From the sky in Center. This is Paul Murray Live today from Brisbane. Today has been one heck of a day, hasn't it.
Our emotions have been all over the place, from shock at what we were watching this morning, to fear about what could have happened, relief that it didn't, and a sense of fear that will this stuff happen again. The reality of history and it's huge tectonic shifts and it's
huge swing moments. It's pretty incredible. In the hours and hours and reams and breams of things that have been said since the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, somebody was explaining that, for those of you who know your history, the event that started World War One was an assassination. The assassination only took place because a car took the wrong turn and Kennedy ended up dying because the driver of his car slowed down when the first shot started ringing in Texas.
And today is we've all.
Been doing the sums and thinking, and I don't know about you, but starting.
To work it out physically.
The difference is less than a centimeter when it comes to the story we talk about tonight versus the tragedy that would have happened. Remember, of course, that Donald Trump was speaking directly to the crowd, and then he turned was only a couple of seconds after turning that the shot is taken, and obviously it hits his ear, not the back of his head. It's been a wild day now, all of us who've been watching Trump for a while, regardless of whether.
You are the most maga amongst.
Us and never Trump in the center right of politics, or somebody who has had Trumped arrangement syndrome since he came down the escalator.
All those years ago.
Secretly, not so secretly, quietly or not so quietly, have of course.
All feared of a daylight today.
However, thankfully, because of that much of a difference and the way that his head turned, the defining image of today is the image that will ring out on front pages around the world, and that will be remembered way beyond the natural life of the forty fifth and potentially forty seventh president. The idea that any of us would have reacted as he reacted in that moment is of course extraordinary. You've all seen the footage of what took place.
You've all heard the long, painful seconds in and around it. There are many questions about part of the security preparation, not necessarily the response. But let me try to give you a couple of extra details that maybe you haven't caught up with today that helped put all of this into a bit of a better setting as we all try to work out what the hell happened today. Of course, it happened in a Trump rally, like any other Trump rally, this one in the deep red part of a state
called Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is one of the six states that either Trump or Biden absolutely must win to be able to get to the presidency. I would suggest that Pennsylvania is right up there in the top two states that you need to win to get to the presidency. Butler, Pennsylvania, as you can see, is nowhere near Philadelphia, which is the big Democrat city. Instead, this is the hardcore Maga district. The map that you can see there is the Financial
Times in the United Kingdom. It also gives a sense of the red area where the president was and thankfully, the site that will not be as infamous as a book depository in Dallas, Texas, but could well have been by millimeters was this raised area where the person who took the shot took a couple of shots and then of course was taken down by the people who return fire. And thank goodness that that person is dead. It's nine
o'clock right now on the East coast of Australia. I'm bringing you the show, of course, from the temporary man cave here in Brisbane. My plan was for Holidays tonight to be with the family, but for the most obvious of reasons, a special edition of the program tonight will be joined by the man who would have been here in my absence, James Morrow, who's got plenty to say.
About all of this. Chris Kenny is here.
We will have Joe Hockey, who is going to be in New York on his way to the Republican Convention where Donald Trump, of course we formally nominated, and Ironic will be given even greater Secret Service protection. And Alis Nielsen will join us as well, Christen Stewart from the United States, and a whole lot more. Now, the reason I state the time is that breakfast television is of course starting in the United States and we are starting
to get a little bit more information. The most important piece of information that I hope comes our way in the next sixty minutes is that I can tell you who, apart from the gunman, is the other person who is dead in this situation.
I'll get to that in a moment.
But first, five things that we need to tell you to bring you fully up to date to know what is what and what is just the speculation in and around this incredibly bizarre day in global history and specifically the history of the life of Donald John Trump. Number one, Thankfully, the President is okay. He was taken to hospital, he came out of hospital. He then flew home on his private plane. He ended up in New Jersey. That's where he wakes up this morning. The expectation was that he
only got to bed about five hours ago. He's been checked over for obvious signs of physical consequences as to what's happened. No doubt the trauma and having to deal with that is going to be something that is going to play out, hopefully not before our eyes, but clearly something he's going to have to deal with. I want to read again from what he wrote, not a spokesperson. He wrote via truth Social, his preferred social media. It's a little lengthy because that's the way he likes to write.
But still, the thing that's amazing about Trump is just like we saw with the blood running down his face that he was We saw what emotion he was feeling. There was no confusion, He wasn't trying to hide anything. He stood up and said fight fight. I want to thank the United States Secret Service and all of law enforcement for their rapid response on the shooting that just took place in Butler in Pennsylvania. Most importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person
at the rally who was killed. Of course, the bullet that was supposedly for Trump ended up killing somebody else and did so instantly. Again, I've got a bit more on that in a moment or two for you. Nothing is known at this time about the shoots who is now dead. I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper.
Part of my right ear.
I knew immediately that something was wrong that I heard a whizzing sound and a couple of shots. I immediately felt the bullet ripping through my skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized what had happened.
God bless America.
I unbelievable.
Now Number two normally in these events.
You know, I don't talk about the person who is responsible, but because we don't know all of the details behind it, and it's important to tell you here. Yes, the person has been identified. Matthew Crooks is the gunman. Now there is some reporting online, but I'm not going to go to it until we learn more about it, about what the political affiliations were or weren't. Again, it's only the sun up right now where all of this took place. So when we know more, if we know more in
this hour, i'll tell you. But here's the FBI telling us what we would otherwise be knowing as we go to it.
Tonight.
FBI have issued a statement confirming that's the alleged Trump rally gunman. It's a twenty year old man called Thomas Matthew Crooks. At that out in the last few minutes.
How was the FBI able to try to work out whom he was.
We do not currently have an identified motive, although our investigators are working tirelessly to attempt to identify what that motive was.
Third thing worth telling you here is that, as I mentioned before, a person who was at the event, they have lost their life.
What did they do wrong nothing.
They of course, were just on the stage cheering on the man who they would like to become the president, like tens of thousands were today, hundreds of thousands have done before, and.
Of course when it comes to the voting, millions.
Of have supported in twenty twenty twenty sixteen, and we'll see how many more presumably.
In twenty twenty four.
Now the president has apparently spent his waking hours quite concerned about who this person is, and we do not have a name about who is actually the person who has died here.
But one of the people who was.
There tending to the wounds but knowing that the wounds were fatal, said this.
Somebody over there was screaming, he's been shot.
He's been shot.
So I made my way over.
I said, I'm an emergency department physician.
Let me help you.
The guy has spun around, was jammed between the benches.
He had a.
Headshot here, there's lots of blood and he had brand matter there. So I got him. There's a holdtopic coming in together, So I got people there really helpful. I got, you know, the CIPR of bit chest impressions as well as a brief one.
All right, number four not as important as what took place today, but it will be come The biggest story is the day's roll on, which is questions here about who knew what and when there.
Is has been.
Of course, when presidents have spoken in the past, like Barack Obama the night he became the president in November or was elected in November of two thousand and eight, had a bulletproof screen in front of him. When Joe Biden speaks at times outside, bulletproof screen is in front of him.
Trump has had it too, but of course.
As president, not as former president and potential future president.
Why we will all.
Find out inevitably in the next couple of days, because we are being told that Republicans who have the chance to ask people these questions will be doing so as early as after the convention. The convention, of course, is the big political event that takes place this week. The oversight will continue to happen afterwards. You see, because the president is a former president, he doesn't have the same
prediction protection as the current president. And ironically, it's not until you officially become the candidate that you start to get equal amounts of security to a current president, not a former president. Dan bon Gino is a man who you may well know, used to be on Fox News, has his own show that's particularly.
Popular on places like Rumble.
He was part of the Secret Service that actually protected, among others, President Obama. He believes that there is something very serious here because there were all sorts of claims that people saw a government on the roof before he took the shot. Now, this could have been seconds or minutes, but of course that if we were talking about a different story, could have been the whole point actively communicating with the number of former colleagues of the Secret Service
about the assassination attempt. This is obviously a catastrophic failure and no excuses should be made or even attempted. The failures are profound and questions must be answered about ground surveillance, air surveillance, post standard support, counter sniper advance work, and response.
We have one job.
We came within inches of a deeply failure today, and an uneventful failure is not a success. As I say, there is about to be an investigation here. And finally, can we not talk about the temperature of the debate in United States politics? Now, there are a lot of people who use military style language as euphemism, but there are people who, also in euphemism, have died things right
up to as loud as they possibly could. A perfect example of that, I want to play you here is the people who have said that Trump is such a threat that must be stopped that even the President of the United States said that there needed to be a bullseye placed on Donald Trump. Now, obviously Joe Biden was speaking metaphorically some lunatic, and this is what is always the case. A lunatic with a gun has interpreted that very differently. But this is what the Democrats have said
of recent weeks about Donald Trump. Imagine how this goes into a sick head.
He represents a serious threat to the rule of law in this country, and anyone with as to see you can see that this.
Is not a normal election. Donald Trump is already demonstrated that he's not a normal candidate. He's a fundamental, persistent, and growing threats to our democracy, and Joe Biden is running to make sure that we in that threat once and for all.
I want there to be checks and balances to prevent dictatorships at autocracies. That's what the founders wanted mister Trump and his minions that are working for him this time. They do not want that.
Biden has been running on Donald Trump as a threat to democracy. He's a threat to our values. I agree with him on that Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy.
Donald Trump is a great threat to our democracy.
It's important to remind ourselves and everybody else at democracy is at stake in this election, and Donald Trump is a threat to democracy.
Given how he has undermined the election results.
He incited people to come to DC, stirred them up that morning, and failed to call him off.
To me, that threatens our democracy.
This sort of garbage, in the end means that lunatics like this person from the TV show that Orange is the New Black, is able to go on t TV and say things.
On this.
Joe, you now have the right.
To take that Trump out.
Take him out, Joe.
If he was Hitler and this was nineteen forty, you'd take him out.
Well, he is Hitler and this is nineteen forty.
Take him the out. Seriously.
People who are groups that have campaigned against Donald Trump, who claim to be former Republicans, they have added to the overall garbage that this bloke is Hitler. They don't hint at it, they say it. Have a look at an ad that's been running recently from them online.
Germany veteran in nineteen thirty three, will we he says, you're not going to be in to carry I said not other than day one.
And the media that says this over and over and over every hour of every day. Imagine the psycho getting ready to try to do what they failed to do today.
Thank goodness, there is a reason that we and other news organizations have generally stopped giving an unfiltered live platform to remarks by former President Trump. There is a cost to us as a news organization of knowingly broadcasting untrue things.
We're not in the audience.
We're not carrying his remarks live because, frankly, he says a lot of things that are not true and sometimes potentially dangerous, explicit.
About running as an authoritarian?
Why is he even allowed to run?
Thankfully, because a man turned his head. Well, for whatever reason, that much was the difference between us talking about what we are tonight versus what we thankfully are not talking.
About tonight tomorrow.
Is the man who should have been hosting tonight show if the news was not what it is. His plan is to be here for the rest of the week while all of this continues to be discussed. Chris Kenny,
of course, will do so on his program tomorrow. James, you wrote very eloquently today in the Daily Telegraph that the Constant refined about threats to democracy, where we now know that somebody who takes a shot, regardless of how they identify or what they wrote on the internet, well that's the threat to democracy.
Well, that is completely the threat to democracy. And that's where we are right now. We are now in a position where the United States, and we haven't been in the United States this position for a long long time, is seeing political violence directed at a potential and likely actually next president of the United States. And what you
said there before, Paul, is absolutely correct. I've spent the day going through what these people say on the left and they have literally since Donald Trump came down that escalator in the Trump Tower, been seeing exactly this, that he is, this potential dictator in the making, that he is, you know, a threat to democracy. Nancy Pelosi the other day said this election is unlike any other. Everybody else says, if he wins, that's the end. Of the American democracy.
That's the end of the American experiment. I mean, these are all completely unhinged, insane things, and as well as all of the sort of the violent language, you know. I mean Kathy Griffin with the beheaded Donald Trump. You know, Anthony Boordine, who everybody loves, is the nice guy chef, he wanted to poison Donald Trump. I was going through old quotes of people earlier, just before I came on the show. This just sort of general rhetoric around Trump
is so overheated. But the thing that's really hypocritical about this, Paul, is, you know, these are all the American elite. These are all the rich people in America. These are the people with the money who were out there, sophisticated people pumping this poison into the American body politic to try and scare people off voting for the guy they don't like.
But if they.
Believed any of this, Paul, if they actually believed that democracy was under threat, you know, with Trump ahead of the Pauls and so on, why aren't they, you know, coming to Australia and Canada and elsewhere, buying houses and moving their money out and trying to get out of the United States, if they thought this was really going to be a dictatorship, you know, if it was really like nineteen thirty is Germany, people who beg their bills and they're not.
Yeah, I'm with you now, both James and Chris are going to be around for the full hour. Chris, again,
I saw your thoughts this morning. But like me and James and everyone else watching that swirl of stuff that's been in our head all day, and again you can see right now on the screen a whole range of people who are you all in, always in on Trump, to kind of in on Trump, to never Trump is, to Trump, skeptics, all the rest of it, but all of it are absolutely united tonight, Chris, your thoughts at the end of a wild day.
Yeah, thanks, Paul.
And we all know we're talking about millimeters from an assassination, millimeters from Donald Trump being killed, and lord knows what would be facing now. But let's remember, as you pointed out, Paul, that someone turned up at that rally today, presumably someone just wanting to be there to hear the ideas of a candidate they support, and they're now dead. There has been a fatality today, an innocent person dead for being involved in the contest of ideas in democracy, and.
That is tragic.
Now, the point about this that you've both touched on, the point I wanted to make is, of course there's extremists on both sides. We know that there are nuts in the Trump camp who have said and done the wrong thing over the past four or five years. But the difference is they are denounced and highlighted and prosecuted and exposed in the media and political debate every day saturation coverage.
But what we have on the other side is.
This absolutely, absolutely extreme hatred from the left that is not chastised by the media, that is not chastised by the democratic political leadership. It's actually amplified and spread by the media and the Democrats, so that you've got the president of the country, Joe.
Biden, telling people that.
His opponent is a threat to the very existence of his own country. This stuff is inflammatory, is divisive, and it has consequences, and the media has to own up to its share of the problem here, the US media, but of course the media right across the world, because our leftist media.
Does the same thing.
They're not interested in policies, they're not interested in ideas. They're not interested in the democratic choices of the American people. They are just interested in portraying Donald Trump as some sort of evil man that must be stopped no matter what, which is ridiculous when you think about it. The guy became president because he was elected, and of course they're trying to stop people having the chance to vote.
For him again. This time they're the ones who are trying to.
Prevent democracy being exercised. And one last point before anybody forgets, when Hillary Clinton lost in twenty sixteen, she said that Donald Trump was an illegitimate president because she won the popular vote, not the electoral college, and she called on people to resist and there were violent protests around the United States. So this is a terrible exercise of anti democratic rehtoric and hatred from the American left especially, And will they wake up to it?
They should, of course, but I fear not.
Analys Nielsen is in Milwaukee because this week was supposed well is going to be the official crowning of Donald Trump as the presidential nominee. People were going to tune in any way, but imagine now if this first utterances post this event are going to be on that stage there'll be multiple days for him to do that, apart from his official speech, which of course comes towards the
end of the week. Analse, I've already seen some of the online reportings saying, well, this person was a registered Republican, as if that matters, as if somehow that changes what we all saw with our own eyes, as if this was some sort of a inside job. No, a crazy person tried to kill Donald Trump. And if millimeters millimeters was difference, we would have been talking about the death of a former US president.
Oh and I want to put that in context for people as well, because the system in Australia is different to the United States, who are quite right in saying before that Pennsylvania is one of the most important states for either party to win to become president. And this is pretty common for people who have the opposing political view to register with the other party because what that allows them to do is then vote in primaries to
pick the other party's candidates. So you often see these small groups get together to do that to try to sway the nomination. And the other thing with that is they get to go on and sometimes do media interviews or post online and then say I'm a registered Republican, but I can't stand Donald Trump. You don't have to vote for him either, So that has to be put in context. And we're going to be pouring over this guy's life in the next few days to figure out
exactly what prompted this. And this is interesting too, because there's all this discussion about how long it took some
people to call it an assassination. I think once we got to the point where we realized a shot had been fired at the president former president, although they do retain their title in the US after you leave office, his store referred to as President Trump at a political rally, it was what other options were there beyond reasonable doubt, And we have seen some media outlets be very slow on that uptake, leaning on the more technical legal definitions
to get to that point. But most Americans watched last night the attempted assassination of the most influential politician that we've had in this country in the last few decades, and this is going to undoubtedly completely upend this election campaign.
So Annaly's obviously the great reveal of the Republican Convention was going to be whom was to be Donald Trump's vice president. He has previously said that it wasn't about somebody who could inherit the presidency because he wouldn't be able to continue on.
But we got reminded today.
That there have been presidents in the past who don't get to make that choice, and it's nothing to do with what they knew was going to happen on that day. It means that that decision is as consequential as ever, but we've been reminded of it. The expectations is that a bloke who's the governor of North Dakota, or Marco Rubio, who years ago was Little Marco but now is from
the same state of Florida as Trump. But has there been any thing that you've heard about Trump changing whom he may be choosing as his vice presidential pick based off the events of the past twenty four hours or is it as silent as it was for the previous twenty four hours before that.
Look, the reporting is that Donald Trump still hasn't actually made up his mind, and that's very likely. Donald Trump makes his own decisions. He does what he wants, and that's why a lot of the reporting around Project twenty twenty five is way off base because as many If people haven't heard of it, it's a right wing think tank in Washington, DC's put together it's ideal blueprint. It's wishless for a Trump administration, and it's been seized on by the left as saying, look at this horror that's
coming for us in a Trump administration. Trump does what Trump does. You can put as many blueprints in front of him as you like. He's going to make the calls he wants. And that's very much the sense we're getting his vice presidential candidate pick. And I think for a lot of people, they're going to be looking at this and it's put into that kind of sharp focus for my generation that's never seen anything like this before that vice presidents can be forced to step up. This
is why there is a succession. And they'd be looking at Joe Biden saying how would he have done in that situation. I don't think we would have seen a fist bump from him. He would have most likely had to be carried off stage if the same thing happened to him, And they'd be looking at Kamla as more of a realistic actually going to have to step up if they weren't already thinking that way already when we're
talking about the vice presidential candidates. I still think Marko Rubio is a tricky choice for them because he's from the same state of Florida, and there is the risk that they open themselves up to a legal challenge to allow the Democrats to challenge the electoral College votes Florida. Because of the US Constitution, that's the rule that you can't have the Electoral College votes counted from the same state, and that's been amended since the last challenge. But this
is a real issue. Why would you open yourself up for that just to appeal to the Hispanic vote that's overwhelmingly leaning towards Trump anyway in the states where it matters. So I still think it's probably more likely a JD events with Doug Bergham and Tim Scott's kind of fallen by the wayside because he's too pro life. But we don't know. We're still waiting for Trump to make up his mind.
Analyst Neilson, my goodness, the things you have seen in the time that you have been there for Sky News. I am so grateful that you were the person who's doing the reporting from the United States it's in Milwaukee and then back to Chicago where all a bunch of other crazy things are going to happen.
Let alone where the by and sticks around.
And obviously Trump's response, You're the best mate, Thank you very much for the chat tonight. Kristen Tate is somebody you often see with Chris on his program. She's the sky and his contributor. I'll get Chris to ask her a question in a second, because I am borrowing a guest from his.
Lineup from later in the week.
But Kristin, nice to see you under the worst possible circumstances we meet. But I've got to say I was there's no other way for this. I was pissed at.
The way that Biden responded.
Biden responded in his usual all over the place fashion, but he did not speak with the gravity of the moment, the seriousness of the moment. And that's because, of course, one of the many things that the Democrats have done to this point is that they've hated on Trump to such a level that they've dehumanized him. That you could see in their reaction to his potential death, they still had a stump speech about uniting the country.
That's right, and most Americans are reacting in horror to this incident, but I can't say that many are shocked. Nobody should be shocked by this assassination attamp because left wing leaders, including the President, have regularly told their constituents that Trump and his supporters, by the way, are xenophobic, white nationalist Nazis. I mean, Biden, Kamala Harris, the Obamas regularly imply or straight out say that Trump is a racist,
as though it's a given fact. I mean, just on Monday, Biden was telling his donors it was time to put Trump in the bull's eye. And this kind of rhetoric, it's divisive, it's deranged, and it leads to deranged or even violent behavior. And let's not forget this. Left wing violence has been on the rise since the day Trump was inaugurated in twenty sixteen. On Inauguration Day, police indicted more than two hundred rioters. The riots injured six cops
and caused millions of dollars in damage. In twenty twenty, leftists burned down this country with impunity. They have been escalating the violence by bit, and here we are today. There is a permissive culture of violence that has exploded on today's in today's left wing, and it is a miracle that Donald Trump is alive today.
God bless him.
He came within an inch of death. So pray for America today.
Pray for Americans, Kristin, Chris Kenny here. First thing I got to say is thanks for your text this morning. I wasn't watching TV, well, listening to the radio. You let me know what had happened. I switched on the sky and we're all over it here. It is shocking news. Just give us your brief assessment of what this tragic event does for the looming presidential race.
Well, of course everyone's on edge. I mean, this has exposed so much, Chris, about our country, the hatred that has been festering on particularly the left, and it has made Americans terrified that this could happen again. So there's definitely height and fear right now. Just in terms of politics, of course, this helps Donald Trump's campaign tremendously. It will rally support around him, and it showed how strong Donald
Trump is. That guy is such a fighter to get shot like that and then immediately put your fist up in a show of strength and tell your supporters fight, fight, fight, we saw a lion in that moment, and I think it made people so proud of Donald Trump. So God, I don't know what to expect in the next few months. It will be an unprecedented few months in American politics. People are very afraid, but Donald Trump showed he's not just a showman. He is a fighter and he will
continue to fight for the American people. And by the way, I just want to say, I find it disgusting that President Biden and the Obamas are putting out these statements saying we wish for a speedy recovery. Really, after years of escalating this kind of violence, with the rhetoric about Trump and his supporters being white supremacists and Nazis, those people should be ashamed of themselves. But politically this certainly
does help Trump's campaign. As tragic as the events are of the last twenty four hours.
No, it's well and truly part of the equation. We've all thought.
Again, it's been a day of such strange emotions. Thankfully relief at the end of it, but of course the political calculation is inevitably part of it. Kristin, thank you for the quick chat tonight, but we'll see you of course, with Chris again later in the week. I'm going to take a quick break now, back with Chris and James throughout the rest of the night, but Joe Hockey will join us from New York City in a moment or two time. Of course, he knows the.
President very well.
I really want to get into what his reaction was about that reaction from Trump where he just took to his feet, fight, fight, fight. That is a set of stones on a bloke at the worst moment of his life. Honessing, Joe Hockey was the ambassador to the United States. He was instrumental during the Trump administration. He obviously saw his success because Australia was one of only a couple of countries to receive a state visit. He was intimately involved
in all of that. He's had meetings in the Oval Office, He's had private time on the golf course. He well and truly knows Donald Trump very well. He's part of our coverage of the American election, specifically the conventions that will start this week with the Republicans and then the Democrats a little later. And I'm pleased to say we get the chance to talk for the first time this cycle. Now but I'm sad it's on a day like this, Joe. The reaction of Trump in the moment, I just can't.
It's an inelegant way to put it. But you know me to be so at times. The balls this bloke has that when he's been shot at, when he doesn't know what's going on, but still stands up with blood on his face and says, fight, fight, fight. This is a bloke who they've tried to bankrupt, jail and someone tried to kill him, and that was his reaction. What does that tell you about the bloke you know better than all of us.
It confirms what I know, Paul, that Donald Trump is a strong man. Look, I've spoken with him about this sort of event possibly occurring.
When the first time I played golf.
With him, and you know, he pointed out all the golf carts and all the security. He was amused by it, and if you like all the security around him as president, and you know, I think he thought that this was a very real risk for him. His reaction was, these budders are not going to get me down, and they're not going to get you down. And this is the moment where we stand.
Up, where we fight we fight for what we believe, so.
He, in a sense expected there would be an attempt. I think every president and every presidential canidate does expect it because the Secret Service come so all encompassing in their lives.
It's just the reality.
You hope that that one crazy person doesn't get a fair shot, and in this instance that did.
Does the system have the capacity to investigate what happened today in a timely, methodical fashion that we will know before the election. Obviously it's not a voting issue, but clearly there are Republicans who want to find out if it's true that people saw people and people weren't doing enough the claims no doubt that you've heard too about the amount of protection that he had or was allowed to have, etc.
Etc.
Do you think they're going to be able to investigate this or the mere nature of frankly, the fire breathing Republicans that would be doing the investigating would mean that the normal resistance will come from those being investigated.
No, this will be thoroughly investigated. This goes to the heart of the capability of the Secret Service and the FBI and law enforcement agencies to protect a candidate for the presidency. I mean, there will be people crawling all over it. The question is what is the reaction. And I think, you know, there will be transparency on this because Donald Trump has a better than even chance of being the next president of the United States, you know. I think what's most alarming is that it has been
weaponized to some degree. I know from just observation that the security detail around the President Trump as a candidate is much less than around President Trump as the president, but it's still he had a higher level of protection than President Clinton. I mean President and Clinton has you know, three or four people at best around him with an advanced party. So Donald Trump had, you know, a lot
of security. This was obviously a major security breach and I have no doubt that it'll be heavily scrutinized, and I would expect that when we go to Milwaukee later today for the Republican National Convention, security is going to be overwhelming, overwhelming.
Joe Hockey, Joe Tomorrow here in Sydney. I just wanted to ask about, you know, you know Donald Trump, and you know his personality, and I think we all know it by proxy through watching him on TV.
This issue of security.
There's obviously going to be a big call for a lot more security around him, and yet at the same time, Trump really thrives on getting that contact with the crowd, getting energy off of the crowd. At all of these sorts of things, how do you think they're going to balance and where do you think Trump's instinct is going to take him, you know, in this try to strike this balance. I mean, I can't imagine he'd really want to be speaking in a plexiglass box for example.
No, he won't.
And his next appearance will be at the Republican National Convention, which is you know, a very a very controlled atmosphere. There'd be about five six thousand in the in the stadium. And this will have an impact on Donald Trump.
I mean, let's be real about it.
He has come within one inch of dime, and you know, one hundred and thirty hundred and forty yards for a shot is very close. It was, you know, a significant security breach.
There's no argument about it.
And I think it's really important to recognize that.
He's very human about these things.
He's going to think of himself as being blessed, He'll think of himself as being lucky. But it will also give him cause to reflect carefully on who his running mate will be. To date, the focus of his attention has been on a running mate who is loyal. He doesn't see didn't see Mike Pencer's being loyal to him, and he's overwhelmingly focused on having in the first place, a deputy that's loyal to him and not going to
undermine him. But now with this reality, there's going to be a greater focus on the running mates of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and there will be deep reflection by Donald Trump, because I'm sure he hasn't made the final decision on who is going to announce as his vice presidential candate later this week.
Yeah, I mean.
Again, I'm not going to play a psychologist on television. But I think it's completely correct what you just said about an insight into him as a human being and all of us. I mean, when something is profound as something like this happens, you know, there are some people who sort of become completely tranquil. There are others that just maintain the rage or even find a new form of it. We saw what happened in the initial moment,
We'll see what happens into the future. Has no doubt, his kids, you know, his kids, his wife, people start to tell him that, hey, that was close, and every day since he's crazy and it's going to be wild to see last one here, Joe. And I'm not going to ask you who's going to win, but I do want to ask you this question, which was so right now on the national polls, Trump's up by two. Doesn't really matter what the national poles say. It's all about
the swing states. He's winning in all the swing states that he needs to, including Pennsylvania closest gets his place like Michigan. And even then it looks like, according to Real Clear Politics is up by one point. There that said five point thirty eight. They run these little little funny machines to work out the different cycles of what could happen, and they say it's fifty one scenarios where Biden wins in forty nine percent forty nine scenarios where
Trump wins. We saw that after the meltdown of Biden at the debates, these numbers didn't fall by ten percent. And presumably the number of people who hate Donald Trump don't automatically love him as a result of this. What does it tell you about American politics, if a candidate is shot at and survives, yet nothing happens to their polls.
About the wider politics.
Well, division America is deeply entrenched, and it's based on overwhelmingly policy differences rather than personalities. I mean, the danger in Australia and elsewhere in the world is all you see is, you know, the stark differences and the personalities between the candidates, But what entrenches their support and the
support of their parties are the policy differences. There are deep policy divisions between the Democrats and the Republicans on tax on tariffs, on immigration, on abortion, on gun ownership and gun law reform. There are deep divisions in international relations, in manufacturing, in regulation, in climate change, and that's what hardens the base. You know, what the base looks for is a strong, powerful advocate for the policies that they want.
In various elections, it was hard, for example, in the UK to tell a difference at the end between the Tories and the Labor Party on you know, both wanted to nationalize the railways for example. Well, that doesn't occur in the US, and so when you look at the deep policies, it means that the people are not going to move in their votes.
You know.
The next step up is to look at the swing voters, and unquestionably there is going to be movement from those swing voters, firstly over Joe Biden's cognitive health. And secondly, this will impact them because the defiance Trump showed will be reflected with defiance in the electorate. But the third key factor in American politics is whether people are fired up enough to go out to vote. And this is
the key point to watch. You know, people the Democrats were really worried that their voters were not going to go out to vote for Joe Biden after that debate. If Joe Biden loses just one in twelve votes from twenty twenty, then not only does he lose the election to Donald Trump, but they'll lose forty seats in the House. If Donald Trump simply gets the same vote that he got in the last election, then he wins.
The presidency under those circumstances. And this is the point. I don't believe Donald Trump Trump.
I don't believe Donald Trump has lost a single vote from twenty twenty, and in fact, he will build it. He will build his vote from twenty twenty, which was the second highest ever vote for a US presidential candidate. I think now it's becoming clear that the same people that turned out to vote for Joe Biden in twenty twenty are motivated this time.
Well, some of them are literally trying to get him off the ticket. This is why we love talking to you, not just your knowledge of inside baseball, but your capacity to explain it to simple folks like me.
I really appreciate it.
I appreciate your inside I'm always glad that you're part of the team. And we'll see you all week and all campaign long here on scot News.
Thank you, Joe, Thanks very much, Bosh.
Joe Hockey, of course, the former ambassad to the United States, former Treasurer and a very good man. Of course, Bondo Partners is what he does now with his relationships between Australia and the United States.
All right, quick breakback with more.
We're hearing that there is about to be some communication from Donald Trump.
If we haven't, we will do so straight after the break. But we continue with plenty to talk about, including.
Perhaps the most amazing photo of the day. And you think you've seen it all until you've seen this folk. All right, Donald Trump has just taken to truth social He has posted another message, this one after waking up in New Jersey after spending a part of his time in hospital post the shooting. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday. It was God alone who
prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will fear not but remain resilient in our faith and defiance in the face of wickedness.
Our love goes out to the other.
Victims and their families. We pray for the recovery of those that have been wounded, and hold in our hearts the memory of a citizen who was horribly killed. In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand united and show our true character as Americans, remaining strong and determined and not allowing evil to win. I truly love our country, and I love you all, and I look forward to speaking to our great nation this week in Wisconsin.
Donald J. Trump.
All right, Chris Kenny and James Morrow. I'm so glad you are the two guys that we've been sharing this hour with to try to get a head around what's been happening.
Have I missed anything so far? Chris? What's left to say?
Now I don't think you have Paul as, but there's plenty left to say. Of course, you talked a bit about the massive security failure. The one point I would make is that those secret Service agents, of course, are desperate to protect Donald Trump. They put themselves in harm's way, putting themselves around the former president in case there was any more gunfire. So I hope we don't get too many conspiracy theories. We're getting them from the right and
the left out the moment. This was obviously a failure not to have police on that rooftop that had direct line of sight of the stage, and we'll wait for all those repercussions to play out. The other point is what Donald Trump reacted. You've spoken eloquently about that, so did Joe Hockey.
But to me, that was all about leadership.
Here was a bloke who realized in the moment that he had to first show his enemies and his critics that he wasn't going to bow down, that he wasn't going to be defeated, and he also had to show his supporters and especially those people at the rally, that he was okay and he was going to fight on. So I thought that was very very important as well.
What wasn't that amazing too, James, When you actually look back at the footage as everyone has today, the people in the front row don't move. I was hearing Innyviews with those people saying no, no, until we knew he was okay, we weren't going to move. They almost had the mentality of the Secret Service. That is a man who is loved by his supporters, who has a movement, and we
all know how that works. In the next little while, again, anything you want to add before we finish up and hand over to the rest of the news tonight.
I just added a couple of things just on the politics of this. You know, a couple of things have happened. I think that because in America it's not compulsory voting. I think this has galvanized every single Republican and Trump voter to go out and vote, and go out and vote for Donald Trump. I think that that is a
huge advantage of the Republicans have. I think Joe Biden, I think any talk of him stepping down for Kamala Harris isn't going to happen now because there the Kamala Harris wants to be the nominee and go into this election that you will almost surely lose. Now the Democrats, I think are toast and I think that, you know, just in terms of the broader politics here too, I think that this incident has now taken away any sort
of social stigma around saying in the United States. I've spoken to several people about this that you're a Trump supporter. I think that this is a huge boost of morale for Trump people, and it's a huge blow to the Trump hating commercial media networks in the US, the CNN, the NBCs, all the others you know, who have just covered themselves in the opposite of glory today.
Well, it's been amazing to watch them again, you know, the adjectives they choose not to use, the pause with which they got to the absurdity of Senn referring to it as a fall, and even even on some of these sites still it's Donald Trump says his view was come on now. This photo, by the way, which is up right now front page of the New York Times, it challenges the photo that I said at the start was going to be the image. But have a look at that. You can actually see the image of the
bullet that has passed his year. That along with the image that we started the program with, if we can show that again, they become the defining ones of an incredible day.
Thank you, lads, I appreciate it. One last week poll of you in your glory.
Yeah, happy birthday, big fellow.
Great to have you back for your happy birthday.
To night. Thank you your beautiful boys. I appreciate it. Yeah.
I look forward to being with the family for the rest of the week. But if the news dictates will be of course we'll be back. James will be in the chair between now and then. Thank you lads, of course, Chris tomorrow at five pm. What a day, what a crazy day, and I'm so pleased we've been able to talk about it here tonight. The latest news is next here on Sky News.