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way. cirkul is your frosted treat with a sweet kick of confidence. cirkul is the effortless energy that gets you in the zone. cirkul, available at walmart and drinkcirkul.com. thank you for staying with us, i'm andrea mitchell here in washington and we are following developments in two major stories with former president donald trump at the center of both. after barely avoiding an attempted assassination at his rally in pennsylvania on saturday, mr. trump's classified documents case was just dismissed this morning by federal judge aileen cannon in florida. the judge ruling that special counsel jack smith was appointed unlawfully. she tossed out the case. mr. trump is seizing on his legal win to fund raise, is calling for all his other cases or as he puts it witch hunts, to be dismissed as well. he's claiming again without any proof that the justice department is being, quote,

weaponized under president biden. the former president is in milwaukee of course for the republican national convention which begins today telling fox news that he will be making his vice presidential choice today. nbc news has not confirmed that. back with us now nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian, vaughn hillyard in milwaukee at the republican convention and andrew weissmann top prosecutor for robert mueller and former u.s. attorney barbara mcquaid former federal prosecutor paul butler. we have a full house full of great people. ken, for viewers joining us this hour what prompted judge cannon to dismiss this case despite all the precedents supporting independent counsels or independent prosecutors? >> well, andrea, i think we can't stress enough that this dismissal, this 93-page opinion, is not about the merits of the case, not about allegation that is donald trump mishandled

classified documents or obstructed justice or ordered his subordinates to destroy evidence, all of which are extremely serious charges. this is about a technical issue, the question of how special counsel jack smith was appointed and how his office is funded. essentially what she's ruled is that there is no law establishing the office of special counsel. it's established by the justice department regulations and that because in her view jack smith is making very important life and death prosecutorial decisions he should have been appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate and because he wasn't, the whole office is invalid. now, what are the implications of this? this flies in the face of a 25-year tradition of using this special counsel regulation. after the old independent counsel law expired in 1999, this is how we've done things, under republican and democratic presidents. several judges have ruled in the opposite direction against similar arguments made by other litigants. and what this would mean specifically is that the entire

robert mueller prosecution under this theory is invalid because robert mueller came from the outside, was not appointed by the president, was not confirmed by the senate, at least for that job. he is the former fbi director obviously. and so this is a shocking ruling, it has huge implications. the justice department has not said anything yet but it's almost certain that they would appeal this ruling to the circuit court and it's pretty likely it will end up in the supreme court where interestingly clarence thomas sort of telegraphed his views on this issue during the immunity ruling where he filed a concurrence raising this issue and suggesting that perhaps the special counsel was improperly appointed. a lot of legal analysts looked at that and said that gave judge cannon a green light if she wanted to go in this direction. she sure took it with a 93-page opinion dismissing this indictment in its entirety. the justice department could potentially refile this case with the u.s. attorney in south florida, potentially jack smith

could refile it in washington, d.c. where this ruling does not have authority and where judges have ruled actually in the opposite direction, although that would be an extraordinary move by the justice department, could be seen in some quarters as judge shopping. we are waiting to see what the justice department is going to do, but right now this is a huge blow to jack smith and merrick garland and a huge legal victory for donald trump, andrea. >> ken dilanian, thank you so much. vaughn hillyard in milwaukee, a source telling us that donald trump was surprised by judge cannon's decision. i think everyone was surprised by it. maybe not clarence thomas who certainly telegraphed or gave a permission slip to her when he brought that up in a completely unrelated case. but he's already fundraising off the dismissal. >> right, and it takes me to a conversation i had last night with a close ally to donald trump here at the convention who suggested to me that part of donald trump's unifying america message that over the last 24 hours he has articulated that he wants to deliver and make the theme of this convention,

including in his nomination acceptance speech on thursday that part of that unifying america message in the minds of donald trump and his campaign team was to focus on the end of, right, political targeting, political persecution as donald trump has consistently framed it over the last two years. i can tell you after having that conversation last night and arriving at the convention site to have this florida case dismissed by judge cannon, it is a paramount victory for donald trump and the entire republican party here with three and a half months until the general election and with four nights of prime time speeches to come here in downtown milwaukee. just a matter of two hours from now is when we expect the delegates to begin to convene here ahead of a roll call vote that will make donald trump formally the nominee of this republican party in 2024. donald trump in a social media post not too long ago, i want to let you look at part of it, in which he kind of hits home on what, again, his version of unifying america and having this

case dismissed is to be a part of that, in which he writes, as we move forward in uniting our nation after the horrific events on saturday this dismissal of the lawless indictment in florida should be just the first step, followed quickly by the dismissal of all the witch hunts. he goes on to say let us come together to end all weaponization of our justice system. of course, the indictment was serious in which its allegations are that he transferred classified documents knowingly to his mar-a-lago estate and then showed some of those classified documents to unauthorized individuals and then with two co-defendants sought to obstruct justice to keep the fbi from securing the documents that they intended to go and seek and claim, including as part the fbi search warrant that was executed at mar-a-lago in 2022. one of his legal advisers and one of his lawyers who folks have become familiar with in a post she said this dismissal

takes the first accept in ending the weaponization of our justice system and making america great again. donald trump has continually hit home in trying to convince and persuade the american public at large, the american electorate that he has been unfairly politically targeted by the department of justice and now depending on what were to happen before that 11th circuit court of appeal, donald trump potentially could either run out the clock if he were to win the white house of course he could very well and has indicated he would use his department of justice to dismiss these federal cases against him entirely, andrea. >> and, vaughan, since we've been talking, you and i, something else has been posted by donald trump on truth social. i want to share this because this is an issue in the previous hour i asked jeh johnson about it as the former homeland security secretary. the president of the united states can determine unilaterally, has that authority, to decide who gets secret service protection and i asked whether rfk jr. who has been asking for it and doesn't meet the qualifications of

public support in polls to get it automatically by the president, whether in this case should just get it with the four months left in the campaign. donald trump has just on truth social come out in favor of doing that, saying in light of what is going on in the world today i believe it is imperative that robert f. kennedy jr. receive secret service protection immediately. given the history of the kennedy family, this is the obvious right thing to do. so he has come out in favor of it and that kind of puts president biden's decision even more under the spotlight. this is something that rfk jr. and his supporters have been demanding and given the context it could very easily be done. >> he has been demanding this since earlier this year. i was on the campaign trail with him in the early days after he switched from democrat to independent to run third party and he has been clear that there are threats that have been made against him. while he is trying to gain ballot access across the country to be the third party contender

in all 50 states, he has made clear that he has felt like the u.s. secret service protection is something that is warranted for him, his family, his campaign, and something that he is begrudged and bee moaned and knocked the biden administration over for not granting up to this point in time. >> i should point out also as you know from covering campaigns it comes with protection but it also gives the candidates tremendous access to intelligence about them, but also mobility and help in planning movements and vehicles and the like. so there is a benefit to it in a lot of different ways. thanks so much, vaughan. i know you have a lot to cover there. andrew weissmann, let's talk about that decision by judge cannon, you were in the special prosecutor's office and robert mueller aimed under the trump administration, again, nobody accused the white house of

interfering in that when donald trump was president, but that has been the accusation against all of these other special prosecutors, namely jack smith. >> two quick thoughts. in your discussion with vaughan about donald trump saying -- and his allies -- saying this should end weaponization and that this dismissal is in some ways sort of targeting that, it's really important to note that that is the opposite of what judge cannon did here. judge cannon found for the reason that this was, she says, improper that it did not comply with the law, is that the special counsel here was too independent of the attorney general and the executive branch. and it's because it was too independent that she says that it required congressional approval or to be appointed by the president himself. and so that's the exact

antithesis of what is being argued by alina habba and people who say this is the weaponization of the department of justice by merrick garland or by joe biden is that she is saying that this is unconstitutional because, in fact, he is divorced from and not sufficiently under the thumb of this administration. so that's sort of point one. and point two is really the one that you started with, which is for 25 years republican and democratic administrations have used special counsels, when i was working for special counsel mueller it was challenged as every defendant has a right to challenge whether this was a constitutional provision. the district courts, both in d.c. and in virginia, held that it was constitutional. the d.c. circuit held that it was constitutional. judge cannon is the first judge

to find that this was an unconstitutional appointment of a special counsel and inappropriate appropriations, in other words, funding of the special counsel. so i think that we will see this being appealed by jack smith because it is such an outlier decision, but it remains to be seen what the supreme court does with it because the supreme court as we know from the immunity decision is capable of making pretty outlandish and erratic decisions now in this political season. >> and just to follow up, judge cannon was already being criticized for how slowly she was dealing with this case, first scheduling hearings and requiring briefs on really peripheral matters including on jury instructions before she has even scheduled a trial date or had a jury seated and that she is the least experienced just chronologically of any of the judges that have upheld this special prosecutor in the past.

>> absolutely. and to add to that, the 11th circuit had reversed her twice in very scathing rulings. it is unusual to be reversed once in a scathing decision, but twice where they basically said you just got the law wrong completely, and you are treating donald trump differently and inappropriately than any other defendant in that he is not entitled to that, to be treated differently, he should be treated no better or no worse. so, you know, going up to the 11th circuit jack smith certainly has strong arguments and a strong history to rely on in terms of what judge cannon did here and it remains to be seen of course whether the 11th circuit removes her from the case. that's something that jack smith -- it's certainly very unusual to do it. jack smith could ask for it and

as barb has noted on prior occasions, that's something that the 11th circuit could also do on its own, but that's something we really have to wait and see, but there are many procedural steps now for jack smith and for the courts to take. >> and, paul butler, the legal system is being tested now in a massive way. how confident are you that it can withstand this stress test? >> you know, i would have to say since the supreme court is the ultimate decider, i'm not confident at all. first we have this bizarre immunity decision in which if you believe justice sotomayor's dissent, it effectively insulates the president from ever being held accountable in criminal court. the majority opinion says that it allows prosecution in certain instances, but justice sotomayor says don't believe the hype.

if you look at the actual standard that the court provides, it's going to be impossible to ever hold a u.s. president accountable in a criminal court. in a way today's decision may be but a footnote to a much larger story about the expanding power of the executive office of the presidency of the united states. and, again, the supreme court, the majority, the six justices, ultra conservative justices in the majority are fully on board with this expansion of presidential power. >> and barbara mcquaid, you said that there could be a silver lining in this dismissal by judge cannon. please explain. >> sure. i imagine if you are the justice department today what you have to do is you get bad news from time to time in cases that when judges rule against you and instead of, you know, wailing and whining what you do is you sit down and assess your options and move on. so jack smith has a number of

options here, one is to appeal to the 11th circuit and ask that the case be reassigned to a case other than judge cannon and that is something that i'm sure he has been wishing for all along because of those adverse rulings that have been made by judge cannon. a fresh start with a new judge could be a breath of fresh air. it is likely, however, i think that we will go to the supreme court before this case ever gets back to court. but there are other options that jack smith has. i should say that merrick garland has. one is to say, fine, we will dispense with the special counsel in this case. we are not conceding that judge cannon is right, but in the interest of moving this case along we will refile through the u.s. attorney's office in the southern district of florida or maybe even bet tore avoid getting the case back in front of judge cannon, we will refile in the district of the district of columbia or maybe even in the district of new jersey where we had that episode involving bedminster. so i think that the justice department has a lot of options now and they need to think

through strategically what's in their best interest. i do suppose there is a silver lining in that they have other options and ultimately can get this case somewhere other than the courtroom of judge cannon but of course the moment tear setback is delay because i think it means that this case will most certainly not be going to trial before the election and of course if donald trump is elected he will have the ability to stop this case by dismissing it when he's the president. >> thank you so much, barbara mcquaid, paul butler, andrew weissmann, ken dylan yan, and john brennan now joins us who was homeland security adviser in the national security council for president obama. i want to ask you first your reaction to judge cannon dismissing the classified documents case because potentially does this open the door to him getting those documents back that he claimed were his, knots the government's, and what are the implications of that or can he show documents to people? >> well, it certainly is

disappointing for a number of national security professionals who have been watching this case very closely. it raises questions about judge cannon's subjectivity as well as judicial integrity given that there have been previous rulings on these lines that really have, i think, disadvantaged the ability of the special counsel to move forward. but it's important for individuals like donald trump to have their time in court to try to defend themselves. if they have been charged with in this case the reckless mishandling of some of this country's most sensitive secrets, which clearly happened at mar-a-lago after donald trump left the white house. so as mary said, there are other options and i think it is important to be able to hold individuals accountable but to make sure that they are able to have their day in court if they are going to appeal any type of movements or charges against them. >> and i want to ask you about

the assassination attempt. when you saw the footage, 148 yards, you have a military background, as well as intelligence and homeland security. what was your immediate response? >> well, i think as everybody has mentioned, the fact that an individual was able to get a position, an elevated position and have a clear line of sight to the podium where an individual, a protectee is going to be standing for an extended period of time, it was just really quite surprising. it is unclear at this point whether or not the secret service was relying on the local officials to be able to ensure that that building was not going to be used as a rooftop point of access for a sniper to carry out that strike because 150 yards or so is well within the range of ar-15, a semiautomatic weapon which has a range of 500 to 600 yards. it is clear that something went wrong, somebody missed their assignment and that's why i think it is important for there

could be this independent investigation as president biden said about what happened and to make sure that never again will this happen with any other protectee given that the secret service is heavily involved in so many protective activities for people and they have to rely on those state and local officials that have more manpower. so any type of missteps that were made or miscommunication that was made has to be addressed and ensure that it doesn't happen again. >> and you were clearly involved in homeland security decisions and advice to the former president, president obama. what do you think about the request, repeated request by rfk jr. for security that now donald trump has also endorsed in a truth social post and perhaps the threat environment despite his lack of, you know, widespread support as a candidate is greater, especially his name? >> well, i think it's a

legitimate request. now it's going to be up to secretary mayorkas the homeland security in consultation with the white house, president biden, to determine whether or not there should be some type of secret service protection afforded to rfk jr. he does not qualify under the traditional rules that the secret service and the white house has used in previous campaigns and presidential election seasons, but, again, given what we just saw in pennsylvania and given the heightened environment in the united states in terms of the emotions and passions that are running deep as president biden said last evening, i do think it's worth a review to see whether or not there could be some type of arrangement made to ensure that another disturbing individual will not take it upon him- or herself to try to kill somebody who is running for president of the united states. >> and we were just told by monica alba at the white house that department of homeland security is now reviewing that

request. so we will see what happens with that, if that's changed at all. john brennan, as always, thank you very much. >> thanks, andrea. and dividing lines, how saturday's assassination attempt could impact an already divided nation. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. >> we are not joined, we are not solidified as a people, we're still, okay, i don't like your politics, i'm going to go this way. we still need to come together as a people and, hey, i may not like your politics, but, again, i don't want to shoot you. agai i don't want to shoot you.

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saturday's assassination attempt on donald trump's life is dominating concerns on the hill. the chairs and ranking members of the house judiciary and intelligence committees, so both parties, were briefed by the fbi this morning. the house oversight committee expects secret service director kimberly cheadle to appear for a hearing next week.

the homeland security committee is going to launch it's own bipartisan investigation and there are discussions under way for a full fbi briefing for senators later this week. nbc news has confirmed that homeland security officials are evaluating rfk jr.'s request for secret service protection during his campaign. mr. trump posting just this hour urging secretary mayorkas to sign off on that. it's really a decision up to president biden. meanwhile, in milwaukee the republican national convention is set to open this afternoon. mr. trump reportedly telling fox news he will make his vice presidential choice known today. nbc news has not confirmed that timeline. the trump campaign now sending its first fundraising email since the attempt on mr. trump's life. indirectly referencing the shooting saying now it's time for us to unite the country. joining me now nbc news correspondent garrett haake, nbc news national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent tom winters and peter baker. garrett, the convention is

starting soon. do we know about whether we're going to hear roll call on the vice presidential choice? >> reporter: nothing we can report right now, andrea. the reality is donald trump has played up this drama to maximum effect, teesing out the so-called veep stakes to the point where he can go no further. the only real reason the conventions exist is to formally nominate the presidential and vice presidential nominees at the top of the ticket. that's the most important official work that has to be done here and that work will have to be done. it's also one of the few elements across the entirety of a presidential campaign that a campaign can control entirely if they play their cards right. the trump campaign has won that thus far. i covered the romney campaign in which they rolled out paul ryan's announcement as vp on an aircraft carrier after flying him across the country basically in the middle of the night. we don't know yet what kind of subterfuge may be under way even as we speak to keep this pick a

secret from everyone but the man and we do believe it will be a man that donald trump has chosen or even if donald trump has communicated that choice yet. but it's important to point out that person doesn't have to be here in the building now, doesn't have to be here in the building later, if indeed there is an announcement today. so there are any number of options available to the trump campaign to make that announcement and to make it as effective as they possibly can and i have to say, andrea, given the way this race has changed over the last two weeks they have never had a bigger spotlight than they will have today. >> absolutely. and, tom winter, talk to me about the latest on the investigation. we don't know the gunman's motive, we don't know if it was political, but certainly they are investigating all possible leads. >> well, that's exactly right, andrea. i know some folks think about this and think about the shooting and say how could it possibly not be political, he fired at donald trump, but i think when you've looked at prior assassination attempts in this country, for instance, ronald reagan, the most recent

one that we had, that individual said that they were motivated by their desire to seek the affection and impress a hollywood actress. so just to give folks a sense of where this has gone in the past and i think they desperately want to get to the bottom of it. it also helps with making sure to rule out -- now, they don't believe that anybody else is involved but the investigation is ongoing and they want to make sure they have nobody else to be concerned about and they want to make sure that this individual wasn't communicating with anybody, thomas crooks, he that he wasn't communicating with anybody and there wasn't a group of people talk being potential violent acts. that's the type of work that needs to be done. the cellphone tells no lie, it has our entire lives in it. for somebody who has very little public -- any sort of presence, crooks has for a 20-year-old a 40-year-old and 80-year-old has no -- really no social media presence compared to where the rest of the country is at. so i think they look at this, they think it's going to be critical. the fbi did say yesterday they were able to analyze some text

messages apparently they sent recently and that did not help them glean any sort of insight into motive. so that remains a question. we do know according to the fbi no prior history of mental health, illness or treatment. the video you're looking at there is a video that has gotten a lot of attention over the last 24 hours, been broadcast by a number of outlets. this individual you could see him there either just getting on the roof or bear crawling his way up the roofline and that's all going to be part of the review that we know is under way. both congressionally from the white house itself into how this could have happened, what mistakes were made, what coverages didn't exist and so -- and why that all happened. i think that's something that's going to take some time. i know that we all want urgent answers on this but in the meantime i think the security posture where garrett is at and elsewhere will look radically different. >> peter baker you wrote today in the "times" after the aftermath of the attempted

assassination of ronald reagan the country united around him. tip o'neill the democratic speaker of the house went to the hospital room here in washington and kneeled down, held his hand, kissed his forehand and prayed with him or prayed for him. then he came to a joint meeting of congress, a joint session of congress and it was, you know, extraordinary for all of us covering all of this. this is different. that wasn't political. but there were political divides but this is a political schism between people -- among people in america that it's almost unprecedented in recent history. >> it really is and it is very different. it may be that the shooter is no more political than john hinckley was, we don't know obviously, that's something that as we just said the authorities are still investigating but the reaction to it in the context in which it takes place is so much different. it's so political, it's such a parse moment. reagan was two months into his

presidency, a honeymoon, people liked him and felt good about him at that time, obviously this drew an extreme amount of sympathy toward him and the country wasn't as sort of divided in the same way as it is today. today this takes place literally on the eve of a convention in which donald trump is going to be nominated, he is a divisive figure in america and history of politics. he's talk being perhaps being more unifying in this convention, that would be extraordinary to see because it goes against his instincts that we've seen over the last nine or ten years but it tells us something about our moment, right, where democrats and publicans see these things through such different lenses. republicans a lot of allies of the president including his son, campaign strategist and the man who may be his running mate quickly blamed democrats, blamed joe biden directly saying they were at fault for this assassination through the use of incendiary language.

obviously the president and the democrats don't agree with that is correct they say the his or her who has catered and promoted political violence over the years has been former president trump. so we're in this moment where rather than coming together we are in fact coming further apart. >> garrett haake, tom winter, peter baker, thanks to all of you. and those unanswered questions next, top security experts joining us to talk about the scrutiny facing the secret service. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. tchell reports" only on msnbc in the wayborhood, every delivery is a treat. one pistachio for you, sir. one strawberry poof, please. oh. enjoy it. oh, poofect. bye waybor. something minty? of course, it's a large. [ gasps ] ♪ ♪ a double. lucky. ♪ wayfair. every style. every home. ♪

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and we just are a little over an hour away from the start of the republican national convention in milwaukee. an event that secret service director kimberly cheadle says the agency is ready for. she expressed confidence in tonight's security plan acknowledging it's been reviewed, strengthened in the way of saturday's shooting. joining me now is robert mcdonald and daniel harvin. bobby, let's talk about what focus there is on the secret service now. i'm going to pause, an excellent organization, a great agency, but certainly having to answer some questions in congress and already this week about what happened with that rooftop or what did they need to do regarding the rnc.

>> good afternoon, andrea. you're slil right, the questions are still out there as we talked about yesterday with what happened, why it happened, how it happened and how do we make sure it doesn't happen again. we need to allow the secret service to take a deep dive as i said to you yesterday, to look at its situation and why this was allowed to happen, why we didn't find a way to mitigate that situation. you know, looking at that schematic again of that field where the event was, that building was incredibly close, you know, the sharp shooters are trained out to 1,000 yards and that building was within a 200 yard area and there was nothing there to mitigate what happened and that's the big question here. why in that security plan and that review of the security plan before it's blessed off by a supervisor did that question of that area not come up and not be able to present a positive mitigation to what happened here. now, the questions are going to have to continue to be asked and i think the director -- you will

have to correct me if i'm wrong -- is going up to congress to brief congress or brief some congressman tomorrow with an open hearing next week. she's going to have to answer tough questions and i hope that the secret service is ready to answer with some transparency and truthfulness as to what fell through the cracks here? why are we having these questions we are still talk being without really a resolution or a reason why that happened. this cannot happen. this is a serious, serious situation. >> now, jim cavanaugh formerly atf of course earlier said you can't just say that it was the locals, state or local police. you can delegate to them but you still have supervisory control and responsibility basically. >> the buck stops with the secret service here. the secret service develops and implements the security plan in concert with local, state and other federal partners, but the secret service is responsible for making sure that nothing slips through the cracks here on any of these visits by one of

our protectees. >> nbc news has learned exclusively that the rooftop where the gunman was perched was identified days earlier by the secret service in advance as a vulnerability. last hour former da secretary jeh johnson called it a failure of communication. how does dhs be confronting this now? >> well, bobby is spot on in his assessment as he was yesterday. dhs is going to have to do a deep dive with the u.s. secret service. the problem is we are in a very busy election cycle and so i'm sure they will ratchet these things up for future rallies, there's a lot i'm sure coming up on the agenda. i wouldn't be too concerned about the rnc and dnc, as you were showing in the previous video, you see 8 foot nonscaleable fences there. these events are handled as nsse certification which are national special security events. that's a whole different security posture, a whole lot of planning that goes into these

things. i'm not quite sure of the level of planning and security that goes into a rally but it's certainly not as much as the rnc and dnc. i do want to make a point that what should be concerning is that this kid graduated from high school two years ago and so how does someone by public accounts, no military training, no specific tactical training, how is someone able to penetrate a secure area, climb up on a rooftop and come within one inch of ending a presidential candidate's life? if it's that easy, can you imagine if this was a determined, trained and skilled adversary. this is what concerns me. >> yeah, he was a member of a shooting club, but that was it. clearly there could have been some reconnaissance involved here, nobody spotted that, either. also you oversaw intelligence and the response, the failures for january 6th and during. i want to ask you about that, about the ruling against the

special counsel, jack smith, which could jeopardize all of those january 6th -- well, the federal cases, the cases involving donald trump and what he did on january 6th. >> well, i'm not a legal analyst, luckily. >> okay. >> but i have listened to other people who have come on. my biggest concern and i'm on record on this is that the individuals responsible at the very high les levels of government for january 6 and inciting that crowd to go down there and attack the u.s. capitol, attack capitol and d.c. police would not be held accountable and thus far that's panned out. we have had -- jeh did a great job with multiple convictions of individuals, who knows if those are going to stand after the supreme court's ruling last month, but we still don't have those who are charged at the higher levels and so this is the concern that if this is going to

be the new norm, right, political violence, so long as you can, you know, get the courts to go your way, then we have a lot of dark days ahead of us. >> thank you both, bobby mac, good to see you again, thank you, donell, as well. and historically -- >> thank you, andrea. up next nbc presidential historian michael besh lass looking at how political violence and assassination attempts in the past, those that are political and those that aren't, you're watching "andrea mitchell reports." , you're watc mitchell reports." search talent all over the world with over 10,000 skills you may not have in house. more than 30% of the fortune 500 use upwork because this is how we work now.

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before saturday's attempted assassination of donald trump there have been at least 15 direct assaults on u.s. presidents, presidents-elect and presidential candidates, five of them fateal. how will saturday's attempt on former president trump's life be remembered in history. joining me is nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. michael, thank you for joining us. >> view for having me. >> these were not all political. >> no, that's for sure. >> john hinckley wasn't, squeaky fromme, i don't think you can call that political either against former president ford, but they do change history. certainly the ronald reagan assassination attempt did from my experience, in covering eight years of that presidency. others as well.

what happened in 1968 you've been pointing out with dr. king and robert kennedy jr. certainly influenced what happened with richard nixon. >> sure, helping lead to his victory. there are a lot of emotionally disturbed loners. we don't know yet the motive of the accused shooter. i hope we find that out. that will help. we also don't know what the result of this is going to be if there is an impact on history. i wish i could tell you and our friends watching, andrea, that no assassin can change the course of history and that should be our goal. you look at history, and they really do. as a result of an assassin in 1865, john wilkes booth, our president was no longer abraham lincoln but a racist, sort of third string member of the pro slavery party, andrew johnson, who was not exactly zealous about bringing rights to black americans.

we've seen the result of that ever since. lee harvey oswald, if he was involved in the kennedy assassination, if he was we do not to this day -- there's considerable evidence, by the way -- know what his motive might have been. he denied he committed the crime until he was himself murdered two days later. so if assassin does change the course of history -- and in oswald's case and whoever else may have been involved, and i have no theory, that was a case in which lyndon johnson became president instead of jfk. we got into the vietnam war mess, 550,000 americans in vietnam at the peek, 60,000 killed. i think that's not a mistake that john kennedy would have made. that was a big effect on this country. >> the shock of what happened this weekend, the fact that it was so close, inches -- actually

donald doesn't usually have slideshows or images, and he was pointing to one which was unusual for this fall ray, so that he turned his head. it could have been so much worse. >> absolutely. >> it's got to be a wake-up call to security but also to everyone in america at what the vulnerability is of our system. >> yes. and i think we can look at the assassination attempts that you rightly mentioned that have occurred, but let's take a look some day when we have access to them -- it will be long after i'm around -- when we find out actually how many threats there were against presidents and people who were running for president in the last 30 years. i would bet you there have been a lot and probably a rising number, and probably the secret service and its allies have done an amazing job in defeating almost all of them, but obviously almost all is not good

enough. >> we know from a lot of our report that the threats, the racist threats in 2008 were completely out of control. >> totally. >> and we still managed to elect the first black president. successfully had a presidency -- at least he was not vulnerable to attack for eight years as far as everyone knows. >> that's for sure. i'm sorry. >> pick up on your thought asto where we are today. we have the president of the united states and republican nominee whose roll call will be held later today, both calling for unity. at the same time we have people around them on both sides still with hot rhetoric. in only cases we expect that some of that will come from the

convention. and we have a real interview with less store holt tonight. >> right, which we're looking very much forward, he's doing at the white house today. yes, here is a case where, you know, there is a rising number of emotionally disturbed loners in this country for all sorts of social reasons that we both know. they can sometimes be incited by hot rhetoric in a hot campaign. all we can do is say let's keep politics and violence as separate as possible. three things. no violence in a campaign if possible. campaign -- fierce debate between the two candidates, but it has to be fact-based. finally number three, no more emotionally exaggerated personal insults. that's what leads to these kinds of things. >> that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports."

chris jansing with katy tur live from the rnc pick up our coverage after a short break. or coverage after a short break

good day. i'm chris jansing live at msnbc h in new york along with my colleague katy tur joining me in the rnc convention in milwaukee. we're tracking four huge stories unfolding in realtime and centered around