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. President Biden has officially dropped
out of the race. He endorsed Vice President Harris to become his replacement yesterday,
not guaranteed that that happens. Although the party seems to have coalesced pretty
heartily behind her, she's still going to have to win the support of enough
delegates heading into the DNC in order to become the official nominee. Joe Manchin
says he does not plan to run for president. He went on CBS Mornings.
Former Democrat recently became an independent, says he has no plans to run
for office, but called on Democrats to hold a mini primary to find the
strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump in November. That ain't gonna happen. I
would really like there to be a mini primary. Well, for one thing,
it's a democratic it's a democratic the PA. That's the part is that
I think a lot of people are having a hard time swallowing, which is
so many times in the party structure, both sides, but so many times
in this party structure. They jam people down our throats. They're not the
people that we want. Yeah, they're the people that the party thinks would
be due for the next promotion or whatever. Ciating And that's not how we
should elect people in this country. Who's up next? Who's up next for
this full time position? Right? Who would be the first blank to be
in the blank? But that's government. You know, it goes back to
the Peter principle. Right, you just keep getting promoted until you are wildly
ineffective in your current position. Yeah. Case in point, Kamala Harris promoted,
promoted, promoted, promoted, just for the sake of promoting people.
State Democratic Party chairs yesterday through their weight behind Vice President Harris to be the
new presidential nominee. The chairs held a big conference call after Joe Biden had
announced that he was stepping aside. There was also a discussion that Kamala Harris
is on the phone with just about everybody. Every power player in the Democratic
Party was getting a phone call from the Vice president yesterday as she tried to
whip up support and make sure that everybody was on her side. Not a
huge surprise, but again, most of the people who had been listed as
potential candidates if Biden was to step down, Gavin Usom, Gretchen Whitner,
Josh Shapiro, Andy Basheer, all of these people, all of them have
thrown their support behind Kamala Harris, and Andy Basheer is the only one I
know who outright said he would entertain the idea of running with her as a
running mate. Well, yes, you will not win, but you will
get the name recognition that you want to carry into twenty twenty eight. Yeah,
elevate yourself to a national presence now being a writer. Die for what
were mains of the ticket, and people talk about you in four years and
then right you'll do the circuit of all the talk shows. Write a book.
You're right here. We gotta write it where we've got to write that
autobiography, Hide the sins, Whitewasher, Pass Silk would scrub that, get
rid of all, get rid of the crack pipes, embarrassing photos of yourself
from college, all that good stuff. While this is all going on,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin at Yahoo arrives in DC today right into this I mean
absolutely crazy eight day cycle that we have seen. Insanity. It's going to
be his first trip to d C in almost four years, and obviously his
first trip abroad since the October seventh attack of Hamas onto Israel that led to
the current war in Gaza. I wanted to point this out before we get
to the Trump side of it, that according to the Harris campaign, they
said everyday Americans have given forty nine point six million dollars in grassroots donations to
her campaign since the announcement just yesterday after Well for us yesterday morning, the
campaign changed its Federal Election Commission Committee name to Harris for President, which basically
a lot because her name was on it originally, or it was part of
it originally. She gets to keep the ninety six million dollars in campaign finances.
That's a huge win for her. I think that's also part of the
part of the reason why Democrats basically had to coalesce behind her because of the
money thing. Yeah, but I wonder where we stand with that, because
remember that money was frozen, the ninety million dollars in Biden's final days on
this campaign. The donor said, we're not spending that on you. Have
they agreed to spend it on her? Not everybody I know that there is
it I'd like to see a breakdown of that, And I mean they have
to be able to convince to your point, they have to they the party
has to be able to convince their funders, their fundraisers that this is a
viable thing, that this is an actual viable candidate running against. Like I
said, I used the term juggernaut earlier, but the momentum that Trump has
right now is a significant factor in whether they put money in this. They've
got to step on the gas with this appearances rallies. They need to go
full steam ahead if they're going to get pick up any traction. Elliott Ackerman
wrote a piece in The Atlantic that I want to talk about when we come
back. It's specifically about whether all of what we've seen in the last eight
days specifically, or you could even go back to the debate and say the
last three weeks, is this too early for to peak Trump to peak,
because I mean, we're reaching. He got a bump in the polls after
the debate, he got a bump after an assassination attempt. He's probably going
to get something of a drop a little bit just because of the notoriety and
the attention that's being paid to Kamala Harris, maybe this was too soon.
It's an interesting look at that. But also some of the people who have
decided that they are ride or die for Trump include a bunch of tech bros.
Garyan Shant. Well, that's probably because of Vance's ties to Silicon Valley.
It retally doesn't hurt. Yeah, you're listening to Gary and Shannon on
demand from KFI AM six forty. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatles should be out
of a job, but there she is on Capitol Hill today talking to lawmakers.
You know, she had one quote I heard earlier about how while we
are nine days out of the attempted assassination, so we just don't know.
And I'm screaming to myself in the car. Nine days. You have had
nine days to dissect how a former president almost got his brains blown out and
you haven't come up with all the answers after nine days. That's a ridiculous
amount of time. You should have all your teas crossed and ies dotted.
She said this morning that the shooter was identified as a suspicious person before Trump
took the stage. She said that if the Secret ser Us believed the shooter
to be a threat. The detail would never have allowed him to go on
the stage, right, Okay, so let's break down that arbitrary nonsense.
What where do you go from suspicious to a threat? How do you make
that jump? And how long does it take? Right, if they had
eyes on this guy and knew that he was suspicious, he should have been
an hour before the shooter. Grimp should have never gotten on the stage.
You eliminate that person. Anybody suspicious, you eliminate them from the crowd.
I don't mean shoot that Wow. I'm not saying just take people out.
That guy's shoot, but remove him from the premises if he's suspicious before you
let the former president get on the stage. This is all common sense to
me. Having somebody on that roof common sense. Yeah, she was unable
to answer that question. It was one of the very first questions that James
Comer asked her during questioning, and not just the opening statement, which was
there was supposed to be somebody on that roof. You said in an interview
that it was because it was sloped. Also, I heard a new one
this morning where they said it was too hot, right, that maybe there
should have been someone on the roof, but it was it was real hot
day? Yeah? Come on. Meanwhile, the other four snipers that were
on the roofs behind the president were all dressed in all blacks, right,
also sitting on roofs that happened to be sloped. So well, I know
that you have read Carl von Klauswitz's on War, where he coined the term
culminating point Yep. Yes, this is an interesting military term that specifically points
to a threshold when a military advantage peaks but then quickly flips into a bunch
of disadvantages. Here's the example. Let's say your platoon has just taken a
hill. Okay, you're exhausted, you're excited, you've achieved your objective.
Your troops have sent the defeated enemy fleeing down the reverse slope of that hill.
You are triumphant on top of that hill, but psychologically, you're vulnerable
to believing two things. Number one that your victory is complete and number two
that your enemy no longer poses a meaningful threat, when in fact, they're
regrouping and they are going to come get you. Yeah. Elliot Ackerman wrote
a piece in the Atlantic about the campaign for Trump having peaked too soon,
and he specifically pointed this was actually written before Biden dropped out yesterday. It
was published yesterday morning. But again Biden didn't drop out until almost noon ten
five yesterday. He says, does alied Ackerman that Republicans were jubilant, they
were a little bit exhausted. Again, this is after Milwaukee, after the
convention. They had taken the hill on their way to the White House.
The photo of Trump and the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt calls to mind
the most memorable image of a hill taking in American history, the battle at
Ewojima. You pointed that out that day or the next day when we were
here, and you said, it reminded you of that statue, of that
image. And I said, once they find that out, Once somebody in
the Trump orbit finds that out, make way for the merch, make way
for all the T shirts. Amazed that I haven't seen it yet, so
am I. But the thing is, they said, his basic point is
Milwaukee was the peak of what they were doing, because going into Milwaukee,
they had all of the goodwill, all of the prayers, all of the
thoughts, all of the concern he had picked a running mate. Now was
the time for them to see that culminating point and then consolidate the gains,
reach out to the whier swath of voters, just basically shore up the defenses
that they had, which was the momentum going into Milwaukee. But but then
he hit hit the gas pedal and JD. Vance and he was pretty combative
when he spoke to the country on that Thursday night. He made a mess
of that speech on the person he did. So I'm more inclined to not
believe in the culminating point. I believe you don't take your foot off the
gas. I think him choosing JD. Vance and his combative remarks were him
double down, doubling down on himself. Yeah, but that doesn't do anything
for his campaign. All he does is shore up the people who are already
going to vote for him. He needed to reach out. And again he's
ahead, so that you could argue, is he's he's still winning in the
polls right now, but he could he could get a couple extra insurance points,
you know, he could go out and steal that extra base or score
that extra goal and get a couple more points. By he's not going to
alienate his own people by suggesting that we're a party of inclusion and we're you
know, we have a bigger, bigger tent than everybody. And it's counterintuitive,
that wasn't it, believing in the culminating point, You've just taken the
hill. You want to take all the hills. Give me more hills.
I'm going to press on, right. But you spread yourself, you want
to get tired of winning, You spread yourself too thin. Yeah, And
I think that's I mean, that's kind of what this guy is talking about.
That when you referred to von Klauswitz, of course, and it was
experience goes to show that reactions like that usually have disproportionate effects, the reaction
of we have done this high fiving all around, not paying attention to the
to the enemy regrouping. Now again, this was published before Biden dropped out,
and he makes a reference to it seems more and more likely that Joe
Biden would suspend his campaign, and if he does, Democrats have to return
to their first to the first principle of this race. Americans have always wanted
a choice other than Biden or Trump, and Democrats must provide them with that
choice in order to win. Is I'd love to ask Elliot Ackerman, is
Kamala Harris enough of a different choice than Joe Biden? And I don't just
mean physically politically. Is she different enough from Joe Biden to draw some of
those people to her, the ones who say I didn't want that guy,
and I certainly don't want that guy. No, because what has she done
on her own She's only just been Joe Biden adjacent for four years, five
years. I mean, aside from that, she's just been kind of leapfrogging
and just jumping from job to job. Yeah, I mean, I don't
even know her own thing is. She was in the primary for four minutes
and just got destroyed in it, just destroyed. Nobody wanted to back that,
nobody wanted to finance that run. Who knows, maybe she'll surprise us.
What do you mean now? I know as soon as I said that,
it was like cognitive dissonance. It's like, what are you saying?
Who said that? Who is that? Lady? We know what's going to
happen. We will play for you in a couple of minutes. Some of
the sound from this morning's hearing the US Secret Service Director in front of the
House Government Oversight Committee. It is not pretty. She's awful. It is
I don't know why she still has a job except for to be there today,
to just crap the bed more. That sounds fun. That sounds more
like me. You're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand from KFI AM six
forty. Big news out of DC. This is not completely unexpected, but
former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has officially backed Vice President Harris to be the party nominee.
That's a big one. The endorsement is very significant. Obviously, Pelosi
played a key role in pressuring Joe Biden to rethink his decision to stay in
the race and held back her support. Immediately after he stepped down, offered
Harris his backing, but offered a full and this here's the term from the
Hill. Offered a full throated endorsement today. So this is what they had
to do. I'm actually a little bit shocked at the at the efficiency with
which the Democrats have not eaten each other. I kind of thought this was
just going to be a free for all, but they they seem to realize
the gravity of jumping behind her right away and riding or dying with Kamala Harris
which I did not think was going to happen. But again to this degree
that goes to how long have they known this? You know, how long
have they known that this was an inevitability. I mean you could say it
was a week ago, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, if you
want to get serious about it and say, Okay, they have to do
something. So they're going to have a plan in place when the trigger is
finally that's okay, I got to go away from the shooting things. When
the ball finally drops and Joe Biden finally announces that he's going to get out.
We need to be out there ready to move. There was no world
in which they were going to jump over Kamala Harris. They just couldn't.
Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think they could. All right,
So, in Washington, d C. The House Government Affairs Committee is
holding a hearing with the Director of the US Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle.
Jim Comer is the chair of the committee. The Secret Service has a zero
fail mission, but it failed on July thirteenth and in the days leading up
to the rally. The Secret Service has thousands of employees and a significant budget,
but it has now become the face of incompetence. Jamie Raskin is the
ranking member of the Democrat on the committee. He was known to be suspicious
before former President Trump took the stage. That is the information I've received.
Why was he allowed to take this stage with a suspicious person having been identified
in the Crown Because I suck up my job. So I appreciate the question,
and I'd like to make two points. If the detail had been passed
information that there was a threat, the detail would never have brought the former
president out onto stage. That is what we do, and that is who
we are. We are charged with protecting all of our protectees. Are there
more I distinguished between someone who is suspicious and someone who's threatening? Is that
right? There are a number of times at protective events where suspicious people are
identified and those individuals have to be investigated and determined. What is no,
Why wasn't this guy investigated? How was a somebody labeled suspicious by you by
the Secret Service? How were they able to bring out a rifle and take
some shots of the former president. If somebody is suspicious, okay, so
you're not going to remove them, Okay, you let them stay there cool,
maybe investigate and see if they're armed. That seems to be the bear
minimum. Simple. He's already labeled suspicious and he gets to get away with
this. That's insane. Yeah, And I don't know it sounds the way
she's putting it, the way she's talking about it. Again, she's not
answering most of the questions. Most of the questions that are being asked of
her. She is responding with we're only nine days out. We're in the
middle of the investigation. We're waiting for the final results to come in days
and you're talking about the biggest failure in Secret Service history since JFK. She
has not she has not visited the site, and when asked originally in one
of the interviews why she hadn't visited the site in Butler, Pennsylvania to get
her own eyes on what that layout is, she said that it was the
FBI had it locked down as an active crime scene because they had to do
their investigation and they're mapping in their evidence collection and all that sort of stuff.
But that ended, I mean, that was a couple of days ago.
They lifted that lock down of the scene so she could easily go there
are pictures now of lawmakers that have been at the scene literally walking on the
same roof that carefully but walking on the same roof that the shooter was on.
I don't know what value it would have for her to go there just
to get a good whiff of the bed that she crept all over, probably
just take it all in better than her going to Milwaukee for the Republican National
Convention. I mean, she was there because she explained she was there because
there was a suite that was dedicated to, you know, the local security
people, and she wanted to come and thank them for the work that they
did to help secure the conventions. I just don't understand how a failure like
that could happen. And we haven't seen one head roll. I want to
see several A couple things we'll play when we come back, not only James
Comer again he talks about that sloped roof, you know, why would you
say that that was dangerous? And then a Democrat out of Massachusetts, and
again this is a bipartisan team that's going after her on this, asking about
the rangefinder that the guy apparently had. We'll do that when you come back.
Gary and Shannon will continue to you're listening to Gary and Shannon on demand
from KFI AM six forty. All Right, the former, sorry maybe soon
to be former director of the US Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, is testifying
in front of the House Committee today. I hope it's contentious. Yeah,
I mean the CNA, and I'm sorry about how contentious. I hope it's
contentious. And I hope that people on both sides of the aisle see this
woman for what she is, which is an abject failure at her job right
now, and push back on the things that she's been saying. She think
she's gonna weather this. Yes, that's insanity. Yeah, but that's what
happens with bureaucrats, right, They just keep getting promoted. So the questions
all surround what kind of breakdowns happened that allowed a twenty year old with a
rifle within four hundred five hundred feet of the former president of the United States
and able to peel off a shot A couple shots, I should say,
one of them that hits the president in the ear, kills another bystander,
severely wounds two others that were in the crowd that day. And one of
the things that we know about was that the shooter was on a roof,
technically outside the perimeter, but well within an area that should have been guarded
by someone. So here's the chairman, James Comer, questioning her about all
of this. One of the things that you said, I believe in an
interview that there wasn't an agent on the roof because it was a slope roof.
Is that normal? And do you fear that that immediately creates an opportunity
for future would be assassins to look for a slanted roof. I mean,
this is a huge question that every American has. Why I wasn't a Secret
Service agent on the roof? And there have been reports that agents were supposed
to be on the roof but it was hot that day and they didn't want
to be wonder if can you answer any of those questions? Director? So
I appreciate you asking me that question. Chairman, I should have been more
clear in my answer when I spoke about where we placed personnel in that interview.
What I can tell you is that there was a plan in place to
provide overwatch, and we are still looking into responsibilities and who was going to
provide overwatch? Oh my god, get off the secret taste in general,
not speaking specifically to this incident. When we are providing overwatch, whether that
be through counter snipers or other technology. Bureaucrats go to school where you're taught
how to say nothing in the most words you could possibly use, just to
say nothing. Squeeze the squeeze the life out of the English language. Let
me for you answer a question. Yes, let me make seven hundred excuses
for the most singular failure of the Secret Service decades. This. Stephen Lynch
is a Democrat congressman out of Massachusetts, and he went after Kimberly Cheetah.
Did he have a rangefinder? There was some reports that that the individual had
a rangefinder that would that would certainly raise my suspicion. Did he have a
rangefinder? Yes he did, But may I explain that that I'm in a
member of our sites, especially when you're at outdoor venues, a rangefinder is
not a prohibited item. Now I can understand. I can understand that she's
saying it's not on a list of things that we wouldn't allow, but it
is raising a giant red flag. Why else would you have a rangefinder on
you? Suspicious? What are you gonna do. You're gonna pull out your
three iron for what a two and twenty yard shot? And that I wonder.
It's like saying, yeah, I watch a titleist at the president right
now and he had a silencer. But those aren't illegal. Nancy, Nancy,
this is probably going to be the highlight of the day and one of
those that's going to be played over and over again. And this is the
thing. Kimberly Cheetles got this, She's got an answer to. She's got
a Senate committee that's going to be investigating all of this, the independent committee
that's put together by Alejandro Majorcas. She's going to have a rough. She's
going to have a rough July. I'll tell you that this was Nancy Mace,
congresswoman out of South Carolina. I cut off the very first question,
but she's asking basically, have you turned over all of the stuff that we
have asked for as a committee? I would have to get back to you.
That is a no. You're full of shoot today, you're just being
completely dishonest. Mister. I, like Nancy mass we have to maintain dem
in this committee. Any do you provide any memos to this committee that we've
asked you on July fifteenth, have you provided all memorandas within the Secret Service?
I would have to get back to you. That is a no.
You are being dishonest or lying. You're being dishonest here with this committee.
These are important questions that the American people want answers to, and you're just
you're just dodging and talking around it in generalities. Yeah, and we had
a subpoena you to be here and you won't even answer the questions we have
asked you repeatedly to answer. Are questions. This isn't hard. These are
not hard questions. Well, I mean some of them are hard questions that
she just doesn't want to answer. That's the other part about it. I
think it was funny. She's glad she called her. Have you provided all
memorandums within the Secret Service? I would have to get back to you.
That is a no. You were being dishonest or lying, which is the
same thing Jim Jordan, the congressman out of Ohio said earlier in his questioning,
you're either completely stupid or you're lying to us. He was talking specifically
about funding. It goes back to the Hillary Clinton classified emails. Did she
know and willingly hide, which all sounds very funny now it sounds very quaint.
Hillary Clinton's classified emails. That was a different time. Whatever. It's
like, you're either lying or you're too dumb. What do I want somebody
who's that dumb or somebody that's gonna lie to me like that, right,
because one or the other. Yeah, her days have got to be numbered.
You could also, as the presidents of the United States, if you
weren't sick and in Delaware, call for her resignation. I don't know why
that didn't happen nine days ago. All right, there's a lot going on
today. Okay, we're going to turn the temperature down. We are going
to turn the I didn't know the temperature was that high. Was it high?
Where you feeling start to feel the ants again? It is warmer in
here today, is it because it's the face of the sun outside. Well,
yesterday there there was no air conditioning. There was no air conditioning,
and it was it was lovely. It was fine. Yeah, So today
there is air conditioning and it does feel a little cooler. You still look
a little clammy. Is it the lysteria lunch I had? Your listeria is
showing all right, when we come back, the potential people who could run
with Vice President Kamala Harris as they as her vice president, we'll talk about
some of the names. Juliemanchester from the Hill dot Com is going to join
us right after this. 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.