BUTLER, SALENA ZITO & THE SHOT THAT CHANGED AN ELECTION
Tonight I talk to the amazing Salena Zito - she is an incredible reporter and her new book, BUTLER, is out today. We cover what happened the day that President Trump was shot, just a few short feet away from Salena and her daughter. Salena and President Trump have a terrific friendship, and what she witnessed that day and those that followed, she believes, changed the course of the election. A little bit about the book: Butler, The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland: "Salena Zito…. She understands you people and me better than we do.” -- President Donald J. TrumpFrom the acclaimed journalist standing only a few feet away from the stage when the gunshots began is this gripping first-hand account of the near assassination of Donald Trump – and the inside story of Trump’s heartland-fueled victory. That day in Butler, had the wind gusted less, had Trump’s head turned in a slightly different direction, or had the adrenaline-fueled heart of the shooter beat slower, America would have been plunged into chaos, possibly even civil war. As a local reporter with deep ties to the area, Salena Zito had been invited by the president to interview him at the Butler Farm Show Grounds. She was standing only four feet away from the presidential podium when the bullets started to fly. A campaign staffer tackled her to the ground. Throughout it all, Salena never stopped reporting. She spoke by phone to Trump several times in the immediate aftermath and was granted access to community members, rally participants, family members and local law enforcement officials. “I rarely look away from the crowd,” Trump told her in one of several of those conversations. “Had I not done that in that moment, well, we would not be talking today, would we?” Known for her on-the-ground reporting on populism and rural America, Salena zooms out to tell the fascinating story of the battle for America’s heartland and the issues that actually motivate voters. To understand how and why Trump won the 2024 election, you have to understand places like Butler. Big cities like Los Angeles, New York and D.C. don’t decide who wins election cycles, but people in places like Butler, Pennsylvania sure do. President Trump gave the author extraordinary access for this book, including to his top aides, to his running mate JD Vance, to billionaire supporter Elon Musk, and even his security detail.There are moments that define America. The late afternoon hours of July 13, 2024 was one of them. This book is a narrative of that fateful day, the people of the heartland and the untold story of how the president found his way back into the heart of the electorate. https://a.co/d/94Bbk5K @LyndaMick @RogueRecap @ZitoSalena https://a.co/d/94Bbk5KSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Hey, everybody, it's Linda McLaughlin of The Rogue Recap.
Super stoked tonight to be here with my dear friend and colleague, Selena Zito.
Today is the release day of her book, Butler.
We have all been waiting for.
I've been waiting for it because I knew she was writing it back in December when she let me in on the little secret.
And I was like, I have to wait how much longer for this?
So we're super excited.
The full title, just I don't want to, you know, jip anybody.
It's the untold story of the near assassination of Donald Trump and the fight for America's heartland.
So Selena, so excited to have you here.
I mean, what a day for you, right?
I guess you've been nonstop.
I'm so excited to be here with you because there's nothing better than be able to do good storytelling with someone that you're super comfortable with, that you know, and you can be chill with.
And I suspect your audience is the same way.
And so this is this is an honor for me.
So I think the one thing that I would ask you, I mean, obviously, you know, I've been, I know your story of the day of Butler and just being so close to the president, the proximity.
And I know your daughter's also, you know, a photojournalist.
She's in our business.
Like you guys get it.
Yeah.
And I think when you become a part of news and you are the news that you're typically just reporting on, it's a very different thing.
Yeah, please.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I should backtrack a little bit.
When I became a reporter, nobody knew who a local reporter was, right?
No, nobody.
I love that anonymity, right?
That I could be just there, report on a story, go do my job and file my story and do my job.
I cannot get in the business really, like with this, with this expectation of attention, right?
But that's what the business morphed into.
And for people to see and read and feel your stories, you have to be able to talk about them in a meaningful and authentic way.
And so when you are a reporter and you find yourself in the middle, like you always want to not be in the story.
I make sure I'm not even in the photo.
You know, if there's people taking photos, I'll just, I'll be just like Homer Simpson, like, don't get me in the photo.
I'm not the story.
And so that day started off, you know, like a typical day when you're a reporter, you have no level of expectation that anything's going to go as planned.
Nonetheless, you have to have a plan.
And so my plan was to interview the president.
Chris Lasavita, the co-campaign chairman, had told me you've got five minutes with the president before the rally.
Now, I hadn't interviewed President Trump since Latreu, Pennsylvania in 2020.
Oh my God.
Between that time, he got a little mad at me for interviewing Ron DeSantis.
And Ron DeSantis didn't tell me he was running for president in the story and nothing was said bad about the president.
But nonetheless, I don't think he, I definitely know he didn't like it.
And it was a true social post.
So, but I, you know, that's part of the business, right?
You have to have a thick skin.
If you went into journalism for people to like you, you definitely went into the wrong business.
Yes, you did.
And I also understood at that moment in February of 2023 that, you know, he had a lot of stuff piling up on him.
And so I didn't take it personal because I'm Italian.
It's not a bit personal.
And I just let it roll off my back.
And also, there really wasn't people that chimed in on it because people had followed me for so long and knew I had been very good at covering people in the Midwest, the Appalachia and the Great Lakes Midwest.
So, you know, there wasn't any sort of blowback towards me.
So I'm there to cover him.
It's be our first interview in four years.
And I'm supposed to interview him for five minutes.
That changes to you're going to only interview him.
You're going to interview him for five minutes after the event.
Then that changes to Susie Wiles calls me and says, so what do you think about flying to Bedminster?
And I was like, well, I didn't have that on my bingo card, but I'm in it.
Daughter got a babysitter, which by the way, you have four children.
You know that getting a babysitter for four children is literally an act of God.
He needs to rise up and put his hand on your shoulder for that to happen.
I got you.
So, so, okay, we're going to interview him.
And then all of a sudden, Trump had landed.
He was behind the stage.
He was doing what's called the click line, where he meets and greets people that are, you know, first responders and do-gooders in the community.
And he spends some time talking with them and they get the picture taken to hence the word click.
And so they rushed me back.
And I said, oh, my, okay, I guess we're doing the interview now, right?
They rushed Shannon and Michael and I back.
And there's a curtain.
And I said to the handler, his name is Michelle Picard III, where am I doing this interview?
And he looks at me like, I actually don't know.
Anywhere you can.
I don't know.
But he didn't like know where to put me.
Right.
And so he goes, excuse me.
And he goes around the curtain to talk to President Trump to like basically say, where do I put him?
What are we doing?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then he comes back very sheepishly.
He goes, he just wants to say hi to you.
You're still going to Bedminster.
This isn't the interview.
I'm like, okay.
So I go around this curtain and I hear Salina, like the way he says it.
And then he makes a big deal about doesn't she like, and this is where I just want to crawl in a hole.
He says, look at her hair, everyone.
Doesn't she have the most beautiful hair?
And there's like 30 state troopers there all staring at my hair.
And by the way, I had been in 101 degrees.
It was very hot that day.
Literally Monica from Friends when she's and but then he gives me a hug.
He asks about my grandchildren.
We talk about because he, you know, I'm really interested in this interview about Pennsylvania in particular.
And then, you know, I go to leave, but I hear the beginnings of Lee Greenwood.
I'm like, that's when he comes out.
And I look at Michelle Picard and he said, we can't get you back to the riser.
You go in the buffer, follow the president out.
You can take pictures, take video, do whatever you want.
Just end up, you know, towards the end on the other side.
And that's exactly what I did.
And that's how we ended up with the cover that we have.
shannon took that photo that day and that that um that photo on the cover really has has some very depth and meaning i'll explain that later and um so we go out we take pictures and then we we work our way over to the side you know at this point there's no reason to be standing in front of him sure and um he does two things he never does he puts a chart down and i remember when he put the chart down i
turned to my daughter and said what is he ross perot this candidate that always had a chart right everything's got a chart he had no personality but he had great charts sure it is and then um he also um turned his head now you would think so president trump does never turn his head away from a rally goer and people in a rally there's a reason for that there's a very
transactional relationship he feeds off of them he they feed off of him he doesn't he he's very respectful of them feeling as though he is present with them yeah and and in the moment that he turns his head i hear the first four shots now i knew what it was immediately i knew it was gunfire i'm a gun owner right i grew up in western pennsylvania so it's it's like a burglary we
know yeah yeah and um i watch him and everything goes in in very slow motion uh this it's true when they say about that at least it was for me it was sort of like layers of time and i watch him grab his ear i watch the blood streak across his cheek i see him take himself down that was my first understanding that he might be okay um but
he takes himself down behind the podium and and i remember like praying and saying dear god please that someone's protect him the that shooter that that gunshot came over my head right that didn't come from the front where the podium would protect him and and and then i kept thinking well i hope everybody else is okay in the stands and then came the next four shots in
between those two rounds um there was like a sea of secret service that surrounded him navy blue suits that were just a protective stance you you could barely see him if there was more bullets coming his way they were going to take them and um i can see his head his face um he's holding his ear his hat is off um and then the michelle picard takes me down he knocks me down
and because i'm i i in that moment i have purpose my purpose is i'm a reporter god gave me this talent um i need to chronicle what's happening because this is being this is what it is when you are a witness to history and you have a depth of understanding i've always been graced with with sort of a great total recall I can remember things.
I can remember smells.
You know, I can, I can see dimensionally.
So not just what's in front of me, but I can see what's, you know, beyond in the background.
And so, and I have my recorder on, always have my recorder on.
And people say, well, why would you record a speech?
You can just get the transcript.
Well, what's important in reporting and often missed is conversations are not a transcript and speeches are not a transcript because there's nuance in conversations, right?
People's voices change.
You want to be able to capture that when you're telling a story because saying something one way, just writing it flatly is very different than framing it with the emotion that it said, which is why I always record things.
So my recorder's on.
I kind of forget that.
And I watch him fight with the Secret Service to get his shoes on.
And there's a reason for that.
And the crowd starts chanting USA.
And I can see him mouth it.
I can't hear him, but I can see him say USA along with them at least twice.
And they get him up and they're going to take him away.
And he goes, no, no, no, no, no.
Or wait, wait, wait.
I think he said, wait, wait, wait.
And he turns around and that's when he says, fight, fight, fight.
And that moment, that decision is so pivotal to whatever happens from that moment on through the rest of the campaign, but also since January, that moment is so profound.
And why he says it, people don't understand why he said it, but why he says it is even more profound.
So listening to you, I mean, obviously, I think you're terrific and I read all your columns and have for a gajillion years and proud to call you a fellow Pennsylvania native and all the things.
But I think the thing that I really want people to pull away when they listen to you is you're so embedded in the messaging, right?
Even down to the point of recording the voice and getting the nuance because it's lost in a transcript.
It's so true.
And you think to yourself, oh, I'll remember that, but you won't.
You won't remember that because there is, first of all, my God, you're on the Trump detail.
You're in the buffer.
There's so much going on to even attempt to remember everything, all the things that are happening around you.
It's difficult, right?
And you may even give yourself a little note.
Remember to talk about, you know, white shirt, red shorts, great USA hat or whatever you're going to add as an anecdote, right?
Because they give color to those people who couldn't make it to Butler.
I mean, to be perfectly frank, nobody heard of Butler before this incident.
You know what I mean?
They're like, where the heck is Butler, Pennsylvania?
And the fact that he went back, I mean, the audacity and the whole, to me, it was like he was reclaiming it.
I know we're both very good friends with Sarah Carter.
And I was on the phone the day that Sarah Carter showed up to cover it.
Right.
And she's saying to me, I can't even, I can't even tell you how many people are here.
It's, she goes, it's eight o'clock in the morning.
And it was like mobbed, you know?
And it just shows that, you know, and I wasn't there.
It was one of those things I was like, man, you know, and I had an obligation for one of the kids.
And it was like, you make those choices, right?
But it's crazy to think how all of that sort of culminated into this one moment because, I mean, I don't know how you feel about Matthew Crooks, but my God, I know I read some of your book.
And it's like, it was just strange, right?
The calls that came after, the five-hour call later with the FBI and the dad, you know, you really delineated a lot of that really well.
And I, again, guys, if you're listening, this is Selena Zito.
She wrote the book, Butler.
It's out today.
I urge you, buy the audio book, buy the print book, buy it today.
It's on sale, by the way, right?
It's on sale today and tomorrow.
Yes, it is on sale today and tomorrow on Amazon.
And it's a true witness to history, not just what happened in Butler.
Why does he go to Butler?
And it's a really detailed explanation about why there's only ever been two U.S. presidents that have campaigned for president in Butler.
And the other one was JFK.
So it's so funny.
I was going to go to that point and just talk about that whole idea while they were on opposite sides politically, they're both disruptors.
They both were men of the people, if you will.
And so I wanted to go back for a minute and just ask you, how did your relationship with President Trump come to be?
Like, where did this, I need to know the origins, you know, a little bit of where this all came from.
Well, you know, if people have not read me before or heard me before, I'm based in Western Pennsylvania.
The region that I cover tends to be Appalachia, but also the Great Lakes Midwest, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
And I've always zigged where everyone zagged.
I understood for a while that this conservative populist coalition was forming.
And so I understood and my writing showed that.
And so you would see that in my coverage of Wisconsin and of Scott Walker, right?
Of Ohio, just how these states were changing.
It was very granular beginning in 2006, but something definitely was happening.
And so his Pennsylvania guy, David Urban, I had known forever.
And so David is the one that kept giving him my stories and trying to convince him to do a sit-down.
Now, at the time, when I did my first sit-down with him, I was a local reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.
Well, I was supposed to do it as that, but the day that they asked me to do the interview was also my last day on the job.
They had urged people to take the buyout.
It became clear that if I didn't take the buyout and get the, you know, the money that you get when you do a buyout, that I probably would be fired after the buyer out was over, right?
There was, there was that hint that, boy, you should, you should really take that.
And so I was walking out of the newsroom crying.
And, you know, newsrooms are like, especially old school newsrooms.
They're like the land of the misfit toys.
Oh, trust me, I'm in one right now.
It's just totally.
You all are doing wildly different things, but you somehow come together to produce a newspaper or produce a show, right?
And so I'm walking out and I get a call from David Urban.
He goes, hey, Selena, you have an interview with Donald Trump in two days.
And I was like, oh, that's awesome.
And I'm like, I don't have a job.
I have no outlet to print that article.
I went to the New York Times and they're like, no, we're not interested.
And I called, was it Daily Beast?
I think it was the Daily Beast.
And maybe Politico or Washington Post.
I can't remember at this point.
I caught a whole bunch of them.
Finally, I got like exhausted, you know, and I didn't even know these beasts.
It's like a cold call.
It's like Glen Gary, Glen Ross.
And it was the Atlantic that took the story.
Of all places.
All places.
I think I got paid $200 for that job.
It was two things happened in that interview that I think started our mutual respect for each other.
I saw for it was at a Marcellus Shale coalition convention in Pittsburgh.
And he was not that interested in the suits that were attending.
He was very interested in the people that put the event together.
So after we do the interview.
And it was in that interview that I said to him, you know, voters take you seriously, but they don't take everything that you say literally.
Whereas the press takes you, everything that you say is literal, and they don't take you very seriously.
But what happened in that moment is he's like, come on, take a walk with me after the interview.
I'm like, okay.
So we take a walk and he stops and talks to the janitor.
He talks to the guy that's pushing the big carts of water.
He's talking to the caterers that are going to be serving all these C-suite suits that are out there waiting to hear Trump speak.
And his connective tissue with those people told me that, you know what, what why people like him?
Because he's from the outer borough.
He's not Manhattan, right?
He's a guy who had his punch his way up.
And if anybody's ever seen the movie Age of Innocence, that sort of tier system in New York, if you're not old money, you don't belong with the crowd.
100%.
And he had that grit that is possessed by the working class people.
That's what they saw in him.
Also C-suite guys saw them in him too, because a lot of them had to punch their way up to get there.
So that's sort of how that coalition.
So that is where that moment I said that to him.
I'm like, you're a really curious guy.
$50 billion.
Yeah, you're asking all these questions of people that people don't expect you to be connected to.
That I think began our respect for each other.
Two weeks later, the New York Post hired me to drive across the country to do a story on, again, I'm freelancing, right?
I'm like barely making ends meet.
I just want to finish this election because I knew what was going to happen.
And why I knew it was going to happen was I understood my state was changing, our state, Pennsylvania, right?
Bill Clinton had won our state by winning 28 of our 67 counties.
And it eroded every four years by 0.1%.
If you're a nerd, you know this stuff.
By 2012, Barack Obama had only won 13 of our counties.
Yeah, it got very purple.
Yeah.
And that was telling me that the possibility was going to happen.
And there were 10 counties that I identified that if Trump won just 2,000 more votes in those counties, he would win the election.
Didn't matter what happened in Pennsylvania or Pittsburgh and Philly.
If he won those 10 more rural counties, he would win the state.
So I drove across the country for the New York Post on Route 30 and came back and wrote, this election's over.
Y'all just don't know it yet.
I think he thought that was a pretty bold, like Rush Limbaugh at the time, like, whoa, I think Sean did too.
He did.
I gave it to him.
Sean and Rush Limbaugh.
And then that's when the president started to really follow the work that I do.
And, you know, it is not easy to be me, this person, right?
Not because I'm like a cheerleader for the president.
I just understand people and I could see the shift and change in people.
And so that's sort of where that mutual respect began.
Again, he did get mad at me once.
But, you know, less than a year later, he made a phone call to me.
I was watching my four grandchildren who at the time were six, four, two, and an infant.
And he calls and I'm like trying to navigate four children.
He is laughing his head off.
And that was, that was it.
Everything was good.
It just humanized it all.
I mean, honestly, kids are the best thing ever.
So it really does.
He's wonderful with children.
I mean, you know, he met my son.
We went, we did it.
We were at one of his rallies and he did this sit down with Sean Hannity and we were in the front row and Sean was pointing me out and he goes, and that's her son, Liam.
And he came over and shook Liam's hand and Liam was like, I don't understand what's happening right now.
Like totally mine.
My older kids were there too, but it was like, and he had a picture from my niece, which he gave to the president.
And the president took it very graciously.
And I just was like, this is surreal.
I hadn't even met him yet, which was pretty funny, you know, so it was like a moment for me.
But back to, back to Butler and your book out today, you know, I think obviously people want to read this account because it's firsthand.
You're there.
You saw it.
You smelt it.
You felt it.
You saw all the other people and what they went through.
And obviously we lost some really wonderful people that day who the president has honored, you know, since then so many times, which is amazing.
But I think if I was going to ask you one question about the book, what would you think?
What do you want people to come away with?
Just their own interpretation?
Is there something about the book that you're like, I really hope they get this?
And I hope they get and understand that America changed in that moment.
And reading my reporting every day on the road, right?
I don't fly.
I don't even go in interstates.
I only take back roads.
Seeing how this election unfolded, seeing how bad I was also covering Harris, seeing how bad she was doing and the decisions that she made, that has not been prosecuted in the blogosphere, whatever we want to call it in a way that it should be, because there were some unbelievable, terrible mistakes made in the most important state in the country.
Ones that you should never, ever make.
And I think that there is also a joy that they will find in this book because there were moments that were joyful, like McDonald's.
And also the way that.
I was five minutes from my house, by the way.
I did that.
I was like, this is wild.
I'm like, this is so great.
That was great.
I was there.
But also, I remember the Madison Square Garden thing, right?
And the garbage thing.
And every reporter, every single reporter I knew said, this is it.
It's over.
It's done.
He's lost them.
And I go out to Eastern PA in the most populous city in the state of people that are from Puerto Rico.
And, you know, there's supposed to be this big protest because he's coming to do a rally, big protest.
They've left him.
And there were six people at the protest.
And I could not find one voter that left him.
No, not one.
Let me tell you something.
You know what I learned from the garbage truck moment?
Aside from the fact that it happened around Halloween and every child I knew wanted to be a garbage truck man.
I mean, do you remember that?
Grown men dressing up as garbage truck men.
My whole neighborhood.
The whole neighborhood.
Yes.
I was like, okay, you know, it did the exact opposite.
It said to me two things.
One, nothing is beneath this man.
Nothing.
And two, whoever he got to turn that truck around that fast.
Oh my God, they must have started working on it the second it happened.
I know.
That's incredible.
And a couple days later, this was, this was a powerful moment.
He has this event in Pittsburgh.
He has, it's the night before the election.
So it's a couple of days later after garbage.
And the place that he has is a PPG arena and it is packed.
And I see people lined up for a half a mile in each direction to get in.
And I'm looking.
And this is a phenomenon I kept writing about, but guys, there's a lot of young people here.
Oh, by the way, guys, these crowds are really diverse.
How are you not writing about this?
Where is your intellectual curiosity?
And I remember the next night was election night.
And I had a reporter, a local reporter come up to me and say, I'm just going to have to disagree with your story about the diversity in the young people.
And I'm like, I, you know, I. Did they take a selfie together and get the background?
I mean, you know.
I was there too.
And I said, well, then your eyes weren't wide open.
But at that event sat Roberto Clemente Jr.
He's born in Puerto Rico.
He is a pillar of the community.
The Clemente family.
If people don't know who Roberto Clemente is, he was the best baseball player that ever was from Puerto Rico.
And his children were born there too.
And he's a pillar of the community.
He runs the Clemente Foundation and he is boldly sitting right there to welcome President Trump.
And then Megan Kelly is there.
And then the announcement comes through that Joe Rogan has endorsed him.
Right.
You have like all this diversity of thought, experience, ethnic background, and nobody wrote it but me.
And it frustrated the heck out of me.
So I think that people will see and be able to feel the real truth that was going on in this in this election, but also, you know, the reckoning with my, with my profession.
I think it's amazing.
You, you really did do something that is very difficult, which was you stood alone.
Yeah.
And to stand alone is very difficult when everyone in your industry is staring at you.
Oh, yeah.
And or throwing tweets at me that aren't very nice.
Yeah, well, that's, I mean, to your point, I mean, you started the interview by saying, I didn't get in this business because I didn't have a thick skin.
I'm Italian.
Right.
You're right.
Because as many people that love you, and I always say this, you know, my mother told me this growing up and it's very, very true, as are many things she has told me in my life, which is you will always hear more negative than positive because positive people are not wishing you ill.
They're saying, oh my God, she's amazing.
And then they move on with their day.
Right.
But the people that are saying negative, like, oh, I don't like doing this.
All right.
All right.
And they like just dwell in it and it just projects it.
It's like, oh, God, could you please, you know, get a hobby.
But it's like, you just persevered.
You're like, no, I was there.
This is real.
I was there with my daughter.
We experienced this.
I'm going to write a book about it.
You guys are going to read it.
And it is the truth.
And nobody can take it away.
I didn't go to an Ivy League school.
I went to community college.
Same.
I've been a waitress.
I have worked in a sewer treatment plant.
I have been the cafeteria lady.
I have been a shampoo girl.
So I understand the people that I cover and I respect them.
And I thank them so much for letting me into their homes and their businesses and soccer fields and bowling alleys and diners and letting me be able to tell their story in an incredibly meaningful way.
Well, I think you have done that in spades.
I think you are by far one of the most talented writers.
I loved reading what you wrote before I ever knew you.
And then I was like, I have to be friends with her.
How do I do that?
Okay, I'll just keep emailing her and telling her that I like her and I want her to come on every show that I work on.
And that's what we did.
But I have to say, every time I would say to somebody, oh, did you read that piece by Selena Zito?
Because first of all, your website's great.
And wherever you, you know, I always, what is it?
Nowhere is the middle of somewhere.
Right.
Everything is the middle of somewhere.
And I was like, man, that isn't that the truth.
It's no, it's no my God, Butler.
My family was one of the founding families of Butler.
No kidding.
The 1750s.
Wow.
They served in the American Revolution.
They served in the French and Indian War.
My family was one of the founding families of Butler.
So I'm very rooted.
And I also think place is really important.
It's a nuance in American politics that pollsters and strategists don't understand.
Yeah.
And how much place means to someone when they're deciding their vote.
And that is a theme throughout the book that I hope that people start to really reflect and think about.
Well, I'll tell you what, ladies and gentlemen, Selena Zito, she's fantastic.
Her new book, Butler, is out today.
Please get it.
You can get it on Amazon.
Continue to read our article.
Selena Zito, thank you so much for being on the road recap.
