Hi there. Can I ask you what you wrote on the card? Yes.

I said, We will never surrender. United We stand, Shoemake family. On Sunday afternoon, I found myself in a park in downtown Milwaukee. A small group of supporters had gathered there, and they were doing something we've all done before. I put, America is with you and your family, Jefferson E.

Davis.

They were signing a get well soon card. Technically, it was a big cardboard sign on the stand, but you get point. But here's the thing. This wasn't like any other get well soon card. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for protecting President Donald Trump during this time, Lord God. We pray that you would be- This was a place for well wishes directed at the former President as he recovered after an assassination attempt less than 24 hours prior.

What was your reaction when you found out, originally?

I just can't believe it. I can't believe it. A major fail somewhere.

It was clear from the conversations I had that the assassination attempt had rattled even the most hard core Trump supporters. Many of them thank God directly for sparing Trump's life.

But then when he got up, damn your cry.

Really? Oh, yeah.

He's a fighter.

And that's exactly what we need.

But some of them were also echoing the very words that Trump mouthed to that crowd in Pennsylvania, fight, fight, fight. Chris Slinker even wrote it on his side.

One side needs to win.

And what I mean by that is all these elections are too close. Until one side can win, really win, and win for real, this won't end. The Republican National Convention hadn't even kicked off yet, but there were real questions swarled sterling in Milwaukee about political rhetoric, political violence, and how we move forward as a country. Remember, the Republican nominee for President was centimeters away from being killed. A man in the crowd was killed. Where do you go from there?

It doesn't take a whole lot of people in a very tense and volatile political environment to really kick off big trouble.

Dony O'Sullivan covers this stuff full-time for CNN, right-wing radicalization, disinformation, and how the Internet affects how people live out in the world. So as party officials conduct their business inside the FISER Forum here in Milwaukee, I thought I'd tag along with Dony outside on the streets to get a sense of how Americans on both sides of the aisle are grappling with one of the darkest moments in American history. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Reind.

We are on our way to the Rally for democracy. It's happening a few miles away from the convention, and we're going to meet some pastors there who actually, folks we met a few months ago, Christian pastors who were really worried about what is called Christian Nationalism, what they are seeing, how they see their faith, their God being to weaponize, in a way to support Trump.

Donny told me that this drum beat of Christian nationalism has been getting louder and louder in the last year. It's the idea that Christ is missing from our politics and government. Top leaders in the party, including Trump, have talked about this. But it's one thing to want the Ten Commandments to be displayed in schools. It's quite another to believe that Trump has been predestined by God to be President.

Good to see you again, Pastor.

Same here. Good to see you. Thank you for being with us.

And thank you for having us.

That's part of why Dony wanted to talk to these pastors again.

Okay. Dony, we just met with a few pastors who you met a couple of weeks ago here in Milwaukee. In terms of the Christian nationalism and the rhetoric about God intermingling with politics, what did they tell you about how some on the right are reacting to the assassination attempt that God protected Trump in that moment?

Yeah, one of the pastors I spoke to there said, Miracles happen every day.

At the same time, this thing about putting him above or making him divine. I just do not believe that a divine, loving God promotes hatred and spews division among people.

Well, he also said, I guess, condemn what happened, condemn the attempted assassination. But don't let it stop you from protesting for standing up for your rights.

Yes, that's a part of who I am. It's in my upbringing coming out of My mother taught me that. Had me participating in protests in march is probably at the age of eight. It's something we do because we believe in it and we want truth to come forth. We want the truth to come forth.

But that pastor, He grew up in Alabama, in the South. He essentially said, Sometimes if you believe in something, you're going to come to an event like this, even if there's that heightened risk. Where are we right now?

We are at the March on the RNC. This is the first big protest of the week. It's Monday afternoon. Look, there was a lot of concern, nervousness, as we've been hearing, that this could turn violent, that there could be counter-protesters, Trump supporters. Right now, it's all remained peaceful. It's a whole coalition of different groups here. They are all mostly united in anti-Trump. There are groups fighting for abortion rights, fighting done something that Trump should be taken out or people were saying that the gunman was a CIA guy and also just that the whole thing was staged, maybe even staged by the Trump campaign to get a photo op.We should say no validity to any of those.Zero. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever for any of this.But do we get the sense that some of those ideas, even if they are false, have made their way offline into regular conversation?Yeah, we saw that today.How did you feel, Mary, when you saw the assassination attempt?Do you really want to know? Yes. The first thing that ran through my head is because we cannot believe this man ever, that it was somehow fake.Now, that a man- Spoke to three women, all from Wisconsin here. They were at the anti-Trump protest here, the march on the RNC today. And yeah, it was pretty shocking, really, because they all said that they believed that the shooting might have been staged.Even though they were marching at an anti-Trump protest.At an anti-Trump protest.But I couldn't help but wonder because we've been lied to over and over by this man, the way he came up and raised his and acted like it was nothing. He wants to make it into something big.So you initially thought it was staged? Yes.Yes. As we all did.Do you still believe that?Yes.We don't know.I'm not sure. It's not impossible. It's not impossible. I can't roll it out.Mary Mann, one of the ladies I spoke to today, I really admired her honesty because she said, Look, I know this sounds crazy. I know that I'm probably buying into a conspiracy theory here, but yet I cannot shake this idea.And what really frightens me and scares me and makes me angry is suddenly now I'm in on a conspiracy theory. I like to be someone who follows the facts and pays attention to the facts. And so I'm listening to as much as I can, and I don't want to go down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But when you have someone that always lies, it's very hard to believe anything that they say to be true.She said, Look, I cannot. I still can't bring myself to believe that this wasn't in some way staged or orchestrated. And look, I mean, there's zero, zero, zero evidence for that, right?Yeah. Well, then so what do you make of that idea as this election continues?That even a political assassination like this cannot just be a straightforward act of political violence.Yeah, look, I think the best known modern American political conspiracy theory is about the JFK assassination. Right. These are such massive moments in American history that, of course, there will always be some questioning about it and wondering, Well, was that what really happened? But what was It was just so stunning for me today, and somebody has been following this stuff for a long time now, was these ladies, they could see what they were thinking was irrational. Mary knew that. Yes, being honest with herself and being honest with us. She said, Look, I still maybe believe this conspiracy theory. So you are a target now. I am.You're susceptible to this misinformation.And that is part of what really bothers me about this whole thing is because this has become part of what happens in this country.And we've watched-I think what it says for this election campaign, and more importantly, what it says just for America right now, is that there has just been such an erosion of trust. We have seen that, right? We have seen that journalism institutions, newsrooms being torn apart layoffs, and we're about to head over to Media Row at the RNC, where you'll see a very different form of media organization. Form of media organization that is thriving believing, and we're about to see a lot of them. When there's an election, you call, simply, sip a cup of tea, dip a biscuit in it, and then murmur who the preferred candidate will be. Now, I've never been to anything like this. This is somewhere between a carnival and a trade fair.So we're in Media Row. Yes. Who have we seen?We've been here like two minutes and we've seen the Michael O'Guy, Russell Brand, Rudy Giuliani.Is this what conservative media is now?Yes. And I think as we walk around here, you see just like, Benny Media, Daily Signal, Frank Speech.I think the average person that is not super tuned in to politics won't recognize those names.Exactly.But you follow this stuff closely, and these are big names in this ecosystem.Massive. I mean, this is the thing, right? Most of our listeners might never have heard of this, any of these, but some of these outlets have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. I think it really just shows you how fractured the media environment is right now. That's why we all have this different understanding of what is really happening in this country. I think multiple media outlets are great. The issue is a lot of people in this room are not promoting reality. Give us an update on how your attempts to secure the- This is the update.Are you guys already? Get your cameras rolling. Okay, here's the new plan. Everybody, whether you're a Democrat, whether you're a Republican, a liberal, conservative, does not matter. You request your mail-in ballot Not your registration. You get your actual ballot off the dirty voter rolls. You get your ballot and you hang on to that ballot. Whenever you vote, if you get in there and they tell you you've already voted, now you have something, you pull it out and say, no, I didn't. It's a new It's called Identity Fifth. It's like if I stole your identity or your ID-So you get your mail in balance. You get your mail-in ballot. You get your mail-in ballot whenever you vote.You just finished a-I need to lie down on a mic In an interview, I guess, with Mike Lindell, the My Pillow Man.You two have a history of sorts.Yes, we do. We do. Yeah, I first met Mike three years ago when he had his so-called old cyber symposium where he was supposed to prove that the 2020 election was stolen. Of course, it wasn't, and he didn't prove that. But we are working. We've been talking to Mike a lot this year for an episode of the whole Story hour long, special on Sunday nights on CNN. But yeah, so Mike is on this crusade now to do multiple things, one of which is to secure elections or his view of securing elections in the US. And two, because he got kicked off some social media platforms, he's now set up his own social media platforms and his own streaming network. You saw Rudy Giuliani, he gone live there. I think what really changed things and what really makes this election very different when it comes to the media landscape and social media landscape is there are so many more platforms that are popular. After January sixth, when Trump got kicked off the major social media platform, so did a lot of his followers, people who were sharing conspiracy theories. We don't have a final number on it, but it was a lot of people.And new social media platforms that market themselves as bastions of free speech, like Parler, like Truth Social, like Gab, became actually popular. And now there is real communities on there. And for people who are on those platforms, they really are only seeing one point of view, one side of the story. And that's pulling people further and further down these rabbit holes of misinformation. I'll put it this way. All of what's happening here, you hear this stuff about undocumented people are going to vote en masse for Biden, which is false.Right. And that's a platform of the actual Republican Party making it illegal for non-citizens to vote, which it already is on the federal level, but on state level, they want more.Yeah, but look, all these things are happening. You're hearing about the voting machines and the paper ballots. Look, everything is just being put in place, laying the groundwork that if Trump does lose in November, they're going to have all these things ready to go. There is going to be the paper ballot issue. There will be the voting machine issue. There will be an undocumented people voting issue. One thing I think it's worth remembering, and I think there could be chaos in some ways from the other side, too, right? Because if Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee is, loses, there are now a lot of election deniers in positions to oversee elections across the US. So you might also have the case that Democrats will come along and take issue with some results. So I think no matter what way things go, The groundwork has been laid for a lot of time. It's going to be pretty for a lot of things. Especially on the Republican side, obviously. I mean, it's on a whole other level.As we left Media Row, night one of the RNC was getting underway in the arena right across the street.Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce that Senator J. D. Vance has the overwhelming support of this convention to be the next vice President of the United States.Ohio Senator J. D. Vance was officially unveiled as Trump's Running Me. Trump himself even made an appearance wearing a bandage over his right ear.You can see the emotion on his face. It looks like possibly even tears. On his face, this crowd, joyfully welcoming him back after the horrible events over the weekend.But we continue to hear this idea that Trump was spared by God himself, that divine intervention is at play as this election continues.Because on Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but an American lion got back up on his feet and he roared. Oh, yeah.Again, like Dony told me, this mixing of God and politics has some faith leaders concerned. Will Trump's brush with death further emboldened those who already see Trump as a Christlike figure? Will his allies paint authoritarian plans and a push for retribution as all part of God's will? We don't know at this point. For now, the main message from the Republican Party is one of unity and peace in the wake of the assassination attempt. But as we've seen, this election has not played out at all like we expected, and the Democratic National Convention is just around the corner.One Thing is a production of CNN Audio.This episode was produced by Paula Ortiz and me, David Reind. Our senior producer is Fez Jamil. Our supervising producer is Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dizula is our technical director, and Steve Ligtai is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manisari, Robert Mathers, Lanie Steinhart, Jamis André, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namerau. Special thanks to Kimberly Barrett, Laura Robinson, Sean Clark, Ken Schiffman, Andrew Cristman, and Katie Hinman. Thanks for listening. We'll be back on Sunday. I will talk to you then.

done something that Trump should be taken out or people were saying that the gunman was a CIA guy and also just that the whole thing was staged, maybe even staged by the Trump campaign to get a photo op.

We should say no validity to any of those.

Zero. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever for any of this.

But do we get the sense that some of those ideas, even if they are false, have made their way offline into regular conversation?

Yeah, we saw that today.

How did you feel, Mary, when you saw the assassination attempt?

Do you really want to know? Yes. The first thing that ran through my head is because we cannot believe this man ever, that it was somehow fake.

Now, that a man- Spoke to three women, all from Wisconsin here. They were at the anti-Trump protest here, the march on the RNC today. And yeah, it was pretty shocking, really, because they all said that they believed that the shooting might have been staged.

Even though they were marching at an anti-Trump protest.

At an anti-Trump protest.

But I couldn't help but wonder because we've been lied to over and over by this man, the way he came up and raised his and acted like it was nothing. He wants to make it into something big.

So you initially thought it was staged? Yes.

Yes. As we all did.

Do you still believe that?

Yes.

We don't know.

I'm not sure. It's not impossible. It's not impossible. I can't roll it out.

Mary Mann, one of the ladies I spoke to today, I really admired her honesty because she said, Look, I know this sounds crazy. I know that I'm probably buying into a conspiracy theory here, but yet I cannot shake this idea.

And what really frightens me and scares me and makes me angry is suddenly now I'm in on a conspiracy theory. I like to be someone who follows the facts and pays attention to the facts. And so I'm listening to as much as I can, and I don't want to go down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. But when you have someone that always lies, it's very hard to believe anything that they say to be true.

She said, Look, I cannot. I still can't bring myself to believe that this wasn't in some way staged or orchestrated. And look, I mean, there's zero, zero, zero evidence for that, right?

Yeah. Well, then so what do you make of that idea as this election continues?

That even a political assassination like this cannot just be a straightforward act of political violence.

Yeah, look, I think the best known modern American political conspiracy theory is about the JFK assassination. Right. These are such massive moments in American history that, of course, there will always be some questioning about it and wondering, Well, was that what really happened? But what was It was just so stunning for me today, and somebody has been following this stuff for a long time now, was these ladies, they could see what they were thinking was irrational. Mary knew that. Yes, being honest with herself and being honest with us. She said, Look, I still maybe believe this conspiracy theory. So you are a target now. I am.

You're susceptible to this misinformation.

And that is part of what really bothers me about this whole thing is because this has become part of what happens in this country.

And we've watched-I think what it says for this election campaign, and more importantly, what it says just for America right now, is that there has just been such an erosion of trust. We have seen that, right? We have seen that journalism institutions, newsrooms being torn apart layoffs, and we're about to head over to Media Row at the RNC, where you'll see a very different form of media organization. Form of media organization that is thriving believing, and we're about to see a lot of them. When there's an election, you call, simply, sip a cup of tea, dip a biscuit in it, and then murmur who the preferred candidate will be. Now, I've never been to anything like this. This is somewhere between a carnival and a trade fair.

So we're in Media Row. Yes. Who have we seen?

We've been here like two minutes and we've seen the Michael O'Guy, Russell Brand, Rudy Giuliani.

Is this what conservative media is now?

Yes. And I think as we walk around here, you see just like, Benny Media, Daily Signal, Frank Speech.

I think the average person that is not super tuned in to politics won't recognize those names.

Exactly.

But you follow this stuff closely, and these are big names in this ecosystem.

Massive. I mean, this is the thing, right? Most of our listeners might never have heard of this, any of these, but some of these outlets have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. I think it really just shows you how fractured the media environment is right now. That's why we all have this different understanding of what is really happening in this country. I think multiple media outlets are great. The issue is a lot of people in this room are not promoting reality. Give us an update on how your attempts to secure the- This is the update.

Are you guys already? Get your cameras rolling. Okay, here's the new plan. Everybody, whether you're a Democrat, whether you're a Republican, a liberal, conservative, does not matter. You request your mail-in ballot Not your registration. You get your actual ballot off the dirty voter rolls. You get your ballot and you hang on to that ballot. Whenever you vote, if you get in there and they tell you you've already voted, now you have something, you pull it out and say, no, I didn't. It's a new It's called Identity Fifth. It's like if I stole your identity or your ID-So you get your mail in balance. You get your mail-in ballot. You get your mail-in ballot whenever you vote.

You just finished a-I need to lie down on a mic In an interview, I guess, with Mike Lindell, the My Pillow Man.

You two have a history of sorts.

Yes, we do. We do. Yeah, I first met Mike three years ago when he had his so-called old cyber symposium where he was supposed to prove that the 2020 election was stolen. Of course, it wasn't, and he didn't prove that. But we are working. We've been talking to Mike a lot this year for an episode of the whole Story hour long, special on Sunday nights on CNN. But yeah, so Mike is on this crusade now to do multiple things, one of which is to secure elections or his view of securing elections in the US. And two, because he got kicked off some social media platforms, he's now set up his own social media platforms and his own streaming network. You saw Rudy Giuliani, he gone live there. I think what really changed things and what really makes this election very different when it comes to the media landscape and social media landscape is there are so many more platforms that are popular. After January sixth, when Trump got kicked off the major social media platform, so did a lot of his followers, people who were sharing conspiracy theories. We don't have a final number on it, but it was a lot of people.

And new social media platforms that market themselves as bastions of free speech, like Parler, like Truth Social, like Gab, became actually popular. And now there is real communities on there. And for people who are on those platforms, they really are only seeing one point of view, one side of the story. And that's pulling people further and further down these rabbit holes of misinformation. I'll put it this way. All of what's happening here, you hear this stuff about undocumented people are going to vote en masse for Biden, which is false.

Right. And that's a platform of the actual Republican Party making it illegal for non-citizens to vote, which it already is on the federal level, but on state level, they want more.

Yeah, but look, all these things are happening. You're hearing about the voting machines and the paper ballots. Look, everything is just being put in place, laying the groundwork that if Trump does lose in November, they're going to have all these things ready to go. There is going to be the paper ballot issue. There will be the voting machine issue. There will be an undocumented people voting issue. One thing I think it's worth remembering, and I think there could be chaos in some ways from the other side, too, right? Because if Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee is, loses, there are now a lot of election deniers in positions to oversee elections across the US. So you might also have the case that Democrats will come along and take issue with some results. So I think no matter what way things go, The groundwork has been laid for a lot of time. It's going to be pretty for a lot of things. Especially on the Republican side, obviously. I mean, it's on a whole other level.

As we left Media Row, night one of the RNC was getting underway in the arena right across the street.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce that Senator J. D. Vance has the overwhelming support of this convention to be the next vice President of the United States.

Ohio Senator J. D. Vance was officially unveiled as Trump's Running Me. Trump himself even made an appearance wearing a bandage over his right ear.

You can see the emotion on his face. It looks like possibly even tears. On his face, this crowd, joyfully welcoming him back after the horrible events over the weekend.

But we continue to hear this idea that Trump was spared by God himself, that divine intervention is at play as this election continues.

Because on Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but an American lion got back up on his feet and he roared. Oh, yeah.

Again, like Dony told me, this mixing of God and politics has some faith leaders concerned. Will Trump's brush with death further emboldened those who already see Trump as a Christlike figure? Will his allies paint authoritarian plans and a push for retribution as all part of God's will? We don't know at this point. For now, the main message from the Republican Party is one of unity and peace in the wake of the assassination attempt. But as we've seen, this election has not played out at all like we expected, and the Democratic National Convention is just around the corner.

One Thing is a production of CNN Audio.

This episode was produced by Paula Ortiz and me, David Reind. Our senior producer is Fez Jamil. Our supervising producer is Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dizula is our technical director, and Steve Ligtai is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manisari, Robert Mathers, Lanie Steinhart, Jamis André, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namerau. Special thanks to Kimberly Barrett, Laura Robinson, Sean Clark, Ken Schiffman, Andrew Cristman, and Katie Hinman. Thanks for listening. We'll be back on Sunday. I will talk to you then.