How Trump’s assassination attempt compares to the attempt on Reagan in 1981

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• John Yang:

  Yesterday's assassination attempt brought immediate comparisons to the 1981 attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan. Judy Woodruff was there that day she was NBC's House correspondent.

  Judy, we should mention you are in the arena for the convention. They're testing the sound system so we may hear some extraneous noises. But Judy, how did those two events compare the Ronald Reagan in 1981? And what happened yesterday?

• Judy Woodruff:

  Well, every one of these terrible acts John, of course, is different. But I was there that day it was March the 30th 1981, White House correspondent for NBC News. Ronald Reagan had only been in office for two months, I was part of the press small press pool, following him to make a speech at the Washington Hilton Hotel. He went into the hotel made this speech we were outside waiting for him.

  I would in fact, I was 30 feet away from his limousine, ready to ask a question, which I was doing when he came out, waved at the crowd. And I was yelling at the same time I started hearing a pop, pop, pop sounded like firecrackers. But immediately people started yelling get down, it was clear that it was gunshots.

  The motorcade with President Reagan moved away. We didn't know it then. But it turned out he had been hit, he almost died. But what I could see were lying on the ground, Jim Brady, the White House press secretary with blood coming out of his head, and three other men who were part of a protective detail. It's a day I ran across the street to use a phone. Thankfully, both of these men survived. But it's the day I will never, ever forget.

• John Yang:

  A lot of the things you're talking about, given yesterday of the current state of political discourse in the country. You've been traveling the country as our viewers know, for the America at Crossroads series, talking to a lot of people. What's your sense of how people feel about the way politics is being dealt with today and being discussed?

• Judy Woodruff:

  You're right, John, we have been traveling the United States, we counted it up. We've been to 23 states. So far, we've talked to dozens and dozens of ordinary Americans, we've talked to experts, virtually everybody agrees we are historically divided right now, maybe the worst since the Civil War. Our discourse has deteriorated a lot of agreement and disagreement about why that is some of it has historical roots in the rise of the modern anti-government movement.

  But what we know is that there is a consensus among Republicans especially but even Democrats, that the news media, the media, the social media has a role to play. Just yesterday, I spoke with 22-year old Republican delegate to this convention. His name is Logan Glass. He's from Alabama. He was part of a group of delegates I spoke with and I asked him what he thought was contributing to our current division. Here's what he said.

• Logan Glass, Republican National Convention Delegate, Alabama:

  I'm going to point the finger at the media. I don't I don't think the media has done much to bring us together. I think the liberal news media has done a lot to divide us. I think the media has magnified the divide. I think they have made it the issue that it is.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And again, John, this is what we were hearing we've been hearing from Republicans and Democrats. We talked to him before the shooting. But what Logan Glass said to me right after that was he said it's going to take a change of generations. He said the older generation has managed to coarsen (ph) our rhetoric, coarsen (ph) discourse, the younger generation is going to have to step in.

• John Yang:

  To that point, we're hearing a lot of calls for unity for lowering the temperature as it were today. In your view, what's it going to take to get that to happen?

• Judy Woodruff:

  I wish I had an answer, John, like all of us. I mean, we are looking for signals of unity. If our political leaders could come together and say to the country, it's time for this kind of thing, this terrible violence and his language to stop. We'll see whether that happens.

  But I have to bring up the question and the issue of guns, John. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, there were a roughly 67 million guns estimated in this country today, 2024, there are around 400 million guns in America. Guns are not the only cause of our violence. They're not the only cause certainly of our course or discourse, but they are in issue.

  I would tell you just quickly in the state of Tennessee, there was a terrible church shooting there. About a year and a half ago, people tried to come together including gun enthusiast, Second Amendment supporters, people who are big supporters of gun rights to try to get the Tennessee legislature to find common ground over reducing gun violence. They were not able to do that by, bringing people together across the divide.

  So it's going to take work. It's going to take dedication. We're not there yet.

• John Yang:

  Not there yet. Judy Woodruff in Milwaukee. Thank you very much. Judy, Amna, and Geoff will all be in Milwaukee this week for PBS News Special Coverage of the Republican National Convention begins each night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and it streams gavel to gavel on our website and our YouTube page.