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.