A break down of the assassination attempt on Trump, its aftermath, and the path for unity

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Break Down with Brodkorb and Becky, a weekly podcast that breaks down politics, policy, and current affairs. I'm Becky Scherr. And I'm Michael Brodkorb. We are here with an action packed episode ahead of an action packed week of news at the Republican National Convention.

[00:00:28] While there will be much to break down this week about Trump's VP pit speeches from the big stage and more from Milwaukee, that is for another episode. Today, we are going to break down all things surrounding the assassination attempt that took place at Trump's rally this past weekend.

[00:00:42] We are going to start the episode by welcoming Brian Strasser back to the show. Brian has 30 years of experience in crisis management, business continuity, crisis communications, and global corporate security. He is also the chair of the Minnesota Gun Caucus.

[00:00:57] Brian first joined us a little over a year ago to break down the Trump indictment and how it relates to his recent studies in dissertation at King's College in London. With Brian, we will break down what happened at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania and what

[00:01:09] will happen next in terms of the investigation. We will get into what we can learn from this and head on the Secret Services mission and how that may change in the future. We are then going to be joined by another returning guest, Shannon Watson.

[00:01:22] Shannon is the founder and executive director of a nonprofit organization called Majority in the Middle. Shannon has spent more than 20 years working in politics and has worked for various organizations in the policy arena.

[00:01:34] She is a recognized speaker and op-ed writer and focusing on topics like division in society and bipartisan advocacy. With Shannon, we will break down how we can take this tragedy as an opportunity to work together and talk more and how we can tamp down tensions.

[00:01:49] We will then round out the episode with me and Michael giving a brief overview of the reactions from the press, electeds, and the like. We'll have some bonus episodes this week breaking down the GOP convention in Milwaukee, so be sure to tune in.

[00:02:00] Thanks for joining us today and enjoy the show. Becky, it is the week of the Republican National Convention, where we are not doing the show that we expected to do today because of the horrific events of Saturday, which we are discussing this entire episode.

[00:02:18] As everyone on the world should know by now is that former President Donald Trump, who will be nominated and has been nominated this week to be the Republican candidate for President, was nearly assassinated on Saturday.

[00:02:33] We've pivoted some subjects and moved some things around to make sure we're available to talk about this. Becky, horrific news on Saturday. Where were you? Give us your initial take. Yes. I had a rare date night, date afternoon with my husband. We went to Topgolf. It was toasty.

[00:02:51] We were having some afternoon cocktails, hitting some golf balls, which, hey, I did better than I expected. When I have an glance at my phone and see some breaking news alerts and some Twitter alerts

[00:03:03] and then my poor husband had to endure me kind of scrolling on my phone and then keeping up with the situation while in between shots because it was just shocking and not shocking all at the same time.

[00:03:17] It's just horrifying to see the video, to see how close it got, to see the photos afterwards, to hear about the tragic death of a father, a young father who just turned 50, who was there and shielded his wife and daughter, to hear others injured.

[00:03:35] But ultimately, it was an assassination attempt at former President Donald Trump. Someone who you and I obviously are not huge Trump folks, but I think that you and I both agreed and our messaging over the weekend is absolutely appalling and unacceptable and just heartbreaking.

[00:03:55] It's not something I wanted to ever have to see or deal with or watch or any of that. So grateful that the shooter was not successful, but it was a tragedy all. And what about yourself? It was horrible.

[00:04:09] I was at a ball field just about to head home when the news broke. And so I called my son, who was at the house, let him know and then was getting updates on what was on TV unfolding.

[00:04:24] This assassination attempt was recorded in full camera view aside from people in the audience, people in the crowd that were there. It was being broadcast live, which nearly all major presidential events are these days. And so this unfolded on live TV in just shocking manner.

[00:04:44] My son was relaying to me what he was seeing on TV and it was very difficult, very difficult to understand that and was confusing because I was driving home and racing home and I was listening to the media reports.

[00:04:55] And I first told him when I was on the phone to him that be mindful of the initial reports and it was a discussion with my family later that the initial reports can sometimes be accurate.

[00:05:04] But sadly, a lot of what was being reported was true is that he was relaying to me that the president, former president was knocked down. He was standing back up. There was blood. I told him he didn't need to watch TV.

[00:05:16] He could and he was wanted to see and be a part of the news and understand what was going on when I got home and saw what had happened and saw the images. It was unbelievable. I don't know that I've ever seen those type of political images happen.

[00:05:33] And they were incredibly powerful. Tragic, horrific. But there was also a lot of power in what the former president did and in how he responded to that. And I think you said the table very well.

[00:05:47] You and I are not supporters as of, I think now I'm not, I've never voted for Donald Trump nor will I, but he is a human being. And to see a former president who is now the Republican nominee for president

[00:06:01] who will be on the ballot this November on the ground. I have him stand up with blood on his face after being shot in the ear and then standing it off that stage. It is profoundly sad of where we're at in this country, what happened.

[00:06:17] And it brings up so many discussion points because I am outraged that it would happen, but realistic of the temperature and tone, which is one of the discussion points we're going to have this episode.

[00:06:30] I wish nothing but the best for his family, for him in a speedy and full recovery. It is horrific to know that a father same age as me who just turned 50, lost his life protecting his family at the event.

[00:06:46] No one should ever go to a presidential event or anywhere and feel for their safety like they did. And it was just simply horrific. This is not a time for, I think, finger pointing on either side.

[00:07:00] I think both sides in terms of the rhetoric of what got us here. I think both sides are responsible. What are there as Republicans and Democrats? I think it is too early to know what impact this will have on the race.

[00:07:13] But having said, had done all of the disclosures that I think are required to do and how I truly feel that I wish nothing but the best for the former president, his health and speedy recovery. I'm still not voting for him.

[00:07:27] But I hope we can set aside at least in this episode, I think we'll be able to some of the electoral aspects of it in terms of and really elevate the discussion about some humanity.

[00:07:39] Because what I have seen in the aftermath of this is I think a real loss of humanity because I think there are people out there who should be doing, it should be a lot easier for people to say this was wrong and we need to be scared.

[00:07:53] And this needs to be a moment where we all collectively pause and see, can we do a better job? But there's going to be investigations. This was clearly a failure on the part of the Secret Service. But it is just a really ugly time.

[00:08:09] And again, I just want to say in all seriousness, my thoughts and prayers are with former president Donald Trump, his family to everyone who was traumatized by what occurred and victimized by what occurred and to the people that were at that rally that saw

[00:08:23] that, that they were injured to the family of the man who lost his life. Just an unmitigated and total tragedy. And I'm so sorry. And I do wish everyone who was harmed and hurt and touched in any way

[00:08:39] by that event on Saturday has a speedy and full and complete recovery. Well said. Let's get to our first interview here and chat a little bit more of how this happened. The circumstances are tragic and unfortunate, but we are pleased

[00:08:53] to have Brian Strausser here to help break down what occurred on Saturday involving the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump, who is the presumptive and soon to be official Republican nominee for president. Brian, thank you for joining us under these difficult circumstances.

[00:09:11] Yeah, Michael and Becky, thanks for having me. Offer if you can. And as we were discussing where we came on, Brian, you wear a number of hats and we're having here in a number of capacities, but give us,

[00:09:21] give our listeners an assessment of what happened and where we are right now in terms of the events on Saturday. So Saturday afternoon, former president Trump was at a campaign appearance in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, an outdoor rally.

[00:09:38] And I think I could best describe the layout of this as a farm or like a farm. There was a elevated stage set up. And there were a number of outbuildings both at that site and nearby in the distance.

[00:09:54] And during early into the former president's speech, an individual that we now know is a 20 year old man from that area climbed onto a nearby building with a rifle and shot several times at the president, former president.

[00:10:12] Former president Trump, I think I could best describe it as was nicked in the ear and appeared to have a fairly serious ear injury. One man in the crowd was killed. And I believe two others are still in critical condition in Pennsylvania.

[00:10:28] The president was immediately evacuated by his secret service detail and taken to the nearby hospital. And the sniper team, the countersniper team from the secret service engaged and killed the shooter within seconds of him firing those shots. So they get a high level. That's what happened.

[00:10:46] There's a lot to unpack there. What I think a lot of people, including myself, and I don't want to speak for Becky, but please shine in the back of your screen. See this as a massive failure. Give your perspective on what went right, what went wrong on Saturday.

[00:11:05] Yeah. So I do want to point out, I've never worked for the secret service or in the secret service. So I'm doing this from the outside, but have worked with the secret service in previous roles on various visits and things that went on

[00:11:19] and have had friends that worked in the secret service. Obviously the main security issue, the main breakdown here is how was an individual with a rifle able to get a line of sight to a protective and why was he in a situation where he could shoot at that

[00:11:37] protective? That's the bottom line failure that happened here. There's a lot of things to unpack around that. This is a place where if you look at the aerial images, this guy got a rifle within 150 yards of the stage. That's not that far.

[00:11:53] And by a stroke of luck and him not being a very good shot, he missed. And I say missed because he didn't kill the target he was really aiming at. There was a, according to what I'm seeing in the press, there was a

[00:12:06] five mile an hour crosswind that'll move a bullet out of that kind of rifle about two inches and 150 yards. And the president, former president also turned his head right before he was hit. Those two actions, the misjudging of the wind and former president

[00:12:25] Trump turning his head probably saved him from serious injury or death. In comparison, this countersniper that returned fire from the secret service did that in a little under three seconds and didn't miss on that first shot. And he was about the same distance as 488 feet is what I'm

[00:12:45] seeing for that countersniper. So that's where someone getting that close with a weapon to protect you. That's a massive security failure. What went well, I think the countersniper team did exactly what they were supposed to do.

[00:12:59] I think there's, we just don't know enough about why did they not engage earlier, even a second or two earlier. And we're just going to have to wait for more detail to understand that. I thought the protective detail on the stage did fairly well under

[00:13:15] tough circumstances to get the former president in a protective position and then get him off the stage. And I'll give some credit to former president Trump. What they teach protect is, when you think you are a threat, you should drop below the barrier and that red and white,

[00:13:33] if you watch the video, that red and white striped barrier in front of the stage, that's actually a Kevlar barrier that the protective can get behind. And he did exactly that even before the detail got to him. So there's a few things about what worked and what didn't

[00:13:47] work. So I have had the opportunity to, I worked on Romney's 2012 campaign in Wisconsin when Paul Ryan was the pick. And so we had Romney and Ryan for a number of events. And so have participated in a good number.

[00:14:01] And then when I was at the state party, a good number of these rallies where we go in, do different briefings, and then they clear it and do all of their sweeps and everything and the intricate nature that goes into events of this sort.

[00:14:14] So it has been completely mind blowing to me that this building was not only so close, but it wasn't swept. It was unmanned that this was outside somehow of the perimeter that is barricaded in and protected and all of that.

[00:14:30] It does seem that as though from some videos we've seen, folks did see him before he shot. They alerted police. There was no ladder from when I've read a police officer tried to get on the back of another one and engage that gun was turned to him.

[00:14:44] He fell and then the individual turned and fired a shot. I've also read, and I'm curious if you know any more about and again, I know you haven't worked and so probably don't know all of the details of what goes in and what they can and cannot do.

[00:14:57] But I did read somewhere that said that there are certain specifications for the counter sniper to be able to fire first. And from what I've read that they were not delayed. They did not aside from maybe a second that they didn't do

[00:15:13] anything wrong in their assessment of they saw him in once they identified that there was the gun. It was just a second later. But do you have any more details of how that works and when they can fire and when they cannot or any knowledge on that?

[00:15:26] I don't know their specific rules of engagement, but I think we have to remember that the secret service or law enforcement, they're not the military and they're not in a war zone. So the rules of engagement are what we would think

[00:15:39] of as a law enforcement officer's ability to use deadly force. I read a really good recap of this morning from friends of ours in the gun rights movement at open source defense who really laid out you think about the life of a secret service counter sniper,

[00:15:54] you spent your whole career looking through that rifle scope and nothing ever happens. And all of a sudden in the middle of a speech, you see somebody come up on a roof 150 yards away and maybe you don't even see them come up on the roof,

[00:16:09] but you see the threat up here. How many seconds do you wait before you take a shot that kills them? And what do you need to know before you do that? Can you be sure they have a gun? Can you be sure they're not a law enforcement officer

[00:16:21] that is out of place? All those things have to probably went through that man's mind before he chose to pull the trigger. And certainly once he realized the guy was shooting I think it makes things a lot clearer.

[00:16:33] But there's not a lot of time to make that kind of life or death decision. I think we'll learn more. And just one more real quick thing I was listening to my daily morning show KDWB this morning and Dave Ryan even pointed out something that I thought

[00:16:47] was something that I hadn't thought of is that we need to also commend and send our prayers and thoughts to this man who was forced to take a life. That's his job. He understand that's part of his job, but that's something that these individuals don't do

[00:17:03] on a daily basis, right? The whole goal is to stop those threats before that happens. And it is really sad and terrifying and unfortunate that this sniper had to do that. And thankfully he was able to eliminate the threat and more folks were not injured

[00:17:18] and the president was not killed. But it is something that I hadn't thought about before. Michael, I think you were interrupted you. No, not at all. Brian, one of the questions actually came from discussion with my children last night we were watching

[00:17:31] who was at a presidential event when you're dealing with, when you're at an event or any type of high visibility event involving someone who's an elected official, former elected official or any type of capacity, you have to overlay access to that event with Second Amendment rights.

[00:17:48] And one of the questions I had for you is what are the kind of practices and rules that go into those events in terms of balancing that? There is some questions as to how this person was able to get in such proximity with a firearm.

[00:18:04] But what are the rules and what are the general kind of best practices aside from, let's be clear, not bringing a firearm to an event? But what are some of the guidelines and rules and what are our listeners who haven't been to a presidential event

[00:18:17] who haven't gone there and seen what kind of security practices and what is there, what should they be aware of in terms of their surroundings and what they should see? I think you're always going to see at a presidential event or any national security special event

[00:18:35] like the RNC that started today, you're going to see various perimeters of different levels of protection in and around the facility. So I think even at the Secret Service Press Conference about the RNC yesterday, they were accurately describing a soft and a hard perimeter

[00:18:53] that the soft perimeter was an area where there was a heightened law enforcement presence where there wouldn't be vehicles where you could come and see what was going on as a member of the public. You could exercise your free speech rights, you could carry a firearm because Wisconsin

[00:19:12] does not allow the prohibition of firearms in situations like that. The hard perimeter would be here's the place where only ticketed individuals or invitees can enter and if it's an event like this or like the president's, the former president's speech this weekend,

[00:19:27] then you're going to go through the Secret Service screening before you enter. Even if it's open to the public, you've still got to go through a weapon screening around that hard perimeter that they have established. So in general, that's what you're going to see.

[00:19:42] The other things you would see is an attempt to restrict the number of times the protectees are visible to the public. So they may have tents erected, the motor kid may pull in through the tent and then he comes up on stage.

[00:19:55] It just depends on how they have assessed that threat and there's different actions that they can take. Is the problem with what happened on Saturday is aside the shooting, is that someone was able to get in with a firearm within proximity to the former president?

[00:20:12] Is that the immediate failure? Is that someone was able to get a weapon inside a zone that arguably should be protected and free from this type of activity from happening? Yeah, I think that this was out minor standing of what we know today.

[00:20:31] This was outside of the hard perimeter of the event, but that was an elevated point that should have been observed or specifically protected as to keep someone who had ill intent from getting up there with a firearm. If you have, I'm trying to think of the event,

[00:20:47] I was at a presidential event with President Trump, I think it was in Lakeville a few years ago, a non-political, presidential events were political, but it was not a campaign event, it was a policy event. And there were people that I knew carried regularly

[00:21:03] that were around the outside of the perimeter supporting and protesting the president's appearance. I don't think there's any issue with that. I don't think the Secret Service cares about that, but inside the perimeter, yes, that can be a threat and that's how they're going to think about that.

[00:21:19] Or if they were in an elevated position on an outside event. And in this particular situation, this was outside of that kind of hard area, but it was still an elevated position that maybe should have been examined. Correct. Got it.

[00:21:32] What will happen next in terms of the investigation? So I think there's a couple things that are going on. The Secret Service internally will undoubtedly, after action this to the nth degree, debriefing everyone who was there against all of their doctrine, all of their approaches

[00:21:50] and figure out where they failed and then make changes to their future approach. They have probably already done some of that. It would be traditional to, in an event like this, to get through that immediate response which would have been taking the former president

[00:22:05] for medical care and then moving on to what was next. And no matter how late it was that night, hot washing the event, while everything is still fresh in your mind and talking through the details. But they'll do this several times, typically over the coming weeks,

[00:22:20] to really understand that. I wouldn't be surprised if we wind up with an Inspector General investigation from D8 who the Secret Service reports into of what may have happened here as well. And then President Biden announced that he wanted an independent review.

[00:22:35] So I assume they will name some kind of commission with an outside staff to conduct that review, but we don't know any details on that yet. Brian, one of the other hats that you're here for is you are someone who is, I think,

[00:22:49] first of all, I've long complimented your use of social media and your awareness and your spreading of information, not misinformation, but you are incredibly disciplined in a variety of aspects of your life, particularly in your use of social media and also ferreting out misinformation versus credible information.

[00:23:09] I have long held the position that crisis trauma social media is the worst. Becky and I discussed this in a previous interview. I was away from my home when this happened, called my son, turned on the TV set, and I reminded him and further the exercise

[00:23:26] when I was all together with my family in reminding them that the initial reports of the information that comes out is usually not accurate and that we need to be careful. But I have long held the position that crisis social media is just absolutely the worst

[00:23:39] and it brings out the worst types of situation. If you could offer a perspective on the information flow that's come out, what you observed on social media and maybe call some balls and strikes on information that was or wasn't accurate. Yeah, so I completely agree.

[00:23:55] I think this is the best and worst of social media when things like this happen. I think the place that we go to for this is Twitter or X, I guess we call it now because that's the best place to see this fire hose of information.

[00:24:11] The challenge is finding folks that are reporting things accurately and not spinning things inappropriately. So I wish I could write some hard and fast rules on how you should go about that. My approach is to build Twitter lists of people I trust for breaking news

[00:24:30] and then watch those instead of the main feed. We saw a lot of crap come out from a lot of officials on the left and right in various situations this year. So I think that's part of the challenge is figuring out who you can trust.

[00:24:44] I think a good example of this, there's a lot of reporting about the... There's a lot of right wing social media content right now about the Secret Services Director who is a woman named Kimberly Cheedle and they're maligning her by showing her bio from the Secret Service website

[00:25:03] but only the first page of her bio which says she was named Secret Service Director last year and prior to this she was Senior Director of Global Security at Pepsi. All that's true, but prior to that she was with the Secret Service for 27 years

[00:25:18] where her last assignment was the Assistant Director for Protective Operations. She oversaw the Presidential Detail, the Vice Presidential Detail, all the former Presidents and all of the other Protectees the Secret Service has. So she's a very experienced leader when it comes to protective operations and investigations

[00:25:37] not just somebody who guarded Pepsi plants. So it's a good example of how you really have to... I think you have to question anything that you see particularly if it reinforces a point of view that you already hold. You already think federal law enforcement is corrupt

[00:25:52] and you read that and you're like, oh, see here's another example of incompetence or DEI or however you want to phrase that rather than looking at the underlying facts and realize you're being sold a bill of goods. Brian, we really appreciate it being here today.

[00:26:08] I'd like to give you an opportunity just maybe go off script for just a moment and just this is such a challenging political time. This is such an ugly political time and do you have any advice for our listeners on how they should get their information?

[00:26:20] How they should be interfacing or any even some suggestions on how we can just tone down some of the rhetoric? I wish I had an easy answer to this. I understand the desire not to trust the mainstream media whether you're coming from the left or right

[00:26:36] or whatever your political pent is. I think the challenge with mainstream media isn't political bias as much as they try to boil things down so simply they miss all of the nuance of a situation. I generally look at Supreme Court opinions

[00:26:50] and how those get covered as a good example of trying to make something too simple so that folks can understand that when really there's a lot of nuance to all of that it goes on. I think you have to find people that you trust

[00:27:02] that are providing actual factual information and then going with that. I wish there was an easier... I could come up with a cheat code for all of this for folks but I don't know a good one. I think that's the best thing I think first.

[00:27:17] I don't know that this will happen because politics being politics but I think the other challenge around all of this is the Secret Services mission. They actually have two missions. One is protecting the President and the Vice President and other leaders. They protect several other individuals

[00:27:36] in the executive branch as well but their other mission is counterfeiting and financial crimes investigations and in fact that's where a lot of their resources go. I think it's come up a couple times in the last few years but I think it's time to re-evaluate that mission

[00:27:51] and considering just focusing them on what they have become known for which is protective operations and giving that law enforcement an investigative mission on other things over to the FBI or another agency. I think it splits their focus. I think it splits their funding.

[00:28:09] I think it helps take their eye off the ball and hopefully this is something we can learn coming out of this event that would make sense is to refocus them on just one expertise and staff and give them the resources they need to accomplish that mission.

[00:28:24] I think it's a great point. My dad got rest his soul. He was CPA and he always liked to remind me that it wasn't Elliott Ness that caught Al Capone. It was an accountant and he also liked to remind me that the main function of the Secret Service

[00:28:38] was counterfeiting money and financial crimes and he was really excited. But you raised a very good point and well-spoken and well articulated. Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So we are joined now by Shannon Watson with Majority in the Middle

[00:28:56] and Shannon, we were really looking forward to chatting with you about the unfortunate incident from the last weekend the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump. So we spoke with you recently and our conversation was all about bringing and bridging that dialogue

[00:29:12] and finding what unites us and not divides us. So when we look at this situation which I love talking to you, Shannon but I really wish we didn't have to have this conversation but how can we look at this situation and make lemonade out of lemons, right?

[00:29:28] How can we take this tragedy and use it as an opportunity to work together to improve things going forward or can we? Oh, that's a really good question. I think that's the question that everybody's wrestling with the last 24 hours and going forward. This obviously isn't an unprecedented event.

[00:29:46] The fact that it wasn't successful is a blessing and it really puts into perspective where we are and that we have to talk about an assassination attempt. Those kind of things are the realm of fiction. Yeah, so it's in a way, it's terrible.

[00:30:04] We have to talk about it and in a way I'm not surprised that we're at this point and it's something we have to deal with and maybe it's an opportunity to deal before something really bad happens before an attempt is successful or whatever. I agree with your sentiment.

[00:30:23] It's not well horrifying and really awful. It's not overly surprising. We've talked about in the past I come from a decade in partisan politics and working for some fiery flamethrowers. I've been working in communications. It's been my job to throw this rhetoric and red meat

[00:30:42] and I've had to come to grips over the last few years with some of the guilt I feel with some of that. But there was many times where working at the state fair at the M&G OP booth and needing security escorts because people were harassing us

[00:30:55] or having to take off a Republican or campaign shirt or a tire when I go on a gas station because they don't feel safe wearing that. This has been something on both sides. I want to make sure that this is not just a one-sided thing

[00:31:08] far right, far left. In between there's been a lot of really horrific rhetoric going on that makes it something like this not overly surprising. But from your perspective and in your work chatting with Minnesotans is unity possible? I think unity as Americans is...

[00:31:29] I don't think we'll ever unify on all of our public policy positions. I don't think that's realistic. I don't think that's actually probably a good thing because then we get into group thing. I think on a scale of 1 to 10, unity might be 9 and we're at 2.

[00:31:45] So maybe we aim for 4. Let's have some incremental improvement. And to your point about throwing the bombs the rhetorical bombs and stuff like the reaction that we had to Saturday Night's event was it was horrific and it was shocking and it was appalling.

[00:32:03] Think about how many times we use those words to talk about some bill passed. So we've done that. We've scaled this up over, I would say, probably the last 20 or 30 years and part of the challenge is when you have stuff that you care about a lot

[00:32:17] and campaigns and activists and elected officials they have public policy things they care about a lot. And so it's just going to be human nature just take the next step up in that rhetoric and we haven't ever self-governed to try to cool down the temperature.

[00:32:33] So like you did what you had been taught to do both because that's what you're like literally taught and also because it's effective but I think we've scaled to the point that if everything is horrific, nothing is horrific. That kind of thing. And so that's a challenge of

[00:32:51] how do we scale these things back down still convey that we care very deeply and we're worried about things and whatever your public policy issue of choice is not everything is literally life and death and we've gotten to the point where we're framing everything

[00:33:08] as literally life and death. So I think there's going to need to be some self-governance that we all do. I was talking to a friend of mine earlier and he was saying that watching Twitter was so hard for him not to respond to some of these things

[00:33:23] and I was like, yeah, we need no fishing zone. No fishing. Don't take the bait that somebody else is throwing out there. Don't take the bait and don't try to catch anybody else. If your statement involves the word but like maybe just leave that second part out.

[00:33:40] Political violence is never acceptable. Done. Like we don't necessarily need to say anything more than that particularly if you're saying but this was this person's fault or this was the next thing. Yes, just because something's true doesn't necessarily mean

[00:33:56] that you have to put it out there every time and try to catch somebody else in it. So we're trying to declare no fishing zone. Saturday was really tough and I was challenged a lot by it for a number of ways.

[00:34:07] I was at a ball field just leaving. I got the news and my son was home and I called him and said, hey get off the gaming system be home in a few minutes. You want to turn on TV? This is going on right now.

[00:34:19] I just want to just tell you though, this is very serious and let's be thoughtful. I got home and he was watching it and it was it's sad. I have long said this on the podcast before that I'm disappointed at the time in the political environment

[00:34:34] in which my kids are being raised because I think they're learning, they're seeing a lot of ugliness and we had a long discussion and the family came home. We were watching it because we're all watching the TV set and we're discussing and we're talking about rhetoric

[00:34:48] and we're talking about speech. And what I found so frustrating was disappointing also is I am not a Trump supporter. Never happened. I'm not going to vote from this time around. But I sent out a very simple tweet about just basically

[00:35:02] we all should be thinking about him, prayers and we should this should not divide us right now. I had a number of people that I know send me messages that say you're a better person than I am. And my initial reaction was to say

[00:35:16] if I'm a better person than you are, you might need to look yourself in the mirror a little bit. But I also said how sad that is that we can't just disengage and shut down and just recognize the human aspect of it.

[00:35:28] I have very rarely come on this podcast and said anything complimentary of Donald Trump's politics. We have analyzed them, we have discussed them but I have not gotten into the level of vitriol and it's just not a way I think Becky and I frame it

[00:35:44] and it's not where we're at in terms of our analysis and stuff. I think politics has become so dehumanizing and that we've lost that ability to just it is just really disappointing. I also have an opinion on social media and tragedy that tragedy social media is the worst

[00:36:01] because there's someone looking for clicks first of all, the vast majority of the news that you hear is incorrect. And one of the things I told my kids was as you're watching the news reports come in just keep a reminder of what's accurate and what's not

[00:36:15] and they're not on social media in any substantive way. And I was sharing with them updates and we were keeping in tally what was or wasn't accurate. But I was but crisis social media, tragedy social media in these types of sense

[00:36:27] it seems that we get to a point where there's people who want to try to do the right thing out of a sense of obligation. There's also a collection of people who just can't say the right thing and they just can't get to it.

[00:36:39] And I wish that wasn't a partisan issue. Let me also say this to you. This I'm absolutely going to engage in both sides of the mirror. Both sides have engaged in this stuff and it's and I think it's frustrating. I wish both sides.

[00:36:54] I'm looking for our better angels right now. I'm looking for people who are willing to just be vulnerable and do the right thing that needs to be done. I have to say that I thought President Biden struck the right balance.

[00:37:08] I would have liked to have seen a little bit of some accountability on some of the rhetoric. That being said, I have a full I want the same from the president and the former president and his side. I don't know what we're going to get that or not,

[00:37:22] but at least in our discussion, I just wanted to just I wish the circumstances were better that you're coming on. But having you on it just reframe this for our listeners. I think it's so important because I think what your organization does is so important.

[00:37:36] And particularly in a moment like this where we are such at a boiling point, we're such at a flashpoint. I think it's good to just have a really calming conversation with you. The thing I've been hearing from people is I feel frustrated

[00:37:49] and this was far beyond before Saturday. We have this culture challenge right now and people are frustrated and they want to know what to do. And some people think, oh, OK, I'm going to there's always the you could work for a campaign, you can vote,

[00:38:03] you could really engage in politics. But there's also just the rest of everybody's life that isn't politics. Like we're all weird. We live in this political space and we pay a lot of attention to these things.

[00:38:14] But there's a lot of people who almost never pay attention to these things and don't engage in that. And they have been dealing with division and some of this political fallout that has seeped into civic organizations and schools and workplaces and in ways that they're like,

[00:38:33] I don't know what to do because I've never had to have a political argument with the guy too cubicles over. That's just I have no idea what to do. And so I think sometimes the gut reaction is to double down

[00:38:48] on what is right and OK, if this person hasn't been so immoral for the last X number of years, and that could be whoever. Like you're setting the stage for it. I think there's some forgiveness. Michael, to your point about better angels, like, like there's forgiveness. There's grace.

[00:39:05] There's leaning on our collective humanity. OK, I got a little bit of a tangent. So I went to see the Civil War movie. There's a new I've been waiting to see it. Yes, it was in the theaters for about three weeks.

[00:39:19] Like my organization, we're really like hostess showing of it. And hey, everybody come and do it. And it wasn't in theaters long enough for us to do that. It's on streaming now. And it's a good movie.

[00:39:30] It wasn't I went to see it and I was one of three people in theater and Woodbury so you can tell how popular it was. And I was actually really happy not to have a lot of people with me

[00:39:41] because I'll tell you, I bawled through like half of it and I'm not really a cry or a public kind of person. And I just I cried and it wasn't the movie wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

[00:39:52] How we got to this point that there would be the Second Civil War in America. And it was it was a movie about war journalism. And so you you clapped into here is the middle of this situation.

[00:40:04] But I'll tell you the thing that really messed with me the entire time was they were showing these two factions and I am so used to 49 years old and I'm so used to watching the movies.

[00:40:18] And it would be the American military versus insert foreign power here like that enemy. And this was American military versus American military. And so like that that thing that we all naturally do trying to figure out which side we're on.

[00:40:35] It's OK, we're the good side and those guys are the bad guys. All throughout the movie you couldn't really tell who the bad guys were. And who the good guys were because everybody was American.

[00:40:50] And I won't spoil it, but the last shot in the movie there's like a picture that's taken. And it just sits there throughout the credits. And it was like this very victorious moment for half of the most of people in the picture.

[00:41:00] But it was still you couldn't tell who the good guys were. And so you couldn't I couldn't tell if I could feel like did my side win. The answer had to be no, because it was just like and that was the thing

[00:41:14] because understanding that we naturally as human beings, we form in groups and out groups and we form our tribes and we figure out what side we're going to be on and we figure out our people part of us or part of them. We do that as human beings.

[00:41:27] And in this situation there wasn't that so going back to your original question about unity. I think unity as Americans is a thing that we can do and using Michael's strategy of looking to our better angels and trying to remember that this is what we can unify around.

[00:41:46] I think it's really important right now. And I think that's what the president was calling for. I have to say, I do think that both what we have heard from President Biden in the last 48 hours

[00:41:58] and President Trump in the last 48 hours, I have to applaud both of these men and their teams for keeping it focused on the situation at hand and really not aiming arrows at each other. It was something that I think would be easy to do.

[00:42:15] And so it has been nice to see if it stays that way. Time will tell over the next couple of months, but it's been nice so far. I do want to bring up one you tweeted over the weekend

[00:42:25] and I think subsequently Michael and I saw it and retweeted it as well. John Favreau who a former Obama speechwriter has a great podcast. Not necessarily somebody who probably has a lot of policy similarities with myself, but he tweeted and I thought it was great.

[00:42:39] So we also shared it was he tweeted, right now you can be a person who tries to help calm things down or a person who tries to make things worse. We all have agency here.

[00:42:49] And I think it's a really good reminder that we can all be super frustrated with the situation at hand and how things are going. But it all starts with us, right? Like we have to internally and personally make these decisions

[00:43:01] to try to tamp things down and cool things off a little bit. But as we move forward, do you have any... I love the don't take your... What was it? The no fishing, don't take the bait.

[00:43:10] Scroll through Facebook shows that a lot of people have a really hard time not taking the bait and can't just scroll through something they disagree with without saying their comments. But what other things can we tell the people to help maybe make changes? Do you have any...

[00:43:27] For any listener who wants to like myself maybe be a reformed mud slinger, how can we do it? I think to that point, to John's point, like we look to our leaders, like Americans like hierarchies.

[00:43:43] And so we look to our leaders to do a lot of things for us. And in this situation, every single one of us is a leader. We're leaders in our families. We're leaders in our communities and our workplaces and our neighborhoods.

[00:43:55] And the conduct that you decide to do is what you are amplifying. You show which side of this year are you on the side of calming things down or are you on the side of firing things up? And so I think just understanding that,

[00:44:11] oh, I'm not an elected official or I'm not in a position of power. But that's sort of the point of social media is the democratization of those voices. And so you are a leader of the people who follow you, literally or figuratively on social media.

[00:44:30] And so just understanding, you could take the opportunity to fight back or to hit or to whatever, just to fight in general. That word has been bugging me for a while. That's the word we use in politics. I'm going to go fight for you.

[00:44:44] When you say fight, that means there's something to fight against and maybe that's very motivating to people, but maybe that's not the best thing in the world. Just deciding that if you're not going to take the bait or you're not going to say, but yes, but this,

[00:44:59] like just leave off the but no, but I think that's probably the best thing that we all can do to turn down the temperature. I don't know how long that's going to last, probably 48 hours. I've been renovating and decluttering and getting my home office better

[00:45:14] so I can do some live streaming and doing more with the podcast. And I was going through some of my books this past weekend and I came across one of my favorite books. It was called Bowling Alone. It's the collapse and revival of the American community.

[00:45:28] It's this great book by Robert Putman. It discusses how we used to have, Shannon, you must have, based on your reaction, you must have read it. Four places. Yeah. Our third places are whatever that thing is. Yeah. And the concept is that we've lost this connection.

[00:45:42] We used to have bowling leagues and we used to do these things and we had this engagement that we had. And the other ones, I had a discussion with James Bactrum, the former Dakota County attorney. And we were discussing the very kind of similar concept.

[00:45:56] And he told me that when everyone started investing in decks on the back of their house instead of things on the front, is when things started to change. And the concept was, and after that conversation, I moved my grill to the front of my house,

[00:46:09] which I can move it in the front and back because there is that sense of engagement. I'm out in the front of my house sometimes a lot more than I'm in my back. And my point is that we've lost, even with social media,

[00:46:19] it seems that we're only connecting with people who are of our same ideology over, we can cultivate and curate lists in such a way. And that's why when we're in this type of situation, my reaction is to, is sadly Shannon is to bring you on

[00:46:35] and to figure out what we can do to connect and stay connected more and go through this grieving process because ultimately I think what's needed is more exactly of this, just conversations. And not necessarily just us three,

[00:46:46] but with a whole group of people that we need to be expanding and what I worry about is in these types of situations, people become so siloed. They become so afraid and they revert to their echo chambers

[00:46:57] and I guess the one message I wanted to say aside from amplifying anything that Shannon said and of course, Becky, anything that you say is to be brave, is to be vulnerable to, is to talk to people, is to reach out to people, talk to Democrats,

[00:47:10] talk to Republicans, talk to people you disagree with at times like this. And it's just so important that we have that sense of community and understanding as to what's going on right now and where we're gonna be and how we all need to work in this space together.

[00:47:25] And right now, what I really worry about is we're not gonna learn anything from what happened. Donald Trump is barely alive. I think we're gonna learn more and more as more details emerge about what failed, the massive failures that led to him

[00:47:43] being on the receiving end of an assassin's bullet. We would be in a much different place, just a millimeter here or there. And I can't imagine the horror of where we would be. I'm so thankful that he's alive, that we didn't see a former president,

[00:48:01] someone who is the front runner for the Republican nomination for president lose their life. And I can't imagine where we would be if that was the case. But I hope that this is a reflection point and that people start to,

[00:48:14] and we can be a part of that change. I think we desperately need to be. Yeah, absolutely. And just understanding how to disagree with each other, the conversation that came out of the debate with Biden and is he really the best person to carry this banner forward

[00:48:30] in that discussion that's obviously still going on, but this has preempted it a little bit. But as we learn to vilify the opposition, when you have opposition within your team, you don't know how to deal with it constructively.

[00:48:45] And so you see some of these things like firing up in really weird ways because this, wait a minute, you were on my team a minute ago and now I have to shun you or I have to attack you

[00:48:57] because that's the only way you know how to deal with opposition. I think this is a good opportunity for a lot of us to learn how to disagree with people in a way that doesn't minimize them, that doesn't vilify them,

[00:49:14] that doesn't make us wish harm upon other people. Because you're right, it could have been really bad. And to the credit of the Secret Service, like this is the assassination tip, this is the failed assassination tip we all know about.

[00:49:30] Like I would not have be at all surprised to know that there have been thousands of other threats and things that they have taken down that nobody knows about because that's their job and they don't talk about it. But just to your point, Michael, like things would be,

[00:49:45] I can't even, I can't even can, but I don't want to imagine what today would have been like had that, had the shooter been successful in his assassination attempt on Saturday. I don't even want to hardly think about it. Absolutely. To wrap up our conversation here,

[00:50:00] I did just want to share a little bit of a Washington Post editorial from Saturday night. So bear with me for a moment. They wrote, In this moment we have to recognize that we have all been touched by toxic politics regardless of our beliefs

[00:50:14] or where we fall in an ideological spectrum. Can this then be a moment to pause and rediscover our better selves? To hear our inner voices as clearly as we heard those shots. America, what do we want to be? It's not up to politicians or editorial pages.

[00:50:28] The responsibility is ours as neighbors and citizens. In fact, this Republic is ours, as Benjamin Franklin said, if we can keep it. Let us begin today. And that to me just was really, I've read it a couple of times over the last 48 hours.

[00:50:42] A good reminder of where things should be standing is with the people and that hopefully we can all kind of embrace this and be better and do better. I certainly want to try. I know that's something that Shannon, you do every day with your work

[00:50:57] that Michael and I are striving to do with this podcast is to have these conversations and show that there is a way to have, to disagree without being disagreeable, to have conversations with people on the other side and just hear a little bit more. Say how we disagree,

[00:51:13] but leave it at that. We can disagree. That's a great thing about America is that we can be on opposite sides of things. And at the end of the day, we can do what we can do. We can vote, we can work for candidates. We can door knock,

[00:51:26] but we can have our voice and disagree, but we can do it in a sensible reasonable way. And I hope I want to be cautiously optimistic that this could be a turning point. We've all known that the temperature has been far too hot for far too long.

[00:51:39] I want to be optimistic. I'm a waiver back and forth with that silly of me or not, but I appreciate you for all of the work you do. It's really important that we work on bringing more voices to the folks in the middle

[00:51:51] so that those folks who are on Facebook, who are scrolling, who see all of their crazy uncle or person from high school, who are continuing to rise up to see and hear that there are more of us, the silent maybe majority in the middle

[00:52:06] who want to find a path forward that we can unify behind what we can unify behind. And hey, the Olympics are coming up and that's a great unifier. So maybe this will be a springboard to continuing USA and bringing back to the Powerhouse Nation. We know we are.

[00:52:22] Thank you for you all are modeling the behavior that a lot of us want to see and providing a platform for those conversations because a lot of people say, oh yeah, I could have a conversation. If I wanted to get into it, if I knew how,

[00:52:34] if I had the opportunity but I just avoid all of those things and so you all are really showing it how it's done and so having an opportunity for people to listen to how it works and what you say when you disagree and how you gracefully navigate that,

[00:52:49] I think that's as much of a public service as entertainment. So thank you. Thank you for all that you're doing and to help bring people together and let's make sure to have you on more because I think this is a cause. Civility and discussion

[00:53:03] and disagreeing but not being disagreeable with each other is something that's so important to Becky and I and you're such a great ambassador for it and let's continue to have you on and promote your organization, talk about what you're doing and I think I have faith

[00:53:18] because there's people like you out there Shannon and your organization that are out there trying to bring people together and you've provided good discussion point for us and it's your organization in a time of particularly of tragedy like this

[00:53:30] is really one of the first that I thought about is wanting to reach out to you and just see if you're available to be that voice and thank you for being that voice in a time of crisis and in trauma

[00:53:41] and a time in which there needs to be some healing. So thank you. Thank you so much. Becky, we just interviewed Brian Strozzer and Shannon Watson on a I think I'd fair to say is a specially programmed episode about the events of Saturday and where we're at

[00:53:58] your perspectives on the interview. I just truly appreciate these two individuals who both are looking at things through as much of an unbiased lens here right we're looking at the facts of the situation we're not looking at this from any partisan angle and just having a conversation of

[00:54:18] truly how we got here both from the security aspect and the partisan aspect and really where we can go forward. I know you and I are going to continue to have a little bit more of a conversation about what happened in the 48 hours afterwards reactions and the like

[00:54:34] but I'm very grateful that these two are both vocal leaders using their knowledge, using their expertise for podcasts, for social media to really just try to calm things down, look at this objectively and see it as the situation that it's at hand and really start

[00:54:54] to heal and move forward and be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Yes, I think there is, I think the timing of this is, let me just say there's never a good time for this to happen

[00:55:06] and as I touched on earlier in the show I think one of the and again I'm not ever saying there's a good time in which this to happen but this coming up so close to the National Convention and other news events and information that's going to be

[00:55:20] happening because of the public's general attention span I hope and because the former president survived and has shown such strength in response to it I hope that it is not diminished. I think I just hope that we are continually, this is something we can't move past.

[00:55:40] Donald Trump was almost killed on Saturday and I don't know how he survived. It's just simply amazing that he did and we can't because of new events look past the event of what happened on Saturday and it is amazing to me I'm literally almost speechless in terms of

[00:55:58] just it's so difficult I think to comprehend where we could be had had some had the trajectory of something changed just a matter of millimeters and where we're at and so I understand and I guess I'm going to maybe say what I'm observing

[00:56:18] a bit, people online a bit I understand that there's a whole bunch of people who don't like Donald Trump he's still a human being and I can't and I say that as someone who has never voted for him someone who wasn't going to vote for him

[00:56:32] this cycle and ostensibly I don't think there's anything that Donald Trump could do to get and earn my vote but he is still a human being he is a former president he is an elected official and I may disagree with how he is approaching his position as president

[00:56:50] but I guarantee you something he does not deserve he does not deserve to be shot and killed at a presidential event and beyond TV with blood smearing down his face we should see that and so I have a real challenge with the people who can't separate right now

[00:57:10] Donald Trump the politician from Donald Trump the human being because he's a human being and that was imagery that we all collectively have a responsibility to try to understand how we got there and what anything we can do to make it better

[00:57:28] and to that point I just want to jump ahead and give you a little bit of what I had written in my notes here and because there are a lot of conspiracy theories swirling we're seeing some folks on Twitter say some really in social media in general

[00:57:44] say some really awful things there was a state representative from Colorado that tweeted the last thing America needed was sympathy for the devil but here we are there was a field director who has in my understanding since been fired who was working for congressman Benny Thompson

[00:57:58] he was the director of the January 6 commission he also previously introduced legislation earlier this year to remove Trump's secret service detail this field director who was working for Benny Thompson tweeted I don't condone violence but what Shannon told us we got to leave that butt off right

[00:58:14] I don't condone violence but please get you some shooting lessons so you don't miss next time oops that wasn't me talking the fact that it doesn't surprise me that people have these thoughts that is one thing that people spend the time

[00:58:30] type this out put this out into the ether and if for nothing else that karma's going to get you at some point how it's just mind-boggling that these if you look on Twitter the amount of people who talked about have better aim take shooting lessons it's just horrifying

[00:58:46] this is a former president he is a businessman he is a father he is a grandfather like you said he is a human being and I'm not sure that you and I particularly enjoy that much but he is a human being

[00:58:58] and he does not deserve to be murdered assassinated on live television anywhere it's just again shocking but not shocking yes it is I am just disappointed and I'm surprised at who I'm disappointed with because it shouldn't be that hard it really shouldn't be that hard

[00:59:20] and there are a lot of people out there who I think are really tone deaf and who should know better about what they're saying and how this should be difficult you also need to understand you can also not say anything I'm going to tell you something

[00:59:38] no one is going to miss your take right now no one's going to miss your take I use social media a little bit different than I think a lot of other some people do in a sense that I try to contemporaneously just log things

[00:59:52] and observations and things that I see this was something that I couldn't ask an archive of my kind of what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking at the time is when I throw stuff out there I could not say something because

[01:00:06] based on the consistency of other things that I've chosen to speak up on but a lot of people could be to shut their mouths and I guess I will also say to you Becky that I'm so appreciative of this podcast space in our discussions because

[01:00:20] I knew that I we would have this opportunity for this discussion it could be therapeutic almost to have this and commiserate together but it is more surprised because we've done this podcast for so long and because we've had such good conversations people I do expect

[01:00:38] people to maybe be a little better sometimes and I don't think anyone that we've had on this podcast made anything obnoxious and it doesn't surprise me because I think we've cultivated a good group of people but there are people that I know who just they couldn't even just

[01:00:52] walk away they had to say something and I even in my most partisan days I was never that partisan I remember when Wellstone died and I remember balling I remember praying in my office when he died and balling and going up and having staffers in my office crying

[01:01:14] because working in research we were up close to him and we knew people that had died on the plane and so I just to see to where we are in a country right now where Donald Trump is on stage bleeding barely alive and people are your reaction

[01:01:34] is to go out there and say talk about how you wish someone would have that he would have been assassinated it's difficult for me to even utter the words which isn't going to air in this podcast because I'm going to edit it out you were introducing a guest

[01:01:54] you were introducing Shannon and you said the word and I was shaking my head and because I was hearing you say it for the first time and it's just so difficult and sad that's where we're at but as much as we will hear

[01:02:08] as much as Saturday was a failure by the Secret Service failure by law enforcement and there was a loss of life and many people are going to be traumatized I'm also just I'm just sad by where we're at I'm just sad where we're at right now because

[01:02:24] I think we can all I think we all have a responsibility to do better I think you and I are carrying our load by reshifting the podcast and talking about this I'm hoping other people start stepping up I agree it's been a lot

[01:02:38] but I do want to also chat a little bit through some press reactions and some coverage and headlines that we saw immediately following the assassination attempt and you have a little bit more experience in the journalism world so I'm going to read some of these

[01:02:53] and then pose a question here so CNN headline was secret service rushes Trump offstage after he falls at rally NBC News said secret service rushes Trump offstage after popping noises heard at his Pennsylvania rally ABC said Trump escorted offstage after rally

[01:03:09] or during rally after loud noises ring out in the crowd now is this responsible journalism because facts had not been established or was this due to potentially some bias right just not wanting to call it a shooting at an event not an assassination attempt

[01:03:30] what's your both perspective from working in the journalism field but also just your general opinion on the fact I think it's both honestly I think it's both it will be masked as cautious journalism reporting the facts and that's what everyone wants

[01:03:47] is they want it to be reported that way but there is also I absolutely think it's impossible to not look at some of the coverage and say that there's not some bias here and if there's one area there's one relationship that I think

[01:03:59] the media and Donald Trump are both responsible for it is the vitriol between the two and there is both both the media and Trump's campaign and Trump himself has some culpability in that relationship but you're it's impossible to think that all of these are just just incrementalism

[01:04:17] in terms of getting information out because just the way it breaks and so I think it's also a very difficult situation for the media in a sense of this is that they want they have if they if they report it as an assassination attempt and it's not

[01:04:33] then it is then they'll get criticized for that if they don't do it soon enough then they're criticized for having a bias I do think there are situations where the press does not win and I think this is one of them but this is not a situation

[01:04:47] that they don't bear some responsibility for I think I have seen I saw some of this coverage and I was just like come on like and I understand the kind of rules that they'll use and they'll rely on but goodness gracious understand that we all saw what happened

[01:05:07] and it's very difficult to see the media not play catch up in a more in a quicker way especially because I think from my viewing I'm with you I think that there is obviously some responsible journalism ethics and an assassination on a former president impacts of these

[01:05:25] things globally and to the stock market and there are so many other implications of what gets put out by CNN and NBC and ABC and major news sources but it was surprising to me that there wasn't even just like a little bit more of maybe not calling

[01:05:43] it flat out an assassination attempt but saying that there was a shooting and the president was injured I don't know the exact answer to this but it did seem it was a little frustrating to me of course seeing Twitter explode with the coverage and seeing

[01:05:57] this and the frustration that already exist and this was just another opportunity to amplify it I also did see videos immediately following the when Trump was pulled off stage and seeing individuals go up to the press pin and give them middle finger and say

[01:06:11] FU to the press just right after it like it was there them shooting that bullet themselves so it's really been a frustrating thing I don't have the answer to this I they're doing the best that they can do but it was a little frustrating

[01:06:25] I do feel like there was a little bit of a some ill intentions maybe with these headlines and back y'all to say just very briefly you and I have never been one to play the media bias card and so I think when

[01:06:41] if you and I are both looking at this and saying something maybe seems that you would think if all of these were just just a coincidence or if it was in they weren't related because by some of them would break his way

[01:06:55] in terms of the coverage and none of them are and so I think you and I are both cautious of the media and understand the circumstances what they're in I think we've been very selective in terms of playing the bias card over

[01:07:09] our careers on social media stuff and I think but this is one I think it seems that we're both on the stage where they could have done a little better yeah it was just a little odd to the point where even bevel on B

[01:07:19] which is parody spoof news account tweeted a joke CNN headline that reads clumsy trump hits head on bullet oh that's good yeah it was if you're going to find a little joke on this that that was one there I do want to now go into

[01:07:35] some of the reactions we saw from elected officials I think maybe starting with the elephant in the room that there was a lot of frustration that it was about two hours after the assassination attempt I keep wanting to say incident but I feel like it that doesn't

[01:07:49] deserve or that doesn't really drive it home enough so I'm going to keep saying assassination attempt but two hours after the assassination attempt is when we finally got a tweet from President Biden there was a little bit of frustration I think large part on social media

[01:08:03] that there wasn't anything about that we also didn't get anything from Vice President Harris until even later which understandably she's obviously not going to step on the president's toes with that the president was I don't want to say supposedly we were told that the president was in church

[01:08:17] while this went on and that it came out and had that as somebody who has spent time working for elected officials candidates at partisan politics and have had probably the keys to many twitter accounts and been involved in that what's your thoughts on how why this took so

[01:08:35] long and is that acceptable it's not acceptable because again I think that you and I have been pretty fair in terms of our criticism of politicians on both sides when we get to these taxes and strategies calling a little bit of balls and strikes

[01:08:49] I think we're pretty fair and I think too much time had passed and I think again I think I think that Donald Trump is a very unique political figure in the sense that he is revered and is almost godlike to 50% of the pop, nearly 50% of the population

[01:09:11] and he is despised by a larger very similar proportion and he's very unique in that circumstance it's very it's not a lot of people are undecided about what their opinion is of Donald Trump and as I've said before in this interview tragedy social media

[01:09:27] in the aftermath is the worst because of a whole variety of reasons but I as someone who is not a trump supporter as someone who is trying to offer fair analysis on where his standing is I was legitimately surprised at how dehumanized dehumanizing it was

[01:09:47] or how he was dehumanized in this process by so many people and I think I think all of this factors in I think you look at the media reaction to what happened in terms of the correctness of it and again let me just say again I absolutely

[01:10:01] will say that Donald Trump is bears responsibility for I think everyone he does everyone that's a part of this process Democrats and Republicans there is no one with no one everyone's got a little dirt in this kind of much fight that we've been having here in partnership

[01:10:19] and it manifested itself on Donald Trump in a way which very easily could have happened to a Democrat or to President Biden and I am honestly if I can I'm surprised that how long it took for something like this to happen and I feel terrible

[01:10:39] about saying that but that's honestly like wow because I was discussing it with we look back at everything like this kind of gets historical and I was discussing my kids going back through the presidents and other types of events and situations that have happened and it's just tragic

[01:10:55] but there is I think that what I would like to see come out of this is that there is a re-humanization if that's a word of politicians and politics I think Donald Trump has a role in extending that olive branch

[01:11:09] it would be incredibly big of him to do and I think it would probably would be the biggest olive branch that could be extended this as someone who was literally on the receiving end of a bullet again we don't know what the

[01:11:21] agenda was of the person that did this but let's also and I'm saying that very specifically for a reason it honestly doesn't matter because he fired a gun at Donald Trump and there ain't no way you're filing a gun at Donald Trump if you're trying to help

[01:11:35] him out in some way and I think there is an ownership responsibility on Trump I think there is an ownership responsibility on the president and for Democrats and for everyone in this kind of for in this kind of this mud fight just lower the temperature but I do

[01:11:49] think to your point that you laid out the response from Biden the media response there is a you look at the totality of the information and there's there's a slowness that I think is dehumanizing people yeah I completely agree I think this is one where

[01:12:07] you go and pull the president out of his pew at church and have this conversation and again it could be something as simple George W Bush put out a statement something as simple as this is what we could have gotten from the president while

[01:12:23] waiting for a more robust response George W said Laura and I are grateful that president Trump is safe following the cowardly attack on his life and we commend the men and women of the Secret Service for their speedy response we don't need a whole lot

[01:12:35] we needed the president to step out and to try to also just take an assessment like I'm on it we're having these conversations everybody's going to be involved we're going to see the breakdown glad he's safe I do think subsequently the 48 hours and we mentioned this

[01:12:49] previously I do think Biden did a good job I think that his messaging over the weekend his video address that came out Sunday evening is 6-7 minute taped video response I think was really measured I think he sounded strong I think he sounded empathetic I think he sounded

[01:13:07] like the leader that we want to know when somebody just tried to take out one of the most powerful leaders in our country right now so I am grateful for that just as I also mentioned I am grateful for president Trump not jumping I

[01:13:21] almost couldn't fault him if he did jump on this pointing fingers and doing that I'm glad he hasn't and I'm glad he for the time being understands that's irresponsible and not going to get us anywhere but we also saw we saw electives on both sides really come out

[01:13:37] president or speaker Pelosi mentioned how there was an attack on her family as well she understands political violence has no place in our society as somebody who you know as their family has been victims because of the horrific attack on her husband which I see both sides

[01:13:53] of that statement too you're making a little bit about yourself but also saying that this is obviously making it clear this is not just one side versus the other and it's really unfortunate that we've had so many over the years I was working in Washington DC

[01:14:05] when Steve was Scalise was shot at on the baseball field and that was horrifying in itself so I think that we have a lot like you said the national convention is this week I think we will still obviously be hearing

[01:14:17] what's going on with the Secret Service the investigation into the matter we're probably going to see more conspiracy theories and ramped up folks on twitter on both sides but I'm hopeful that we can hopefully move forward and cool things off a little bit are you optimistic that's

[01:14:33] going to happen I'm always optimistic I'm a glass fat as glass half full guy I always have to be what gets me through the day I have hope I'm a Minnesota Vikings fan so I'm used to there being heartbreak

[01:14:45] and so I have we'll see what happened I think we're going to have a lot to talk about this week and I have hope but I'm going to just continue to pray and hope as I do privately in wish the best

[01:14:55] for everyone in that better decisions are made in that this is an inflection point but we will be discussing it along the way we'll see progress as it goes and we certainly hope wish us safe and fun convention to everybody in Milwaukee this week we're going

[01:15:09] to be back with some bonus episodes talking about VP pick and everything going on in Milwaukee at the RNC convention so stay tuned thank you Becky thank you bye we want to thank you for listening to the breakdown with Broadcore and Becky

[01:15:25] before we go show some love for your favorite podcast by leaving us a review on Apple podcast or on the platform where you listen you can also leave us a review or give us a shout out on our website or across all social media platforms at BB Breakpod

[01:15:39] the breakdown with Broadcore and Becky we'll return this week with analysis about the Republican National Convention thank you for listening