NORAH O'DONNELL:
00:00:49
It looked chaotic. At one point, you were down. What was happening? Well, what happened is it was a little bit me. I wanted to see what was happening. And I wasn't making it that easy for them. I wanted to see what was going on. And by that time, we started to realize maybe it was a bad problem, a different kind of a problem, a bad one, and different than what would be normal noise from a ballroom which you hear all the time. And I was surrounded by great people, and I probably made them act a little bit more slowly. I said, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let me see. Wait a minute. So I'm telling guys-- Just at that moment where it looks like you go sort of down with the Service, you were telling them to wait?
DONALD TRUMP:
00:01:33
Well, they asked me-- well, no. What happened is then I started walking with them. I turned. I started walking. And they said, please, go down. Please, go down on the floor. So I went down, and the first lady went down also. But we were asked to go down by the agents as I was walking. In other words-- They wanted you almost to crawl out? I was standing up, pretty much. I was standing up and then turned around the opposite direction and started pretty much walking out pretty tall, a little bent over because I'm not looking to be standing too tall. But I was walking out. It was pretty-- about halfway there, and they said, please, go down to the floor. Please, go down to the floor. So I dropped to the floor. So did the first lady. What was your thought at that moment? What did the first lady say? Well, my thought was, I've been through this before a couple of times, and she has not, to this extent. She handled it great. I mean, she's very strong, smart. She got it. She knew what was happening. The so-called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President. He appears to reference a motive in it. He writes this quote. "Administration officials, they are targets." And he also wrote this. "I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes." What's your reaction that? Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you're horrible people-- horrible people. Yeah, he did write that. I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody. I'm not a pedophile. Oh, do you think he was referring to you? Excuse me. Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let's say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, you know, I'll do this interview, and they'll probably-- I read the manifesto. He's a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I'm not any of those things. I was never-- Mr. President, these are the gunman's words.
DONALD TRUMP:
00:03:45
Excuse me. Excuse me. You shouldn't be reading that on 60 Minutes. You're a disgrace. But go ahead. Let's finish the interview. Norah O'Donnell joins us now. Norah, it's a question you had to ask the president. That's right, and I think the president's responses were certainly newsworthy. In fact, within the first minute of our interview, he brought up this so-called manifesto by the alleged gunman, and these are important questions about what happened and why it happened. The president told us he thought that the gunman was a lone wolf, but there are real questions about the state of America, political violence, and extremism. What is driving that? That certainly was part of our conversation last night. In that manifesto, he signs it "friendly federal assassin." And so all of this is part of the reason that as soon as this attack happened on Saturday night-- Major, you and I were not far from each other-- why we at 60 Minutes and CBS News immediately began emailing the White House and asking for an interview with the president of the United States to find out what he knew, what he was being briefed on, and to get that information and share that as quickly as possible. This could have been the third attempted assassination against President Trump within two years. As you know, there were so many high-level cabinet officials there, and so that was part of the discussion. One other area that I asked him about, Major, is what is developing online right now and these unfounded theories about that this attack was staged. Listen to what he said. I hesitate to ask you about this, but as you know, these conspiracy theories out there on the left and that the event was staged or that it didn't happen. What, last night didn't happen? Yeah, because it was your first time there or that Butler didn't happen, these conspiracy theories that are gaining traction online. Well, and October 7 didn't happen and World War II didn't happen and the Holocaust didn't happen and many things didn't happen yet. No, I hear it. I don't know. I think they're more sick than they are con people, but there's a lot of con in it too. I haven't heard that last night didn't happen. Usually, it takes a little bit longer. Usually, they wait about two or three months to start saying that. Now, the president also said in our interview that he will return to this dinner if it can be scheduled within the next 30 days. He said he's busy. But this is an important dinner, Major, as you know It is for the White House Correspondents' Association that, through Republican and Democratic administration, presses the president and the administration for press access. That's important. The president did appear after the attack to be more unified, sort of in his voice, and he certainly was very reflective in our interview as well. Major.
MAJOR GARRETT:
00:06:36
Thank you, Norah, very much.
