Meet the Press NOW — September 17

Hey everyone, I'm Dylan Dryer, co-host of The Third Hour of Today, and Mom to Three Wild Boys. I've learned a lot my years as a parent, mostly that I don't have it all figured out yet, and I'm not the only one. This is my new podcast, The Parent Chat. Each week I sit down with someone new, for honest conversation, and real-world advice about parenting.

I am over here just like winging it. Hey, I'm just trying not to screw my own kids up, I'm not giving you a kind of screw yourself. There's The Parent Chat on YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. Your stories are funny, and you're my candidate.

So I hope you'll join me each week. Who knows? You might just come away with your own glass half-full. Search glass half-full with Craig Melvin from Today on YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts.

If it's Tuesday, the former president has runny made rash out at Democrats, ramping up their rhetoric around the second apparent Trump assassination attempt. As Harris says, it's time for America to turn the paint on Mr. Trump and extreme as up. Plus, Sean Diddy-Combs appears in court for the first time after federal prosecutors unsealed a sweeping and disturbing indictment charging the music mobile with sex trafficking and racketeering.

And Hezbollah blames Israel after hundreds of wireless painters exploded simultaneously across Lebanon, killing eight people and injuring thousands according to the health ministry. Welcome to Meet the Press Now, I'm Yamiche Alcindor in Washington. Today, both candidates are back on the campaign trail, which is seven weeks until election day. It comes amid escalating fallout from Sunday's apparent assassination attempt against former President Trump.

And an increasingly volatile time in America. Trump and his allies are ramping up their rhetoric, their rhetoric blaming Democrats for threats against Trump and the unstable political environment. That rhetoric from Trump and his allies is a notable departure from the immediate aftermath from the first attempt on the former president's life in July. Back then, Republican leaders tried to ratchet down tensions, but in an interview with a Washington Post opinion columnist, the former president now saying, quote, I really believe that the rhetoric from the Democrats is making the bullets fly.

And it's very dangerous. Stangers for them. It's dangerous for both sides. Trump also blamed Harris and Biden in other online interviews and social media posts.

And he did that while warning that the violence, quote, will only get worse. And while calling Biden and Harris, quote, the real threat this afternoon, Vice President Harris, said she spoke directly with Trump today. Here's how she described their conversation during a panel interview in front of the National Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia. I checked on this if he was okay.

And I told him what I have said publicly. There is no place for political violence in our country. I am in this election and this race for many reasons, including to fight for our democracy. And in a democracy, there is no place for political violence.

We can and should have healthy debates and discussion and disagreements, but not resort to violence, to resolve those issues. Meanwhile, today, Trump's running mates, Senator J.D. Vans, once again blasted his rivals for their rhetoric. We can disagree with one another.

We can debate one another. But we cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist. And if he's elected, it is going to be the end of American democracy. The big difference between conservatives and liberals is that we, no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months.

And two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months. I'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric. But here's the thing. The inflammatory rhetoric that Vans is criticizing has been a staple of his own campaign.

And that rhetoric has been amped up by Trump even after his campaigns calls to turn down the temperature after the July assassination attempt. Take a look. She's a Marxist communist fascist person, which is, she's a fascist. We must stop her country destroying liberal agenda once and for all.

I probably took a bullet to the head because of the things that they say about me. They talk about democracy. I'm a threat to democracy. They're the threat to democracy.

If Kamala Harris gets one more years, you will be living a full blown banana republic ruled by an anarchy and a tyranny. Look, this is, this is a woman who is dangerous. We're not going to let her destroy our country. She will destroy our country.

Under her leadership, the USA will fail and fail like never before. It will go down. She's a horrible, horrible person to run this country. We won't have a country if she gets elected.

Again, those are all comments made after the July assassination attempt. And those comments don't include the recent lies amplified by the Republican ticket about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Those baseless claims have led to more than 30 bomb threats in the town. During me now is NBC News correspondent, Dasha Burns in West Palm Beach, Florida, and White House correspondent, Aaron Gilchrist, who is in Philadelphia.

Dasha, I want to start with you. Trump and his allies are blaming these assassination attempts on Democratic rhetoric. But what do we know actually about the government's political convictions and his motivations here? Well, look, we know, Yamiche, that he was a disaffected Trump supporter, that he went overseas to Ukraine, that he was someone who was not necessarily motivated by the former president's current claims.

And I'll say, Yamiche, that in recent days that Trump campaigns sent out an email with a long list of quotes from Vice President Harris, from President Biden, from other Democrats, with that phrase, threat to democracy, referencing former President Trump. That was a deliberate campaign strategy for the Trump campaign to actually adapt that language and start using it as you played in that mashup of clips there. So that is a phrase that has now become used by both sides of the aisle to point the finger at the other, not really limited to the Harris campaign or the Trump campaign, or even just the presidential election right now, Yamiche. Yeah.

And as you talk about that, there's also this idea that the motivations of the gunman in Butler, Pennsylvania, shooting where we're unclear in the aftermath of that. But Trump and his allies back then called for unity at least for a few days before blaming Democrats. Why is Trump and the Trump campaign approaching this assassination attempt so differently? Is the campaign simply in a different place right now?

Yeah, Yamiche is a very different tone from what we heard in the aftermath of what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, that first assassination attempt. There was at least for a temporary period of more reflective tone from the former president, those calls for unity. That didn't happen at all, not even for a moment this time around the finger pointing happened right afterwards. I don't know if that's so much because of where the campaign itself is at or where it is that the former president himself is at.

The campaign takes the direction of the boss of the guy at the top and that is former president Trump and his tone since what happened in Butler has gotten angrier and more frustrated, especially after the change at the top of the Democratic ticket. And that has continued to ramp up. And now we have the second incident, which understandably is frightening and frustrating for someone to go through. And now we see him take this different approach now the second time around Yamiche.

Yeah, and it was also important to notice that Senator JD Vance also addressed this apparent assassination attempt on the campaign trail. What did we hear from the senator today? Well, Senator JD Vance, the former president's running mate, continued to make those claims that it is the rhetoric on the left that is causing this to happen. He has also pointed out that there haven't been at least that we know of assassination attempts on Vice President Kamala Harris, Elon Musk, who has been one of the influential advisors for former president Trump tweeted a joke about that that was quickly deleted.

But this is the response and the reaction that we're hearing from the former president and from his allies in the investigation. Yeah, I also want to talk to you. We played some of the vice president's comments Aaron at the top of this. What else is the campaign saying about this apparent assassination time?

I didn't really say anything about this attempted assassination, this apparent assassination. And I think everything that we've heard to this point has come from Vice President Harris herself. We knew that she called the former president this afternoon. We got that from the White House as opposed to getting it from the campaign.

And so the extent of what we've heard really has been in the statements from President Biden, the statements from Vice President Harris saying that they're happy that the former president is okay and that they really want to see an effort made to tone down some of the rhetoric and try to cut off political violence before it becomes even more dangerous in these last what 49 days until the election. And so at this point, we got that read and raised really I think from the vice president in this panel discussion she did today with the National Association of Black Journalists that she doesn't want to see anybody hurt that she doesn't believe political violence is the way to solve anything and that she would like to see everybody sort of take a beat and do what they can individually and collectively as sort of the political universe that we have right now to tone things down and to cool things off. That's right. We did hear all that and Aaron we also heard though from the vice president at this NABJ event the very critical of former president Trump's rhetoric when it comes to the lies about Springfield, Ohio and the Haitian-American population there.

What did she say there? Well we heard the vice president say that it's a crying shame what's going on in Springfield, Ohio what's happening to the people in that community and I know that phrase when I grew up had multiple meetings an expression of sadness but also an expression of disdain or disgust for what is happening and the vice president said that there's a need to really understand how much your words have meaning. She talked about entering the political sphere understanding that her words had meaning when she was the attorney general of California that she said that sometimes she knew that the words she would use could move markets and so she's encouraging people on the other side of this campaign season to think about the words that they say and what they mean and how people might receive them before they say them and that was something that she didn't name Donald Trump or JD Vance outright during the course of that 45 minute or so interview that she did this afternoon but she was clearly directing that message to them and their surrogates. Yeah and she was very passionate in describing us we hadn't really heard a lot from her on that subject so what's an interesting and striking exchange there so thank you so much Dasha and Aaron and joining me now is Peter Baker she's White House correspondent at the New York Times and an NVC News Political Analysts and Cynthia Miller-Idrasz, she's a professor and expert on political violence at American University.

Thank you both for being here Peter I want to start with you. Former president Trump has now faced two apparent assassination attempts it's sort of mind-boggling to say that out loud but that's where we are now and you wrote about the normalization of political violence in your latest piece so Peter how in the world did we get here? Yeah it's a good question I mean political violence is not new in America obviously there have been periods in our history where we've gone through some pretty rough times four of our presidents have been assassinated another was shot and wounded deeply so you know it's not necessarily unique but we haven't seen something like this in a while we have a presidential candidate former president United States targeted twice within two months and I think it says something it's coming also just days after those bomb threats in Ohio that seem to stem from the former presidents you know false accusations about eating pets and so forth very free bomb threats in Springfield Ohio just in the course of a couple days targeting schools and public buildings forcing children to be evacuated so what we see today I think is political violence increasingly part of our landscape it's something we've come to expect even if we don't think it's the right thing it's no longer shocking I mean the conversation pretty quickly went back to the regular campaign within hours of this event on Sunday without any sort of you know national soul searching or reckoning about our politics and instead it became of course one more tool for attacking either side Trump busy complaining about democratic rhetoric targeting him the same time he's calling the democrats literally in the same interview the enemy within who are destroying the country which sounds a lot like the kind of rhetoric he's complaining about from their side so it's a really a fraught moment in our politics and we're gonna be lucky I think we get to election without anything else happening yeah it's an incredible important point to make that part of this now Cynthia back in July after the first assassination attempt you wrote in the financial times that the shooting is a quote reckoning both for political leaders and for ordinary Americans it's a moment in which everyone should think about the role they play in escalating the potential for violence is our country in a place to have that conversation and I wonder do you really think that reckoning happened given where we are now well I agree with Peter I don't think the reckoning has really happened I think what we have seen is a real normalization of the political violence the language around it and what I was talking about in July I was seeing among my own friends on social media feeds language like you know we had it coming you reap what you sow and I think that kind of language is dangerous right I think it's dangerous when people over here in the hopper job or around the dinner table no matter what your political opinions are where you stand to kind of legitimize the use of violence against a political point in its dangerous and we're seeing that even with language of other Republican officials yesterday like evil right and those types of words I think are just feed into this idea that there's an existential threat and that it would need a road even something to meet with violence yeah and Peter I want to jump on what that points in theory was just making about sort of a national reckoning I wonder what you think that would look like and how our country could actually have a reckoning like that I'm not sure what it would look like because I'm not sure we can have it anymore at least at this moment we're so polarized we're such a tribal moment in our country that you hear people is we just talked about you know even cheering or lamenting that the attempt wasn't successful even if they weren't serious even if it was a joke a bad joke a macabre joke that's obviously something that's pretty you know out of the ordinary at least it used to be out of the ordinary and I can't see how we have that conversation where we're able to reach across the aisle to talk to each other about how to conduct our politics without this sort of thing and it's always going to be especially the heat of this campaign just 50 days away less than 50 days away it's going to be just seen in the light of that contest and maybe afterwards there's a different way of having this conversation but it doesn't seem like a political environment is conducive to that right now yeah and as we think about the political environment I want to play for you Peter what Florida Governor Ron DeSantisette about this latest apparent attempt on Donald Trump's life yesterday take a listen there's a lot of people in our society who may have a screw loose and if you're constantly telling them that American democracy is going to end if this guy gets elected president well somebody is going to feel that they're justified for doing this the apocalyptic rhetoric has increased the threats to Donald Trump so Peter what do you make of what the governor is saying and how Republicans are talking about this in this moment well I think he would have more of a case to make if he talked about his own side as well right because apocalyptic rhetoric is actually that's not portrayed of Donald Trump I mean he talks about this being a country that won't have a country anymore he says they're destroying the country he says he says that you know Kyle Harris he talks in a place where I'm being called a fascist and he calls her a fascist remember he has time and time again encourage openly violence whether it be at his own rallies where he says hey if there's some hecklers go ahead and beat up or whether it be talking about the general who did you know he found disloyal should be put to death or in fact of course obviously January 6 when he gave that speech riling up the crowd even if he shouldn't be blamed for that speech even if he didn't mean for the attack on the January on the Capitol to happen he didn't act very quickly to stop it either and in fact since then has embraced the people who beat police officers and chanted hang Mike Pence and said he would give them pardon so if you had both sides having honest conversation here maybe that would be one thing but all you're seeing right now is you know an effort to say well the other side is doing it without reckoning for what you know is happening particularly on Donald Trump side yeah and sort of what Peter is talking about is sort of the future of this you study you study of course polarization and extremism are you are we thinking that we're in a new era here of political violence you foresee a sort of normalization of the political violence going forward the future of our country I'm asking you about Cynthia yeah I think you know what Peter said about not being able to put the gene back in the bottle is definitely true I mean we have cross the line I think a threshold in which this has become much more normalized but I will say sort of two things about that one what we heard this fantasy right there about this guy having screws I think that's really important to point out that we're much more likely to attribute mental health problems to white shooters than we are to other shooters who seem to have ideological mood is we don't know yet what this guy wanted or what what his actual motivation was but we do know the history of wanting a sense of meaning and purpose and recognition and heroism so I think some of the things that communities can do to prevent this is not just about toning down the rhetoric but paying attention to people around them are they slipping through the cracks are they feeling like they have a place where they belong do they have something that's bigger and better than themselves and I think that kind of thing can go a long way for preventing an individual to moving to violence because they think they're going to get some sort of a recognition from it whether or not it's idealized yeah and Cynthia I want to I want to also ask you this do you think we can trace all this back to just 2016 and the Trump era or does this come and I wonder how this compares to other past political periods I'm thinking of 1968 and that of course to much to us here we definitely have these periods of political violence and political assassinations before particularly in the 1960s and we're on thinking about like what you mentioned in the data what we see is that the uptick in hate fueled attacks and hate fueled violence which is also closely connected to the political violence starts after president Obama was elected that's when you start to see this real us versus them polarization creep up we see populist rhetoric around the world creep up a sense that there's an existential threat from the other and that then is ultimately okay to meet it with violence so I would trace this back another decade prior to that but it really started to pick up in 2016 and we've seen the effects of that yeah of course interesting that you bring up Barack Obama as we might be seeing a president Harris who might of course be the first black woman and maybe even add to that right recognize division so thank you both Peter and Cynthia for your time and coming up Congress considers searching more funding to the secret service as the agency faces increased pressure to keep the nation's top political figures and their families safe out talk to the top Democrat on the house budget committee straight ahead but first the United States versus Sean Diddy Combs inside the sweeping federal indictment accusing the embattled of music molo of sexual abuse kidnapping bribery and more you're watching the press now as the day wraps up get the scoop on what's been happening with here's the scoop but new podcast from NBC News with me your host Jasmine Vesuji will take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News's trusted journalist it's a fresh take that's sharp thoughtful and it's informative bringing closer to headlines and conversations that are shaping our world on the front page the zeitgeist here's the scoop from NBC News listen daily on Amazon music stay informed with the NBC News app breaking news just coming in moments ago watch read and listen and now unlock even more with the subscription it's the best of NBC News with fewer ad interruptions including ad free articles podcasts and full NBC News shows plus deeper access and exclusive content let's just take a step back it's more context and clarity from the reporters you trust download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more get the best of NBC News with a subscription fewer ads deeper access and exclusive content and now during the infinity member celebration members can get an exclusive 50% off an annual subscription head to infinity.com slash membership to learn more infinity imagine that subscription automatically renews each year at 6599 plus taxes and fees until cancels. Auburn ends May 20th 2026 prices subject to age visit NBC News dot com slash infinity for full offer terms and details.

Welcome back we're following breaking news out of New York where right now music mogul Sean Diddy Combs is being arraigned on charges of sex trafficking racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution this is a live look at the federal courthouse where Combs as attorney says he planned to plead not guilty the charges are tied to coerced sex acts that Combs allegedly orchestrated and recorded in a sweeping indictment unsealed today federal prosecutors accused Combs of quote creating a criminal enterprise whose members and associates engaged in or in attempted to engage in among other crimes sex trafficking forced labor kidnapping arson bribery and obstruction of justice prosecutors say Combs used his businesses and several of his employees to carry out some of the alleged criminal acts some of which date back to 2008 Combs as attorney says his client will quote fight this with all of his energy. NBC's Aaron McLaughlin is outside the courthouse also with me is NBC News legal analyst Danny Svalos who is also a criminal defense attorney so Aaron what's going on inside the courthouse right now. Give me just spoke to NBC's Chloe Mellas who was inside the courthouse she told me that the hearing is now in recess she says that Sean Diddy Combs has been arraigned he entered a nod guilty plea he appeared before the court wearing a black t-shirt and sweatpants looking sullen drinking water with a lawyer on either side. At least three of his children were also present in court she said it was a packed courthouse now an issue here at the moment is whether or not the judge will allow Sean Diddy Combs to post bail the prosecution is arguing that he should not be able to post bail they issued a letter to the court some 16 pages long outlining their reasons for that arguing that he has been obstructing justice saying quote he is already trying to obstruct the government's investigation of this case repeatedly contacting victims and witnesses and feeding them false narratives of events there are simply no conditions that would ensure that the defendant's efforts to obstruct and tamper with witnesses will stop the prosecution also arguing that he is a flight risk pointing to the gravity of the charges if convicted of these charges he faces a minimum 15 year prison sentence maximum of life in prison but during us court proceedings uh the Sean Combs's lawyers were allowed to make their case as well they're arguing for a 15 million dollar bail at the moment nation.

Yeah and Danny the evidence outlined in the indictment it's pretty sweeping and pretty damning what do you think of Combs's defense and what it might be? You might see him argue consent but consent is a defense only to certain crimes that consent can be a defense to a crime like kidnapping it could possibly be a defense to the trafficking victims protection act allegations in count two but it is not a defense to count three the man act and that is transporting someone across state lines for unlawful purposes in this case prostitution and of course prostitution is not a crime to which consent is a defense if that is what he is charged with or at least as one of the elements of the crime so consent probably won't be much of an avenue maybe well arguably in federal court sometimes the best defense is approaching the government about a plea deal. Yeah and we Aaron laid it out pretty clearly there that defense lawyers are trying and saying that they're gonna plead guilty and fight this but I wonder is there any chance Danny that you think that there could be a plea deal negotiated here? Here's the problem there's not a whole lot to negotiate with one of the counts count two carries with a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years so there's not a lot of wiggle room there it's the kind of thing that a defendant might say well I might as well go to trial because 15 years might as well be a hundred years and a lot of defendants take that view when it comes to deciding whether to plead or go to trial the challenge for the defendant here and all defendants in federal court is that they've got about a 90 plus percent chance of being convicted in federal court and the reason is just as you've seen in this case the federal government the FBI and the US attorneys they take their time it has been months in the making they've investigated this case they've executed a search warrant they built this case until the moment they felt it was ready to be indicted and taken to a grand jury and you can see from the indictment they have a lot of very detailed allegations in there which it proven really appeared to go a long way towards a finding a beyond reasonable doubt which is what they need to find him guilty yeah and Aaron what are Sean Combs's attorneys offering the trying to sure he will be granted bail?

Yeah well they have submitted what they're calling sort of a package of guarantees arguing that he should be allowed to post a 50 million dollar bail they say that they have been preparing for this back in august he paid off the mortgage to the tune of 18 million dollars on his star island estate in florida now they say that estate is worth 48 million dollars he should be able to put that up as collateral they've also said that he has turned in his passport to his attorneys so that he cannot travel he's not that flight risk for the prosecution is alleging and he also is committing to remain either in florida or new york state so that is the package of guarantees that his lawyers are arguing should be sufficient for the judge today to decide whether or not he should be allowed out on bail while waiting trial and issue and with all that going on Danny Aaron talking about all the homes that are there why is this case being tried in new york if chan combs his homes are in california and florida and those were the ones that were rated earlier this year because at least some of the allegations are alleged to have occurred here in york in this district so there's no jurisdictional problem with charging someone especially when it comes to conspiracy and reco which it's understood the conduct there it happens all over the place especially in conspiracies and really by definition the man act and the tvpr a involve interstate commerce interstate activities and that's what's alleged here so there may be many different districts where this case could have been brought new york happens to be where at least some of the alleged facts occurred that gives them the proper venue and jurisdiction the case is here in the southern district of new york as a result yeah well thank you so much airman clacklin outside at courthouse and anus and all this breaking down the legal issues here so thanks so much and up next dunning developments in the mid-east as the militant group has ballas says that wireless pagers belonging to its members simultaneously exploded across lebanon killing several people and injuring thousands more you're watching me to post down hey guys will you guys here reminding you to check out the sunday sit down podcast on this week's episode i get together with red hot stand up comedian dicky glazer to talk about the long career grind that has brought her to this starring moment hosting the golden globes killing at the time brady roast and now with another hit special on hulu you can get our conversation now for every where every download your podcasts let's kickstart your wellness journey with the car today we're got meal plans it's your fast track to a healthier you and now during the expiry member celebration members we get an exclusive 50 christen off an annual subscription head to expinity dot com slash membership to learn more expinity imagine that subscription automatically reduced each year and 6599 plus taxes and fees until canceled all for ends may 20th 2026 prices subject to change visit today dot com slash infinity for full on for terms of details welcome back and update to that breaking news we brought you just a short time ago music mobile shawn diddy combs has been denied bond after pleading not guilty to federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges and we see this as julia and julia and julia and julia is just in the courtroom there um where diddy was arranged as moments ago so julia what happened in the courtroom well yamish and short diddy pleaded not guilty and the judge in this case has just ordered that he'd be detained and not released on bond this came after a lengthy on with 90 minute back and forth between the government and his defense and the defense saying that look what they're talking about here what they're calling sex trafficking was one witness and it was a toxic but consensual ten-year relationship the government says that there are multiple victims and multiple witnesses who witnessed diddy being violent to other women and they say that they will show this in court through many of the videos that they were able to get from his devices when they see so through warrants earlier this year another thing that the defense said was that he should be seen differently from someone like ebbs Epstein and our kelly because those cases involved children they also tried to prove that he is not a flight risk because he turned in his passports to his defense and they were in the process of selling his plane the judge ultimately said she does think he has a flight risk she worries that if she did not detain him he might not come back to court and specifically amish the judge in this case was worried that diddy would try to coerce witnesses in this case because it after the first civil lawsuit was filed in November of last year the government was able to find many calls and text messages that he had with other women who he interacted with around the same period of time there was alleged in the civil lawsuit and they think that he was trying to gas like them talk them out of the narrative that would show that in fact what the sex that they had was consensual so it was for that reason that this judge said that she could not trust him not to tamper with that with other with witnesses or with evidence and she says that the charges here were just too serious that he has a public safety risk especially because the kind of behavior detailed in this event today goes on behind closed doors even though his defense said look we will make sure he follows the rules we will make sure he comes back we will make sure he's on good behavior she says that his history of substance abuse and anger issues proves that he cannot even trust himself yamish wow a really good breakdown of what happened in that courtroom and do you want to ask you well where is john combs of course p-diddy diddy um where will he be held now given the fact that he has his lavish lifestyle where's he going now he will be held here in new york there's a conference next week september 24th when the two sides will come together for pretrial conferences and we don't yet have a trial date that will start to be negotiated but he was taken out of the room not in handcuffs but escorted out of the room by us marshals he did so willingly he also turned around in motion to an entire row of family that came out to support him many of them his sons who were in court today in each well thank you so much julie hansley for reporting outside that courthouse and turning back now to here in washington where congress is back in session with house lawmakers returning to washington today to a busy busy agenda it includes passing a stopgap bill funding bill to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month and expanded investigation into threats against the former president faunald trump and a potential legislation to address issues at the secret service joining out is democratic congressman from instalvania brendan boil he is a ranking member of the house budget committee um so thank you so much for being a congressman so i want to get your reaction to the second attempt on former president donald trump's life the republicans are bringing the rhetoric of democrats your party for where we are in the violence that he's been uh subjected to the violence that he's been that was attempted on him yeah well first i'm very glad that the secret service by all accounts did a wonderful job in the second assassination attempt it looks like the lead group of secret service agents who scout out any location before the protectee goes there were the ones who discovered that would be assassin and they were able to neutralize him and then eventually capture him so i give them credit it stands in real contrast of course to the first assassination attempt where there was obviously an operational failure now in terms of the overall rhetoric rhetoric of this political climate any claims from either donald trump or jadey vans or other supporters that it is somehow democrats were inflaming the rhetoric frankly it's just disingenuous i mean just look at that small town springfield ohio right now where uh school events had been canceled and children have had to be sent home from school because of the stories that by their own omissions they are creating just to incite hatred of Haitian immigrants and that is one of probably hundreds of examples i could give you of times in which leading republican figures including donald trump have been citing hateful rhetoric well i want to say specifically they're they're talking republicans about the democrats calling they quote threat to democracy what's your response to that is that language maybe problematic in your mind or do you think that's the proper description for someone who means someone take care of january's dick or at least you know inspired people to do that yeah you were just gonna take the words out of my mouth we are literally a few blocks away where as liz janey uh famously put it donald trump summoned the mob and it stuck them on members of congress including myself more than 140 us capital police officers were injured as they spent many hours battling thousands of pro-trumph insurrectionists are we supposed to pretend like that didn't happen donald trump even right now is saying he would refuse to accept the results of this election unless he won yeah i want to ask you now about the campaign chair the latest poll in battle ground pencil vina shows vice president harrison with a three-point lead over former president trump though it's within the margin of error but in that same poll voters said they're are worse off today than they were four years ago is the vice president's message resonating you think with people in your state offensive and well i was just with vice president harrison literally two hours ago in my hometown of philadelphia she's been there many times i do believe pennsylvania will ultimately decide this election we were one point race in 2016 at one point race in 2020 and i think actually things are that close again this year in terms of how the economy is going the news continues to get better and better yeah there's more work that we have to do but the last thing we should do is turn the keys over to the last crowd who the first thing on their agenda was the takeaway obama care from 30 million americans then they followed that up with a tax cut 83 of which went to the richest one percent they're not for the middle class kamala harris and tim wals are well congas i want to ask you what my favorite focus group which is my mother she texts me during the bay and said what is fracking and trump criticized the vice president for flip-off thing on the issue of fracking you've been supportive of the green new deal are you comfortable with vice president harrison just changed on her policy stance on this issue of fracking where so many americans in my father are learning about this issue well it's funny my favorite focus group is my father uh... so perhaps we should get the two of them together and conduct a real focus group i have to tell you i was a state legislator in pennsylvania for six years before i became the congress i voted in favor of fracking that is the mainstream position even among pennsylvania democrats our democratic governor our two democratic senators and most of our congressional delegation support it mostly takes place in western pennsylvania but uh the development of the natural gas industry in pennsylvania has been part of the larger agenda for weaning us off more unsafe and dirtier sorts of energy sources i think i'm a harris ultimately arrived at the right position it's the same position she satisfies president and she's made clear she will continue that position's president yeah i was going to ask you about congress speaker johnson said today that the house will vote on that six-month stop gap funding bill that includes legislation requiring proof of citizenship to vote is a speaker working in good faith you think you get a c r past before the end of the month especially when he knows this bill is down on arrival when it comes to the senate the speaker is spinning his wheels attempting to forge a majority of house republicans to vote for anything but it's a crowd that has shown time and again over the last almost two years they can't get to 18 for anything so the reality is he's wasting his time he's spinning his wheels the sooner he comes to the table to negotiate in good faith with congressional democrats then together we'll be able to avoid a government shutdown yeah well thank you so much for coming on congress when we really appreciate it thank you and we will be right back welcome back and joining me now is ronda colden senior reporter for the washington for more new york democrat congressman joe krawley and danielle pepka senior fellow at this american enterprise institute thank you all for being here on this panel today a lot to cover uh so ronda we spent the first half of this show talking about the political potential impacts of these bomb threats and really these closures that we're seeing in sprigot ohio i wonder um what you make of it and the fact that that all of this is happening with these lives that are being spread by hm right well one thing that we're saying that might backfire on those who have been sort of spreading this story is that there's a lot of unity right now in sprig field there's a lot of unity across the state of ohio because people are saying a town that has rejected these claims of migrants causing problems there they've rejected those claims and created more community there i'm wondering now as a reporter and what i'll be observing in the next few weeks is how does this affect the race because a lot of people are looking at this town that now has students who can't go to school they have state police coming in to do sweeps every day according to governor dewine and people are really looking at this in a very sympathetic lens you know is this going to affect the electorate people in the middle who still haven't made a choice and they're going to vote for especially after we saw the republic and running mate uh say that he created a story in order to get more media attention on something so i'm really interested to see if this affects the race in any incremental way uh but right now we're seeing the people in spring field soundly reject what's been happening it was instead of other town and danielle i want to play for you some of what we heard from the mayor of spring field take a listen i am elected as a nonpartisan mayor in the city of spring fun and my ghost represent the entire community but my my simple message i've said this before is if you have the national stage and you're a national politician please understand the words that you're saying have great weight and how they can negatively affect a community like spring photo hia which is asked that it would be quite now we need we need help not hate we need peace so danny he's really calling out republicans for spreading these lives should the trump campaign donald trump jd dv answer they were correct spreading these lives that's a nice one question i do think that i do think that donald trump made a mistake i certainly think that jd vance really uh said necessary and i think what he was trying to do was say you know we're trying to amplify we're trying to illustrate the challenge of undocumented migrants throughout the country it is a real challenge to communities but this story was not the right way to go about it and so i think absolutely they'll regret it and i think one of the main reasons they're going to regret it is because the national news media that is so supportive of camela harris is going to make a hundred percent of this we're going to talk about it all the time we're going to keep coming back to it and the fact that the russians and the oranians perhaps are trying to amplify this that they are the ones calling in the death threats to schools that they are the ones who are not allowing kids to go to school in spring almost all those threats are coming from outside the country right that in and of itself is evidence that this is something that deeply divides people and that i think used to the benefit of one side though i i should say that we haven't seen a reporting that says h and immigrants have been punched in the face that they are definitely facing threats in the town that are locally based but i want to ask you um but do i meet the president meet the people that jad's called the spring field story bait from the trump campaign to distract from other stories what do you think about i think there's some truth to that i mean f this has been debunked over and over again they still repeat it even jd vance it's home state he knows the city he keeps repeating it himself i have to think it has to be some strategy behind this and that's just simply wanted to keep aiding against uh uh asian americans or Haitians in this particular point so there must be some plan because i cannot say otherwise why they keep saying it but they know it's absolutely not true and it's causing this rift within uh spring fields causing a very solidly red state as well it's like it's kind of peculiar that this would be the state that we do it in um i have i had the opportunity to represent Haitian americans in in queens new york and those are very large one of brokal new york incredibly productive and contributing members of society and to the economy of new york uh and i have a feeling that's that's the state population in spring field uh oh hi oh as well yeah um ronnet you i want to turn back to also the appearance now assassination attempt it looks like on former president trump um t there's any political impact here from either of the shooting or these accusations really from the democrats and republicans at this rhetoric is what's leading to all of us well i think it makes for something to talk about right now uh as the story is developing we still don't have a very clear motive from the fbi or the secret service about what exactly happened but we have been seeing a lot of discussion on the hill other national democrats and republicans talk about it i'm not sure exactly where this goes just yet but politically we're just gonna have to see you know will this affect fundraising we know that uh republicans have been saying that uh to give money to the trump campaign because he has been the candidate who has uh been the target of these attacks or potential attacks but i think it's again another developing story uh but we are hearing democrats say you know call out any sort of political violence we're also hearing republicans say more needs to be done to protect the former president so i think it's still a developing story even on the political end yeah i want to ask you about what trump told your podcast partner he said i think a lot of it is the rhetoric that the democrats are putting out the democrats are angry when they hear a threat to democracy i'm actually the opposite of a threat to democracy they're the threat to democracy i really believe that the rhetoric from the democrats is making the bullets fly and it's very dangerous dangerous for them it's dangerous for both sides while tennen he's attacking democrats for their rhetoric and being over the line while also saying that he is using sort of some of that thing rhetoric what he's calling them a threat and saying they're the problem um is he a flawed messenger you think here trump is a flawed messenger for everything but thank you for calling out your colleague mark t-send of the washington post in my podcast go hoes who interviewed the president yesterday look i do think that i do think trump makes a very good point i we shouldn't talk like this and i mean it's not just we shouldn't talk like this we shouldn't talk about each other when i saw that kennel harris called donald trump i thought it'd be good for you right that is that's a class act that's the right way to act but maybe it is time and this is what joe biden said on the occasion of the first assassination attempt which came a lot closer right which is we need to we need to step back a bit and you know whether trump is a flawed messenger or not nonetheless the mess in chold he has been the victim of two potential assassination attempt can you imagine but he also has to pull back you know he's the one that calls khanel harris a marxist communist marxist communism is not a thing no i know that he is also called her a a communist and a fascist um you know so it's the rhetoric that he's used democrats can't just sit back and take this and no not at all no one should shoot anyone right these are first of all the first one the first one was not a democrat shooting the president he was republican apparently initially so you know the second i was a 19 time director who would have voted for trump in 2016 apparently so you know i i think these are people who have mental issues people actually take it done and try to kill anyone especially the president's states knowing that if you would tend to do you're no likely to be killed this is the most people um but to to simply say that it's one side and democrats if all people for trump to say that it's ridiculous yeah yeah well i mean we could have a lot more on this but thank you so much rana to jotatina thank you all and we'll be back tomorrow with more meat-depress now the news continues with holly jacksen right now hi it's kate snow and bc news anchor host of the podcast the drink this month i'm grabbing a matcha latte with comedian taylor tonlinson the drink is always about someone's journey to the top and taylor's story is remarkable she tells us all about her unlikely path from performing in churches all the way to headlining her own netflix specials like her latest prodigal daughter and she opens up about her religious upbringing what drew her to stand up and how she feels when she gets on that stage hope you'll listen and follow the drink wherever you get your podcasts