason why that building wasn't cleared and manned and where were the roadblocks? That's
the other part about this is I know that you've got the absolute inner sanctum
of security, which is the stage itself and wherever the president physically is.
There's only a certain number of people who are allowed in that space. You've
got the rally goers themselves, who all went through magnetometers, they all have
been checked. They all were not allowed to carry bags and stuff in there.
And then you've got the fair grounds itself, which had a fence around
it, and a lot of the people that said they saw this guy climbing
up on the roof were the ones who were outside the fairgrounds. They were
on the fence line literally just to listen. They couldn't see the president.
They were there to listen to him, and they were the ones who at
least pointed out this guy before before the shooting took place. It's just insane,
all right. We will continue with everything that we know coming up next,
also classified documents. Case too right, big day, big day,
big win for Trump, big win in November. That's locked. The Democrats
shouldn't even waste their time in Chicago. I said this earlier. There will
be no more talk about Joe Biden being replaced at the top of the ticket.
It's inconsequential with this. They could run an empty suit like just his
ashes or what have you. It's well, I don't know what's going to
happen. They could run anyone. It's not going to matter. It's inconsequential.
Yeah, those people who are calling the loudest for now is the time
to unify. A week ago, four days ago, you were the same
people who were suggesting that Trump needs to be in the bulls eye now or
Biden is a threat to our you know, freedom, Orge, I mean
right like that. It's important to recognize that you parroting things like that does
add to all of this. It does add to the increase in temperature.
So before anybody angrily posts. They're the ones who were saying the You're the
person who said the maybe there's a little time for self reflection. Well,
and listen, it's human nature when you don't have all the answers to speculate
about something this magnitude. I mean, talk to Kevin Kostner about it.
JFK the movie, right, I mean, there's still conspiracy theories about JFK's
assassination. Was it the Cubans? Was it the CIA? People are still
talking about it all these years later. How many years ago? Sixty three?
I mean, of course, in the hours that follow an assassination attempt,
you're going to hear all the theories. That's just our human nature and
we're not going to stop having theories about this ten years down the line,
twenty years down the line. So I came in on Saturday and took over
for Neil who was doing his he was doing the Food show, He's doing
the Fok Report. When all that that's a fun kind of put into this
position of you know, relaying what we knew at the time. And as
I was driving in, I remember thinking, consciously, don't fill the void
with fake stuff. There's such a push. Now, this is arguably the
largest story that we've done since social media has been as prevalent as it is,
and at least a specific event, a one time event like this,
and that knowing that going into it, having to sit down and then say,
Okay, we don't have a lot of information, and that vacuum of
information can be filled very quickly with all kinds of conspiracy theories about what exactly
happened. Now, there are still legitimate questions. That doesn't that does not
constitute a conspiracy theory. There are legitimate questions about what happened, but we
have to make sure that the things that we say are those things that are
confirmed. I think that we all got into that unhealthy habit of filling the
void with COVID because so little was known, and so little about our future
and what we were allowed to do and what it would look like moving forward.
So little was known. We were in just such an unknown place for
so long that we kind of got used to filling the void with our own
thoughts about what should be done or how we should handle things, instead of
being patient and waiting for facts to reveal themselves. Yeah, or just the
habit that we got into of throwing some sort of vitriol out on social media
and then expecting it to die in the ether. Well, no one really,
you know, and that's not what happens. I was making my way
through x where I do like to find breaking news alerts and video and all
the latest that comes out. It seems to show up their quickest. But
you know what else shows up their quickest is the evil doers and the people
that do want to fill the void with their crazy ass theories. And the
meanness that people have when they are behind their keyboards is just insane to me.
I think what frustrated me, I don't know how mean they sound.
What frustrated me on Saturday was the quickly debunked stories or posts about something.
There was a lot of originally some video that came out of officers, law
enforcement officers and bystanders there in the crowd carrying a body down the steps of
the grand stand towards the back, and I assume it was the firefighter who
ended up was the only thankfully the only fatality outside of the gunman, but
they were carrying his body down the grandstands, and the captions on a lot
of the tweets were, oh, they got him, he was got the
shooter in the crowd or something like that, when clearly, even by then
a few minutes into it, we knew that the shooter could not have been
in the facility, could not have been on the fairgrounds, had to be
somewhere outside of it. Within a couple of minutes from that, we knew
the BBC had to interviewed this guy who said, yeah, I saw a
guy in this building outside of the fairgrounds itself. But nobody does anything.
And I know that Twitter and Facebook and all these social media companies struggle with
this, especially in an event, In an event that's going on in real
time, that stuff is not taken down and then it just propagates. It's
clearly debunkable information, but it just spreads so much quicker than the actual truth
does. And we you know, we've fallen prey to that so many times,
and this, I think this event is one of those where it should
be an acknowledgment. I said it to my kids because we were having this
conversation about it yesterday. My son is asking me, well, did you
hear that he may have been a Chinese national or did you hear and I
listen, your son also say that China was coming for our bridges. Yes,
here's the thing. I'm glad that they're at least engaged they knew something
happened. But it's also one of those I say to them, just use
I heard it was a Chinese nestion. Just use us a little bit of
logic, and a lot of times that stuff falls apart very quickly. They
China do to him. Right. So anyway, that's one of those.
That's one of this. This is going to be a crazy day again.
The Republican National Convention opens today. Next hour is when they start some of
their informal formal events. I guess at the stage at fiser of Arena.
But the classified documents case against former President Trump has also been dismissed today.
The timing of it could not have been better for Donald Trump. The judge,
a Trump appointed judge A Lean Cannon, ruled that the Special Council in
this case, Jack Smith's appointment, was unconstitutional. So we'll get into that.
There's a lot going on. We're still getting information coming in out of
Pennsylvania about the shooter, about what happened that day. Still a lot of
questions about what happened with the Secret Service and where the breakdown was that allowed
somebody to get that close to a former president with a rifle and peel off
a couple of shots. It's all coming up on Gary and Shannon. You've
been listening to The Gary and Shannon Show. You can always hear us live
on KFI AM six forty nine am to one pm every Monday through Friday,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.