the headlines. the un chief warns lebanon could risk becoming another gaza as cross—border attacks between israel and hezbollah intensify. arriving back at the white house president biden has said the us is doing everything it can to prevent a wider war. speaking at the labour party conference, the foreign secretary david lammy called for a de—escalation between israel and his brother and an immediate ceasefire so a political settlement could be achieved.

in germany, the centre—left social democrat party of chancellor olaf scholz narrowly fends off an electoral challenge in the eastern state of brandenburg by the far—right afd which had been ahead in opinion polls before the vote. sri lanka's presidential election has been won in a political shift for the nation. the election on saturday was the first to be held since mass protests unseated the country's leader in 2022. i'll a full bulletin at nine o'clock. now on bbc news, it's time for americast. how can america keep its politics safe? safe for everyone, but particularly safe for the candidates who are running for the presidency. it is, of course, a huge issue now. there have been two attempts on donald trump's life. there is a potential threat, of course, to everyone who is involved, and it has an impact on america because, in a practical sense,

how do people go out and campaign if they're unsafe doing so, but also in a kind of undermining of democracy sense, as well, that the whole nation feels itself to be unsafe and unable to be properly democratic. donald trump has been talking about the second attempt on his life and using it, it's fair to say, for his own political gain. they're doing things in politics that have never been done before in the history of our country, and worst of all, with their open borders and bad elections, they have made us into a third—world nation, something which nobody thought was even possible. americans deserve a campaign based on the issues. we try and keep it on the issues, and god has now spared my life. it must have been god. thank you. not once, but twice. and there are those that say he did it because trump is going to turn this state

around~ _ he's going to turn this country around. he's going to make america great again, and maybe. so how does america protect its presidential candidates? welcome to americast. hello, it'sjustin in the worldwide headquarters of americast in london, england. i thought we'd decided that wasn't funny any more. it's sarah here and i'm in springfield, ohio. and it's marianna, aka misinformation. also in london, also in what we are still very boringly calling the worldwide headquarters of americast. ok, it's not funny, but we're doing it all the same, and there's quite a lot that falls into that category. anyway, sarah, you're in an interesting place. explain where you are and why.

well, everyone will remember that springfield, ohio, is where donald trump said that haitian migrants were taking people's pet cats and dogs and using them for food. completely untrue, totally baseless rumour of which there had been a little bit online but that he used during the presidential debate to try and highlight immigration. and that then brings us to the presidential stuff. and of course, it has been one of the things the trump campaign have been saying, is that the rhetoric about trump being a threat is one of the things that have led to people trying to kill him. we're going to be talking in a second to a former secret service agent. but first, let's focus on the secret service itself and whether it's failing, because there is, sarah, a real debate now, isn't there, about, notjust about the secret service, but about the way it's funded, about the way it's set up and about who actually is able to get its services? yeah. people have started to talk about the fact that there clearly are not enough resources with the secret service now. trump's team cast aspersions that he is being deliberately denied extra security. from the white house, joe biden says, well, it's time for congress to send more money to the secret service so that they can do

more, because actually, they're under huge strain because they're giving full presidential protection to the president, biden, obviously, and just about as much to both kamala harris and donald trump. that's very unusual. and then there's some other figures like hillary clinton who get more than normal amounts of protection. so, yeah, so they're hugely under strain. and there's an economic debate to be had about who should pay for that, which ultimately goes down to congress. but of course, you know, we're six weeks away from an election. this is obviously going to get very political, as well. yeah. and it's interesting, isn't it, this business of who gets what level of protection and whether someone who is running for president gets a certain level and someone else doesn't. and it's crucial in the trump case, we should listen to a clip about this. what if you're a former president and you know that there are a lot of threats

against you and then you're running for president? well, you got to understand, the golf course is surrounded by shrubbery. so when somebody gets into the shrubbery, they're pretty much out of sight. all right? and at this level that he is at right now, he's not the sitting president. if he was, we would have had to hire a golf course around it. but because he's not, the security is limited to the areas that the secret service deems possible. so that was rick bradshaw, who's the palm beach county sheriff. he's talking about, of course, the golf course where the second attempt on trump's life seemed to be about to happen. there was certainly a man in the bushes with a gun. and sarah, that led then, didn't it, to a whole set of other questions about, well, hang on a second. why are you making these kind of grades of coverage when there is an obvious threat to this guy? yeah, and i think this yeah, and i think this is the first time, actually, is the first time, actually, people have ever talked people have ever talked about giving full presidential about giving full presidential levels of security to levels of security to somebody who's a candidate somebody who's a candidate or a former president. or a former president. but you've got to but you've got to look at the threat. look at the threat. you'll remember, justin, reasons, you know, you'll remember, justin, barack obama got secret service barack obama got secret service protection much, much earlier protection much, much earlier than a presidential candidate than a presidential candidate would normally because there would normally because there were more threats made against him, because he was were more threats made the first black man who looked like he had a chance like he had a chance

of becoming president. of becoming president. donald trump, for other donald trump, for other reasons, you know, has a serious security threat against him. so, yeah, people are starting to ask questions about whether he deserves the full monty, so to speak. yeah, i mean, i rememberwith the obama years, i remember being really shocked. i was a bit naive, i suppose. i went into a coffee shop in south carolina during the primary when obama was against hillary clinton. and i was saying to these black women there and i was saying, "you're going for obama, you're all supporting him." and they all, to a person, they said no. and they all had kids, they were that kind of age. they were, they had voted in a few elections.

i mean, it's shocking, obviously, that anybody could get this close to a presidential candidate. i think what's surprising, though, is that it's a right—wing figure like donald trump who's being targeted, cos exactly that story you were telling about people's fears about president obama illustrates that often it has been perceived that the threat would come from the right to somebody on the left who was challenging the status quo. and in fact, what we're looking at here is just quite the opposite. yeah, and i think that's a really important point, sarah. and i think that actually tells us something really vital to understand about how this kind of rhetoric on social media and then this kind of behaviour offline is not limited to one particular political group or people of one political side or another. a lot of this is about being driven towards extreme points on either side. and there's a new series i've got coming out next week, why do you hate me usa, which looks at exactly this. seamless. how does she do it? yeah, it looks at exactly this, but also, and i think it's important to understand this,

the different people that become the targets for this sort of hate, as well. so you've got people being pushed towards the extremes on either side, and then acting on the back of that, trying to actually concretely say, right, this happened because of social media and this didn't is sort of impossible, but it appears to play a contributing factor in everything that's happening. and then you've got the different targets of this. so we're obviously talking about presidents and presidential candidates, but actually, exactly like you said, sarah, about all, you know, the average person, the average school in springfield, ohio. i've spent some time hanging out with election workers in colorado for this new podcast series, as well. you know, people who are like an it manager who is suddenly like, i'm being threatened on my way, i'm being threatened for doing myjob, and i think most people didn't even know what myjob was before, but they believe i'm complicit in plots to, you know, steal the election or rig the election process. and that tends to be, from what they've shown me and what i've seen, hate and threats coming from people who support donald trump and believe the election was stolen. but then you've now got people who are on the left

who believe, for example, trump staged the assassination attempt. oh, yeah, i met one the other day and she listens to the podcast. oh, well, there you go. yeah, i mean, she listens to the podcast. perfectly reasonable woman. very reasonable woman. i'd better say that, hadn't i? cos she's probably listening to this. but she, she, she... i mean, she didn't exactly say the whole thing is made up, but she said she had questions about it. and that goes to sarah's point, doesn't it, that actually there's a kind of, among a lot of left—wing americans who, let's be blunt about it, kind of think of themselves as rather wonderful people. there's, there's, there's this, you know, how could it possibly be us? how could it be us? why? i think they're quite surprised, actually, at the whole thing. the idea that trump is being, is being targeted. actually rather annoying for them because he's not your obvious victim. absolutely, and i talked to people even just coming to a place like springfield, ohio, and talking about the atmosphere around the election and not even specific to the story here. there is a genuine fear among lots of people that someone is going to get killed before election day, that there will at least be another attempt, whether against donald trump

or his opponents. cos you have to wonder what these attempts on donald trump's life are doing to the very people marianna's describing, who probably believe him that these attempts on his life are being inspired byjoe biden and kamala harris. there is an incendiary atmosphere around here that feels really quite dangerous, to be perfectly honest, and the threat of political violence has never felt more real. right. on that rather depressing note, i think you've got to go, haven't you, marianna? i do, i do. i've tried really hard, by the way, americast, not to make thisjoke, because it's not a very... it's not a very funny topic. however, i should just say to you that justin is dressed like he's a member of the secret service for this podcast record, including with our little earpieces in and in his suit. so, it feels like me and sarah didn't quite get the memo. i'm wearing a suit because i have to go to an undisclosed location to do an undisclosed thing after the podcast, and i've got a very nice silver case to go with it that looks as if it should have the nuclear codes in it, but actually has a toothbrush. i don't think we'll start dressing thematically for

every episode, but i'm glad you have today. bye. thanks, guys. bye. - bye, marianna. bye. delighted to say we have on the line bill gage, who joined the secret service quite a long time ago, back in 2002. he's provided a lot of protection to presidents, to vice presidents, to foreign dignitaries, as well, because, of course, it's a widerjob thanjust the president or people vying to be president. he was on the counter assault team, as well. protection for george w bush after the iraq war, when there were a lot of terror threats, of course, against the united states and against, personally against george w bush. but also barack obama, also, as we've already been talking about, the potential target of racially motivated attacks. bill, you are exactly the right person to talk to. what an extraordinary career you've had. uh, i'm a pretty humble guy. you're embarrassing me there a little bit. but, um, yeah, i mean, it is what it is. i, uh, great experience.

the secret service is an incredible job. you know, it takes a toll on your personal life. you're gone 150, 200 days a year sometimes. and you live by somebody else's schedule. but an amazing experience. i got to see and do things that, you know, you either dream about as a kid or you see in movies. and you spend a lot of time... you're describing the schedule of a broadcastjournalist trying to cover an election campaign, that's for sure. 0k. we want to try and get into all of your experience, obviously, and learn what we can about the secret service. butjust in headline terms, to start with, when you heard that somebody had... well, a bullet had grazed former president trump at a rally, and then this week also heard that somebody else had got close to him with a rifle, what was your first reaction? well, you know, if we don't mind, — we'll break down both attempts, because the first

attempt, i was doing what... you know, iwasjust, it was kind of an off day for me and my family, just kind of hanging out around our house. and a friend texted me and said, "turn the news on." and i turned the news on, and it had just happened within a couple of minutes. and i turned to my wife and i said, "how could somebody have got a firearm into the event?" because i assumed it was someone in the crowd. and the secret service is divided up into two sort of sections, if you will. there's the uniform division and then the special agent side, and the uniform division provides security around the white house, the sort of physical security for the white house. but they also sort of man or they're responsible for the magnetometers at all of these events, that's physically screen people before coming into the event. and these are some of the most sensitive magnetometers in the world. these uniformed division officers are the most highly trained, probably in the world. i mean, can pick up metal shavings in your pocket, they're so sensitive. and so, when i saw that, i turned to my wife and i said, somebody must have had

like an ai, you know, printed gun, a wood gun or something you'd see in a movie for an assassin, because there's no way you could get a gun past the magnetometers. and early on, you know, just knowing what i know, i made some sort of professional guesses there, that there was some real miscommunication between the local police officers and the secret service advance team about who was covering that specific building and the areas of responsibility. and so that's what, um, in my opinion, really, that and so that's what, in my opinion, really, that first attempt is going to... i think that's what the reports that are coming out are going to show, is that there was some real miscommunication. and it's not what you see on tv, 0k? so it's know, perfect world, the service would have put 1,000 agents in butler, pennsylvania, with 100 counter sniper teams, and everybody has a dna sample on file that the secret service has screened. they know everything about everybody in the crowd. agents have these google glasses, lens glasses, that facial recognition software that's tied into drones with missiles. that'sjust not the reality of protection. it's not like you see

in the movies. i'm really interested by that because i want it to be more like in the movies. or maybe i don't because of the freedom aspect of it. but how high—tech is it? you talked about the metal detectors, and obviously there are a lot of very highly armed people around the president or a presidential candidate. but does it go any further than that? well, there are a lot of what we would call classified here in the united states. the secret service has a lot of classified assets that they do use at these events. but just to circle back and answer your question there, a lot of it is low—tech. it's just agents on the ground using their critical judgment and reasoning and theirtraining, putting together these protective models that the secret service has used for decades that have been really successful.

and so it's kind of a combination of tech and just kind of good old—fashioned what we call here in america gumshoe, you know, just agents walking around doing theirjob. so it's a combination of both. but what about online gumshoe, as it were? i mean, are you really aware, are agents really aware, is the service really aware of what people are, how they're interacting online, and kind of potential threats that seem to be obvious from people's social media profiles? or is it, i mean, is thatjust a crazy thing to ask because there are so many people spewing such a lot of hate that you wouldn't know where to start? no, no, you know, listen, the secret service, you guys, ijust feel like your law enforcement and intelligence agencies are leaps and bounds ahead, technology—wise, than i feel like we are. and that's what exactly what i was going to get into there was that, for the most part, america and britain — not a surveillance state, right? like china or russia. both of these most recent potential assassins against president trump and china or russia would have beenjailed years ago, or at least the most recent

assassin for his anti—government feelings. theyjust would have jailed him and you never hear from them again. so, for the most part, we're not a surveillance state here in america. it's a free democracy just like britain. and within reason, you can say or do whatever you want online. you know, it's a crime in america to talk about assassinating the president as a threat. i mean, you and i can talk about it sort of academically, right? but if i go online and say, "i hate the president, he should die," someone's going to be looking into that. and these tech companies, all of these tech companies have algorithms that are constantly... supercomputers are constantly searching for these words and phrases and combinations of words and phrases and those kind of things get flagged and then they get sent to

the secret service. in addition, the secret service has dozens and dozens of agents and intelligence personnel. theirjob every day is just to sit there and scrub social media and look for these kind of threats. bill, this is really fascinating. but one question when, as laypeople, we're watching this stuff play out, it's obvious something has gone wrong in both of these assassination attempts against donald trump. and as you correctly pointed out, there has then started a political debate about funding and about whether or not... one, whether president trump has enough security, and two, whether it's politically motivated, the funding of it. but leaving that aside, how can we tell, as laypeople looking at this, whether the mistake is not enough resources on his team or incompetence? i mean, it certainly appears from what we know about butler, that had more to do with incompetence than strained resources. but i don't know if we can say the same about what happened at his golf club in florida. i think, human nature, we want to find out, 0k, i want that one thing that went wrong, right? when there's a tragedy or a major incident, we're always looking. i want that one explanation. it's a combination of things. it's a combination of the secret service. every director since 9/11,

not going to congress and asking for more money and resources over several decades, and which causes kind of a ripple effect, right? like a compounding issue year after year after year, with increasing mission demands and sort of stagnant orjust minimal increases in budget and resources. so, you know, ithink it's a combination of factors. and so, you know, was human error involved in butler, pennsylvania, and in the golf course? possibly. i think that will come out in some of the reports. but in my opinion, again, formerly being on the inside, i think it's mostly going to be an issue of resources with a little bit of possibly incompetence. tell us more about the golf side of all of this, cos you must have spent a lot of your time on golf courses. it is weird, isn't it? something about presidents and golf and just the difficulty of looking after them on the course.

yeah, and the secret service uses sort of a protective model they've used here in america. you guys are probably familiar from your world war ii history, but dwight d eisenhower was sort of the first president that the secret service had to protect routinely on a golf course, and that many years ago, the secret service kind of came up with this golf course protective model where you have agents, you know, a few holes ahead, you have agents behind, sort of covering the rear guard, _ and then you're going to have agents directly around the president as they golf. and that protective model is pretty sound. part of that model is you're going to have agents dressed like golfers that are actually golfing to sort of blend in playing golf, but actually in the golf bag is going to be some weaponry. so, you know, that model has kind of stuck and been very successful. there's also going to be counter—sniper teams and counter assault teams, like i was on the cat team there, as well. listen, golf courses are like mini nature preserves, right? i mean, there's wood lines,

sand traps, water hazards. i'm a golfer, i love the game, and. what. _ the average hole is boo—plus yards. you multiply that times 18 holes and, you know, it's extremely difficult to protect presidents when they're golfing. now, president obama would frequently golf at military golf courses. and those were just a little bit easier to protect, because here in america, the president is viewed as the commander in chief. and i can remember multiple times where very high—ranking military officers would be, have a tee time, they would have it reserved weeks in advance, and they show up to play and they're turned away, generals and colonels. so, it's a weird job, isn't it, because you do sometimes have a lot of ability to do stuff, but at the same time, you've got this kind of stress in your mind that there is a constant threat notjust to the life of the principal, but actually potentially to yours, as well. yeah, yeah.

and listen, i have dozens of stories and i don't want to hyperbole here or overexaggerate, but there were times where there were serious geopolitical consequences for stuff that was happening in real time. you know, there were times... give us an example. well, there was a time in mumbai, india, where we discovered an indian police sniper, but we didn't know it at the time. he was covered in a ghillie suit, and we thought it was an actual sniper, and was looking at obama through his rifle scope, and we had to make a decision. were we going to immediately burst into this speech with president obama? so, there were times like that, but then there were other times where i went to afghanistan once with the president, president obama, and my cat team had been up for like 36 hours, 24, 36 hours straight, and another team relieved us.

there's always a backup plane, a backup air force one that flies everywhere with the president in case there's a problem with the primary plane. and we were lucky enough to fly back on the backup plane and it was just my cat team, just like six or seven of us and nobody else on the plane. and we got airborne and one of the flight attendants came back and said, "listen, there was kind of a mess—up. "we have a bunch of buffalo hot wings and a bunch of "ice cold yuengling beer, and we kind of got to get rid "of it before we land in germany." and, uh, so we... you managed to. yeah, we ate all these buffalo wings, drank yuengling. and what a kind of a dirty little secret is on the presidential planes, the president has access to movies that haven't been released yet into hollywood. so, a president gets them, like, several weeks before they're actually released. so, we were able to watch all these movies that hadn't even been released yet.

so, there were moments like that in the secret service that i rememberjust kind of these like, wow, this is a really cooljob. and, but there were also times, like i said. — that there were really geopolitical consequences if you, if you got it wrong. bill, it's been a real pleasure to talk to you. i'm glad to hear there are some perks among all of the risks that you were taking, bill. that's right. thanks a lot, bill. really, really huge pleasure to talk to you. thanks a lot. absolutely. i love the uk. i'm going to go over again and visit some day. so i love you guys and i love the bbc. i listen all the time. wonderful. thanks forjoining us, bill. we're honoured to have you. thanks, bill. bye, guys. right, team. that's all we've got time for today. thanks for watching. remember you can hear all our episodes first on bbc sounds. bye.

hello there. a big contrast in our weather this weekend with a suntan in the north—west, the grey cloud to the east coast and torrential downpours for england and wales, and torrential downpours for england and wales. some places have already had a month's worth of rain, the warnings still remain in force throughout the rest today and into monday because this area of low pressure remains around three monday. in fact, because it is already falling a month's worth of rain. is already falling the met office have escalated the warning to a number in some parts, as you can see. but generally the most of england and wales it looks like another disturbed day as we go into monday with showers or longer spells of intense rain falling on that saturated

ground, leading to flooding impacts, potential damage to buildings, certainly disruption to transport. and we're seeing that already, we have more storms through the rest of this evening, we've got drier weather up in the north and west, and where we get the clear spells a bit of mist and fog, and another warm and uncomfortable night for sleeping in southern areas for some, fresher further north. but you may have noticed a weather front arriving at the far north of scotland, that is a change in the type of weather as we go to the latter type on monday. but it's the story further south about this intense rain feeding into the river systems so we will keep to develop but with more cloud generally temperatures will be pegged back a little bit. it gets cloudy of the northern ireland as well as north west england.

as we go into the early week, the risk of torrential downpours continues across england and wales. by tuesday, drier, but we have the rain stage and then mid week, we might well have more wet weather, especially england and wales, but also combined with autumnal gales so we need to keep an eye on that.

live from london. this is bbc news. world leaders express growing concern about the danger

of a regional war in the middle east as cross—border attacks between israel and hezbollah intensify. we're going to do everything we can to keep a wider warfrom breaking out, and we're still pushing hard. at the labour party conference, the foreign secretary david lammy called for a de—escalation. our message to all parties is clear. we need an immediate ceasefire from both sides, so we can get to a political settlement. in germany — final projections suggest a narrow victory for the party of chancellor olaf scholz over the far right afd — in a key regional election. and it's checkmate for russia's chess team. they remain banned from international competitions because of the war in ukraine. hello, i'm nicky schiller.

we start this hour with the tensions in the middle east