Global News Podcast - Trump rally shooter spent months researching potential targets

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

The FBI said the gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump last month had searched extensively online for events by the former US president and Joe Biden. Also: the 2024 Paralympics opening ceremony lights up Paris.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC podcasts. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Nick Miles, and in the early hours of Thursday, the 29th of August, these are our main stories.

The FBI says the gunman who tried to kill Donald Trump saw the former president's rally in Pennsylvania as a target of opportunity and had also carried out extensive research online into Joe Biden. The Palestinian president has cut short a trip to Saudi Arabia as Israel carried out its biggest military operation in the occupied West Bank for more than two decades. France has charged the founder of the Telegram messaging app as part of an investigation into organised crime. Also in this podcast in France...

The opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games has taken place in Paris. If not for a slight turn of the head when addressing a Republican rally in Pennsylvania in July, the bullet that skimmed the ear of the former US President Donald Trump may well have killed him. Now, a little more has been revealed about the man who shot the gun. Among other details, an FBI investigation found that 20-year-old Thomas Crooks had an extensive online search history of a number of other political events featuring Mr Trump, as well as the current US President Joe Biden. So how much has this all revealed about why he did it? I heard more from our correspondent in Washington, John Sudworth. Well, we sort of learned how little they've learned in a nutshell. You know,

we're six weeks on from the shooting. They told us that they had trawled through years worth of the shooters' social media and online postings. They had interviewed nearly a thousand people, family members, acquaintances, witnesses, and they had trawled through hundreds of hours of video footage. But despite all of that, they have drawn almost a complete blank on motive. They say there is no evidence to show there were any co-conspirators, no evidence of any foreign involvement. It appears the 20-year-old Thomas Crooks was acting alone, but why he was acting in his attempt to kill a former US president, they are no nearer to knowing.

Given that they didn't have anything earth-shattering to reveal, why did the FBI give this briefing now? Well, I think two reasons. Firstly, and the most sort of mundane explanation is this was an update for the public that wants answers. But I think there was also very clearly an element in the briefing given today that they are feeling the pressure. There have been criticisms from some Republican politicians about their handling of the investigation, their handling of certain parts of the evidence, and they essentially use this as an

opportunity to push back on that, saying that the way they've handled the evidence is within line with normal procedure and practice, and also to make the point that they have not dropped the ball on this. John, short of why this assassination attempt took place, what motivated it, the second major question people were answering is how on earth did it happen? And that, one imagines, will become a little bit more clear and there will be more pressure on the Secret Service when it does. Yeah, so and again there was some additional detail on that today. We saw the first photographs of the gun used by the 20-year-old shooter. We saw pictures of the backpack he carried it in,

the unexploded devices in the trunk of his car. That was all new. But we also got a bit more detail from the FBI about the timeline. Thomas Crooks, they told us, was on the roof for a full six minutes before firing the first of the eight shots. And of course, a lot of the criticism has come on the Secret Service for its failure to respond adequately and quickly enough. So some of that will, I think, raise further questions. But they also gave us a little bit more detail on how events ended that day. They say that two shots were fired in return, one from a local law enforcement officer. No evidence that that struck the gunman. And one other single shot from a Secret Service sniper, a direct shot to the head that killed him.

John Sudworth. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has cut short his visit to Saudi Arabia in response to Israel's biggest military operation in the occupied West Bank for more than 20 years. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed. Israel said hundreds of troops, the security agency Shin Bet, a commander unit, and the air force are among its forces that have been taking part. It described it as the most extensive counter-terror operation. The targets are four Palestinian cities, including Jenin and Tulkan. Israeli soldiers reportedly blocked entrances to some of them, and gunfire and explosions were heard within refugee camps.

Our Middle East correspondent Lucy Williamson spent the day in Jenin, dusk can be a signal to test the army's control. Explosions and gunfire rose from the refugee camp here. Israel's army arrived before dawn in cities across the West Bank and still hasn't left. Hundreds of Israeli troops, backed by armoured bulldozers, took up positions in Tulkarem, Nablus, Tubas, Jenin, their refugee camps home to armed Palestinian groups and unarmed civilians. Masoud Najjar said he was injured in Tubas when he opened the door to his house after some young men nearby asked for water.

We felt like something came down on us from the sky and there was an explosion. I was unaware of what was going on. When I put my hand on my chest, it was all shrapnel and blood. Israel's foreign minister said Iran was financing an army in groups in the West Bank, describing it as a war for everything that Israel must win. David Mensah is a government spokesman. The IDF and our security forces are operating in Tulkarem, Jenin and other places from which murderous attacks have been launched. We will fight to eliminate terrorism wherever it emerges.

In Jenin, army vehicles surrounded the city's two main hospitals. Ambulances stopped and checked by military jeeps. Outside Jenin's main hospital, we met the West Bank head of the Red Crescent, Yunus al-Khatib. They are scaling up their operation. When they talk about evacuating civilians and using the air force to bomb the camps, this reminds us of Gaza. Israel has targeted the same areas in the same cities, week after week, for the past ten months,

determined to dismantle the armed Palestinian groups based here. This time is different, wider, more coordinated, an operation across the West Bank on a scale not seen for 20 years. Lucy Williamson in Jenin. Jeremy Bowen has covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for 30 years for the BBC. Tim Franks asked him to put the latest developments in the West Bank into the bigger context. I think it is a big deal because of the scale of what's going on, particularly before October

the 7th last year, but absolutely since then, the Israelis have been pretty much constantly raiding those areas. If it's not one of those areas, it constantly raiding those areas. If it's not one of those areas, it's another of those areas. If it's not one camp, it's another camp. And that has been going on now for nearly a year. Hundreds killed on the Palestinian side. But this is bigger because it's larger, it's coordinated. They're also specifically blaming Iran

for arming Palestinian groups in the area. So, yeah, I think it does. I think it is a significant step. And I don't think it's going to do anything whatever to calm things down on the West Bank. You mentioned Palestinian groups. How far is the sort of picture in the West Bank just getting more sort of fractured in a way, more difficult for the Israelis to control. It is very fractured. What's happened in the last few years is that in individual camps, you know, take Janine or in Tubas or wherever in those places where the Israelis have been operating today, local combinations of groups have sprung up. So it's not simply saying that this is a group allied to

the Fatah organization or to Hamas. They have their own local individual alliances and combinations based on the way things are in those places, which actually, because of the fragmented nature of it, I think has made it on one level, it's quite hard for the Israelis to keep track of it all. But on another level, it's easier to isolate these small groups and try to hammer them. However, you know, if you look, it just keeps on going. They do go in and out, and they haven't succeeded in stopping this sort of activity. In terms of actual attacks on Israelis. There haven't been very many. And of course, the Israelis would say that's because they've gone in.

They've arrested thousands of people, most of whom are being held without trial, on accusations that there might be terrorists or suspected terrorists, as the Israelis would put it. Beyond this, it's just worth reflecting, isn't it, on how much the West Bank itself has changed over the last 10 months? Yes. I mean, it's changed enormously. I mean, I have been going regularly to the West Bank,

and I lived in Jerusalem for quite a few years in the 1990s. I've been going regularly there for 30-odd years. It's absolutely transformed, not least in the last 5, 10 years. How has it been transformed? More Jewish settlers is basically. And for every settlement or extension to a settlement, there's an access road or a bypass. And so the whole thing is absolutely chopped up.

And with every road, Israel extends its actual control. It takes more land from the Palestinians. So, you know, Israel is actively blaming Iran for stirring things up there, as the foreign minister said, a new Eastern Front, as they call it. But actually, you know, this is all about this long, intractable confrontation, conflict, which goes back to the fact that they cannot agree on ways to live together and split the land. And that at the moment, the ultra nationalist Israeli government has an official position that the entire land from, as to use that phrase, from the river to the sea, from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, is land, which is the property of the Jewish people. And Mr. Netanyahu,

the Prime Minister, has given administration of the West Bank, the governor, if you like, the effective governor of the West Bank is a man called Bezalel Smotrich, who's also Minister of Finance, who is an ultra-nationalist, ultra-religious extremist who has essentially been making it much easier for armed and militant settlers to go about their business, sometimes, very often, protected by the army. Though it's been interesting today that after a particularly nasty incident a few weeks ago in the village called Jit, where there were some killings by settlers and a lot of damage. The Israeli army has now said that it failed, that this was terrorism by Jews. You know,

there's a sign there that maybe this sense of impunity might be being eroded. But actually, that is very vanishingly rare that they say something like that because there have been dozens of lower level but equally distressing for those affected attacks by militant settlers over many many months. Jeremy Bowen, the founder and chief executive of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, has been charged in France as part of an investigation into organised crime. The Russian-born billionaire was released on bail, set at $5.5 million, and is not allowed to leave French territory. He faces multiple charges, including failing to curb extremist and illegal content on the app. Durov has been in custody for four days. Telegram has previously insisted its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving. Our technology editor Zoe Kleiman has more details.

Pavel Durov is sometimes described as the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia. He was born in the country but he left in 2014 and these days he's a citizen of both France and Dubai. The messaging app that he founded is called Telegram. And what sets it apart from something like WhatsApp is that these enormous groups of up to 200,000 people can share content and information on it. Now, the accusations that Mr. Jirof is facing are extremely serious. And they include running a platform to enable illicit transactions by an organised gang, failing to communicate with the authorities, refusing, in fact, to communicate with the authorities,

and complicity in the organised criminal distribution of sexual images of children. Now, he's under formal investigation. This doesn't mean that he's guilty or even that there'll necessarily be a trial, but it's absolutely unprecedented for the founder, the owner of a social network, to be arrested like this because of the content that's being shared on his platform. And it sparked a really fierce debate online about freedom of speech and accountability. Elon Musk, who's the owner of X, which used to be known as Twitter,

has leapt to his defence. He thinks that he should be completely freed and he says that censorship is just moderation under another name. But the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, said earlier this week that France remained committed to freedom of expression. Zoe Kleiman. Several countries in southern Africa have declared emergencies

because of a drought which is devastating crop yields and has left many people hungry. A joint regional appeal has asked for $5 billion to cope with the drought. The BBC's Shingai Nyoka travelled to a community in the district of Mudzi in northern Zimbabwe, one of the regions worst hit by the crisis. A community and their livestock gathered on a dry riverbed. The Vombose normally flows throughout the year. Now it's bone dry. Armed with shovels and buckets, the men are digging a small hole into the riverbed to extract the last drops of water.

As rivers and dams have dried up elsewhere, more and more are descending on here. Gracious Piri now walks further than ever before, spending three hours of every day fetching water. As you can see, the cattle are drinking from the same pit as us. Their urine is right there. It's not very healthy for our families. I have never seen anything like this. One of the worst droughts in living memory is sweeping across Zimbabwe. Here in Muzi, only a third of families in the district have enough food. The community women, each contributing the little they have, are cooking a nutritious porridge for their children. Bayobab, peanut butter, vegetable and milk are stirred into the pot

to curb the cases of malnutrition, which have doubled recently, according to the medical officer, Kudzai Madamonbe. With the support of partners such as UNICEF, we have instituted a village feeding program. We wanted this Maoresa porridge to be given to all underpigs at least twice or three times a week. But because of the Onino-induced drought, we are now only giving it once a week. Because you don't have enough food? Yes, because the rains didn't come and we suffered 100% loss in terms of all the crops. 36-year-old Tambudzai Mahatchi planted acres of maize, cowpeas and peanuts, but got nothing. In a good year, she supplies markets in the capital,

but this year she's among millions of Zimbabweans relying on handouts. And breakfast today for her two children is boiled wheat from a charitable neighbour. We've gone from eating what we want and when we want to limiting meals. The older girl understands and accepts that we don't have enough. But at times I can see that my youngest is hungry.

It's a widespread problem, with the rains having failed across most of southern Africa this year. About a third of the region's countries have declared a state of disaster, and a massive 70 million people will need food aid. Thompson Piri is from the World Food Programme. Three million tonnes of maize is required immediately to meet regional demand. If you go anywhere in Southern Africa, family granaries are empty and maize is now priced out of many people's hands. WFP is scaling up to provide to approximately 5.9 million people in the seven hardest heat countries. I can tell you we've only been able to raise one-fifth

of the 400 million that we need to provide assistance. October, the hottest, driest month of the year, is still a long way off, meaning that the regional hunger and water crises will only worsen. It's something Tambudzai is acutely aware of as she cracks open some wild fruit to stave off the hunger pangs. Unsure about what lies ahead for her young family. That report by Shingai Nyoka in northern Zimbabwe. Still to come. A video lauding North Korea's leader as he gallops in the mountains.

But what do his rare, newly imported Russian horses say about him and the country? If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.

Welcome back to the Global News Podcast. To Venezuela now. Freedom, freedom, freedom are the chants from opposition supporters on the streets of Caracas. They were responding to a call from their leader, Maria Corina Machado, who emerged from hiding to address them. Standing on top of a car, she told the demonstrators that the protests would not stop until President Nicolás Maduro accepts that he lost last month's election. Our correspondent Rachelle Krieger from BBC Monitoring in Miami told me more about

Ms Machado's campaign. She is continuing to be pretty defiant, although she has said that she isn't hiding because of government threats. She has kept appearing in some of these demonstrations. She goes with a hoodie and then goes directly to the mobile stage and she gives her speech. This time, she said that the opposition would keep fighting. And she made a specific appeal to the armed forces, which she has done before, to side with the opposition. And from the size and the atmosphere of this latest demonstration, what do you think that tells us about the momentum of the opposition movement? So I think one of the big obstacles that the opposition has, or the big challenges, is to keep that momentum going, because it does seem like Maria Corina's strategy is more of a

medium long term strategy, not like directly toppling the government right away, but doing it through street pressure and more of like a prolonged period. I would say that's always been a challenge for the opposition. And we've obviously been here many times before with waves of demonstrations. So the fact that thousands of people still keep showing up does appear to show that she's being able to somewhat keep the momentum going, but we obviously don't know how long that's going to last. So at the moment, on the other side of the coin is the government, and they came out with a new hardline interior minister. Tell us about him and what that says about the government's position.

So yes, the whole cabinet reshuffle was seen and described by many observers as an entrenchment of Maduro and his inner circle. I would say that the designation of Diablao Cabello, a top party leader who hadn't been in the executive power for more than a decade, his return to the executive power does mean that the government is kind of trying to consolidate this firm hand and this intensifying repression and this attempting to stay in power through force. Now that he is bringing him back, a lot of observers are saying that Maduro is simply trying to survive and doing that by bringing someone back

who is going to help impose this staying in government through force. Rochelle Krieger. With a new British government, there have been questions about whether it will change the UK's relationship with the European Union following Brexit. Now, some of those questions might be closer to being answered as a new treaty is announced between Britain and Germany. The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, told a news conference on Wednesday the deal would boost relations between the two countries. A new UK-Germany treaty, a once-in-a-generation chance to deliver for working people in Britain and in Germany. A new agreement, a testament to the depth and potential of our relationship with deeper links on science, technology, development,

people, business, culture, a boost to our trading relations. The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the Covid pandemic and the UK's withdrawal from the EU had caused a massive decline in contacts. He said the pact could help with a wider reset in relations. It is also important for us to further develop relations between the European Union and Great Britain. I'm delighted that Keir Starmer has announced that he'll seek a fresh start in relations with the EU. We want to grab this extended hand. So to find out what's

been agreed and what hasn't and what that will mean, I spoke to our political correspondent Rob Watson. So what exactly is Mr Starmer's strategy? The agreement is in its early stages, but essentially it's going to touch on the kind of things that are beyond the EU. So member states like Germany, they're still in charge of things like technical arrangements, scientific cooperation, all sorts of things like that. What they don't do is trade and economics. That is very much an EU thing. So it'll be a bilateral relationship intended just to make the two countries closer on things like defence, security, stuff like that, cultural exchanges. What's behind it? I mean, that is dead simple, Nick.

This is the new British government repeating its message that we want to be friends with Europe again. We want to look a bit less odd on the world stage than I think Britain did look to many of its allies under the previous Conservative government and to send a message to Europe that this government does not see the European Union as a strategic competitor or rival. Kind of testing the waters with these easier bilateral agreements. But what about this

long-term goal of closer relations between Britain and the EU? But we shouldn't expect Mr Stammer to reapply to join the EU anytime soon, should we? Well, in the short term, no. I mean, he specifically ruled that out in Germany today. He said Britain would not be rejoining the single market. It would not be rejoining the customs union. It would not be rejoining the European Union. So despite all these really nice sort of words, and they are meant sincerely, I mean, it's pretty clear that Britain is going to have a much more distant relationship with the European Union than it had compared to when it was a member. And essentially, Keir Starmer is taking over much of the hard Brexit negotiated by Boris Johnson,

by which I mean Britain out of all of the EU's political and economic institutions. But you mentioned that word long words long term at the start, Nick. And this may change for a couple of reasons. I mean, one is economic. Brexit is causing Britain a lot of damage, a lot of damage to its economy. That damage continues. The second thing is that the previous government, the Conservatives are firmly these days an anti-EU party

and were always under pressure from their members not to get too close to Brussels. Sir Keir Starmer has the opposite issue. You know, the Labour Party, Labour members, Labour supporters are very pro the European Union. So he's going to be under pressure, both economically and from the party to be closer to Brussels. Rob Watson. North Korea has to import thousands of tonnes of rice and maize from China and elsewhere to feed its people. But Pyongyang also imports something that's certainly not life-sustaining,

rare Russian horses. The leader, Kim Jong-un, is very partial to being seen as stride and eye-catching white breed. A big batch of the animals has just come into the country, as I've been hearing from our Asia-Pacific editor, Mickey Bristow. Well, the bare bones of this story is quite simple. What we see is that North Korea has imported two dozen thoroughbred horses. They're known as all-off trotters from Russia. These horses were developed in the 18th century by a Russian count.

They're strong, they're beautiful, and as their name suggests, they're really good at trotting. Now, we're interested in this story, not just because it's any old horse. It's because Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, is really a fan of these horses. It's presumed that they're imported for him. Because in the past, these horses have been used for propaganda purposes in North Korea. And what kind of examples are there of that?

Well, they're used quite a lot. One notable example was five years ago, the North Koreans released video and still images of Kim Jong-un and his wife traveling to Mount Paektu. This is the highest mountain in North Korea, a real sacred mountain, a sacred place, not just for Korean history, but in Korean communist revolutionary histories. Well, Kim Jong-un's father supposedly was born at this mountain. This video shows Kim Jong-un riding an all-off trotter horse, a white stallion, across this snowy mountain. Really fantastic images, really. If you're trying to project an image of strength and leadership, then certainly as a piece of propaganda, this video certainly did that. So propaganda to project this image of a vigorous leader, if you like,

and yet the backdrop to this is poverty and deprivation for a lot of North Koreans. Yeah, like with many things with North Korea, some of the things which happen seem strange to people outside the country. They are strange. Here we are talking about two dozen thoroughbred horses. But actually the reality of life in North Korea for the majority of North Koreans is very, very poor. It's a very poor country.

There's massive repression, the kind of repression that probably exists nowhere else on earth. And in order to maintain that control the Kim family have over the country, they use propaganda tools like these all-off trotter horses in order to project their power, in order to keep in power, in order to keep people repressed.

Mickey Bristow. The 2024 Paralympics has officially been opened with a spectacular ceremony in the heart of Paris. Almost four and a half thousand Paralympians took part in a procession around the Place de la Concorde. Our sports correspondent Andy Swiss watched the event in the French capital. A perfect Parisian evening and a Paralympic curtain raiser like no other. A place de la concorde, an opening ceremony exploring attitudes towards disability. French star Christine and the Queens with a modern take on an Edith Piaf classic. And soon it was time for the athletes parading down the Champs-Élysées, more than 180 countries united by a common joy. As the sun finally set over Paris,

one of the biggest cheers was for the refugee team. Just eight athletes, but what an ovation. Here come the French. The loudest noise, though, was for the hosts. The arrival of France sparking jubilation and a very suitable sing-along. Oh, so easy. jubilation and a very suitable sing-along. After that, though, a change of mood,

a stunning version of the Marseillaise and the raising of the French flag. Before the head of the Paralympics delivered an impassioned peal for inclusivity. Marchand, march on. Vive la France, vive la revolution de l'inclusion. Merci beaucoup, thank you very much. Muito obrigado. And with that, the French president Emmanuel Macron

declared the games open. Organisers hope these games can be the most spectacular ever. They're certainly getting off to a spectacular start. Andy Swiss in Paris. And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Liam McSheffery. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Nick Mars and until next time, goodbye. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free.

Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.