The Attempts on Trump’s Life, Why He Shut Down the Investigations & How It Altered History Forever

**Tucker Carlson** (0:04)
Ken Silva, thank you very much for doing this. You've written a book on the Trump assassination plots, the two from the summer of 2024, about which there are more unanswered questions than answered questions, and they're so transparently ridiculous, the stories that we have been told.
That my first question is where are all the other books on this topic? What did this fall to you?

**Ken Silva** (0:30)
That was my question too, man. You're actually probably one of the only major media figures that's still keeping this story alive, so it's a pleasure to talk to you. But yeah, there were a couple books published in the wake, like Selena Zito is a Washington Examiner reporter, wrote a book called Butler, but it goes more into the cultural aspects of the Butler community and the political effects, the political fallout of the event. It's not really like a forensic investigation. This is the first of that kind.

**Tucker Carlson** (1:01)
Does Zito's book have a conclusion?
Does it reach a conclusion about what that was? Or does she affirm the official story, which is this was a crazed left-wing lone gunman?

**Ken Silva** (1:13)
Yeah, it's more or less an affirmation of the official story. And again, just like the political fallout, that's more of the book. She was there that day, so there is like an autobiographical account of what happened from when she got there. But it doesn't go into like the details about what happened over on the AGR building or the security failures or who Thomas Crooks was.

**Tucker Carlson** (1:37)
So I'm going to state what I think is the official account of what happened in Butler that day. And then I would like you to just take us through what you know about what happened in Butler that day. So the official account is there's this weird kid, local kid, who really hates Trump and he's been radicalized probably online. We don't really know because he has no meaningful online profile. He's like the only young man in America who's not online.
And he's somehow a very good shot.
And he somehow gets into the one vulnerable place at the event site in Butler Township that gives him a sight line to Trump. And nobody notices this because there are just these unaccountable holes in security. It's just amazing. It's just a failure of security. And he takes the shot. He misses. He kills someone in the stands. A fireman.
And then he's killed by a US government sniper. And he had no accomplices. He's just a crazy person, one of many. And that's all we know. Case closed.

**Ken Silva** (2:57)
And that's bad enough.

**Tucker Carlson** (2:58)
But is that a fair representation of, to this day, the story of what happened in Butler?

**Ken Silva** (3:04)
The biggest issue I would take with the official story about just what happened that day is that a lot of people think the Secret Service Sniper actually saved the day.
You know, everybody knows about the slope roof excuse for why they didn't have somebody posted there in the first place. The fact that that building was outside of the ostensible perimeter, even though it was, you know, again, like 150 yards clear line of sight to Trump. But a lot of people say, well, at least the Secret Service Sniper stopped it from being a lot worse. In fact, Donald Trump said that a couple of weeks ago after this most recent White House Correspondence dinner attack, he's talking about, well, they did a lot better at that event than they did at Butler. Although my buddy David saved my life at Butler, he's the sniper, his name's David King. And Trump says he responded in 4.2 seconds from 400 yards away.
Neither one of those assertions by Trump are true, which is very bizarre that he doesn't know the details about the attempt on his own life. In fact, it was a local cop who saved the day. It was the alleged would-be assassin Crooks fired three well-measured, discrete shots, and then there's a short pause, and then he starts rapid firing five shots. And then the ninth shot comes immediately after that eighth shot, all in the span of five seconds from the local cop on the ground. His name is Aaron Zalepone. He was a Butler ESU member. And then there's ten whole seconds that pass by before David King finally puts the final bullet through Crooks.

**Tucker Carlson** (4:55)
Thomas Crooks fired nine shots?

**Ken Silva** (4:57)
He fired eight shots, and then the ninth shot came from the ground from Zalepone.

**Tucker Carlson** (5:02)
He fired eight shots. So let's just start at the beginning.