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We are continuing to learn more about what happened in the lead-up to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last night. CNN's Tom Foreman takes a look at the exact timeline of this attack. 604 Saturday evening. Before an adoring and roaring crowd, former President Donald Trump steps to the podium. Seven and a half minutes later. Take a look at what happened. Pandemonium. Amid a series of sharp pops, Trump touches his ear and ducks. Three seconds later, Secret Service agents are swarming in to shield him, and security snipers have opened fire on the would-be assassin. Seemed initially like firecrackers went off. As chaos erupts among the attendees. He's got a gun! He's got a gun! One rally-goer sees another man has been killed. He's got a gun! He's got a gun! He's got a gun! He's got a gun! He's got a gun! Despite the rescue efforts of bystanders, they jumped the bleachers and started clearing the bleachers. And then I helped carry the body of the man down out of the bleachers, and I took him to a tent behind the bleachers. We put a towel over his head, but he's deceased. It all happens fast. 30 seconds after the first shots ring out, the podium's microphone catches Secret Service agents coordinating Trump's evacuation from that stage. Hold, hold. When you're ready, on you. Then, just over a minute after the violence started, the all clear. Shooters down. Shooters down. At 6:12 p.m., the agents rise with Trump and try to usher him rapidly away. But he says. Let me get my shoes. Let me get my shoes. Shortly after, he's on his way to a safe vehicle. But he tells agents to pause again. He turns to the rattled crowd in what will become an historic photo. Soon, pictures start surfacing, of what appears to be a dead gunman on a roof, not more than 500 feet away from Trump's right side, as he stood on the stage. And the much more methodical police work begins. We need the public's help, anyone who was on scene, who saw anything. As the FBI and partners start piecing together who the assailant is, how he got there, whether he acted alone, and ultimately, why he fired. An investigation that certainly will go on for months. We know so much more now than we did in those frantic moments, but it is the unknowns that will keep this going for so long in the investigations. The unknowns about whether anybody else was involved in helping plan this attack or facilitating it, and whether or not anybody else should be held accountable for not stopping it. Caitlin? Yeah, it's amazing to see just how quickly it all unfolded. Tom Foreman, thank you for laying it all out for us. And that shooting was just two days before the Republican convention was set to get underway here in Milwaukee. That's what most of the Trump campaign had been focused on. It was what that was going to look like, speeches, his vice presidential pick. All of that has been upended by what happened last night on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania. Here to talk about the implications of it all, Scott Jennings, CNN's senior political commentator, and also former special assistant to President George W. Bush, and also David Axelrod, a CNN political commentator and former senior to President Obama. Obviously, so much has changed from what we thought we would be talking about 24 hours ago. David Axelrod, let me start with you because President Biden gave those brief remarks with the Vice President and the Attorney General flanking him. He did announce he's giving a rare Oval Office address tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern. What's he going to use a moment like that? What would you advise him to use a moment like that? Well, I think what he's going to try and do is speak to this need for national unity in the face of this, for a lowering of voices and so on. You know, I think he is working hard to play the role of president here, which has ancillary political benefits for him. But he wants to seize control of this moment and show that he is the national leader. And the way you do that is through an Oval Office speech. Scott, what do you think that should look like? Well, he certainly should ask for people to settle down and to think hard about the way we're treating each other. I mean, it's a it's a very timely moment. I think when you think about what happened to Donald Trump, I'm thinking about what happened to Cory Campbell, who got killed behind Donald Trump for nothing other than showing up to a political event to exercise his rights as an American to go to an assembly and have free speech. I mean, that that's why he's dead. And I think for a lot of ordinary people, they're they're worried about, is this what our politics is going to be like for the rest of this year and for the foreseeable future? So I hope Axe is right. I think he should ask for that. I think everybody should ask for that. But right now, the mood among Republicans is pretty sour and pretty worried and pretty angry about, you know, what's happened to their nominee and and what happened to that that rally goer who had a beautiful family and everybody's devastated for him and died in service of protecting them. His daughter said that he threw them to the ground and shielded them, essentially. My first political experience was Kennedy rally in New York City. And, you know, no one there would have thought there was any danger. I'm sure no one there thought there was any danger. No. Yesterday. And that was a formative event in my life. I'm worried. It's this certainly was a formative event in that in that firefighter's life. And, you know, just for his children, it's going to stay in them for the rest of their lives. What's going to happen for this convention is: are they [going] to be the move, is the mood going to be one of unity? Is there a sense of a pulling back and pulling together as a country or is it going to be a mood of anger? And if [it], if this convention projects and Donald Trump projects the spirit of unity and coming together, it'll be much more successful whether he can. You're trying to reel in forces that you've been covering for years and years and years. Years. That isn't the spirit in which I think people expect it to come to Milwaukee. But he has a chance to do it. I mean, he looks strong coming off that stage last night. He projected strength and he's running against someone who right now does not project strength. And I think the American people are looking for a president who can project strength and then use it for a good end. And right now, using your strength, using your voice and using what's happened to Donald Trump, to me, looks like unifying this country and talking about a future where we're not worried about getting shot at political rallies and we're not worried about being at each other's throats all the time. I sincerely, sincerely hope that's where we go. What about the fact that Nikki Haley is coming? She was not invited. And last week, a few days ago, when you talked to me, there was no, they weren't even considering the possibility of her coming. And now we have a source close to her confirming that she will be here. She'll be speaking in this room behind us on Tuesday. Obviously, she and Donald Trump probably had the most challenging primary battle, if I'm putting it in nice terms, there at the end, in the terms of how they talked about each other. What does it mean that she will have a speaking slot, a coveted speaking slot? It's interesting that this news surfaces after the events of yesterday. And it'll be interesting to find out whether that had anything to do with her decision to come. But she certainly is someone who can deliver a message. And I think that's what we're looking for. A message of coming together that would be more consistent with her politics. So maybe that's the message that she's going to deliver. But again, you know, this is a big turn in direction from the kind of nature of the Trump campaign for a couple of years here. So it is a chance for him to enlarge himself. And the question is, is he, is he capable of seizing it? It's really a chance for him to leave Joe Biden behind. I mean, if you look at where Biden sits in the polling, 30s approval rating, vast majority of the country doesn't think he's up to another four years. He's sort of operating out of a position of weakness right now. People are unhappy with the job he's done. Donald Trump has all the leverage, all the capital, and all the ability in this campaign right now to drive a message and to really set the tone and set the contours of the rest of this year and leave Biden behind. This is the way he's going to do it. Weakly, I think that's the reason why this Oval Office speech is happening tonight. I mean, I think it is the right thing for the President to do. But politically, I think he wants to see some of that leadership in this moment and demonstrate it. And I think actually this is going to be an important speech for him. I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't think he should underestimate how angry Republicans are with his rhetoric and with the rhetoric of a lot of people who hate Donald Trump. And, in my opinion, he needs to speak to that tonight. And he does not need to equivocate on it. And he does not need to both-sides. He needs to speak to his people tonight and say 'no more Hitler', no more. The country's coming to an end. No more. We're dissolving the Constitution. That's got to stop. And I think he can do it. Well, listen, I mean, Donald Trump has been the author of so much. You know, if you don't vote, if I don't win, we're going to lose our country. I mean, I mean, I'm old enough to remember January 6th. And so, to say 'don't both sides', it, I think, ignores the reality of where we've been in our politics. There's a lot of culpability here. And I think more than a little falls on the guy who's going to be nominated in that building. And everyone, of course, is yearning for the temperature to be taken down. Regular people are. David Axelrod, Scott Jennings, thank you both for being here. We'll be right back.