Listen on the go: Four Days investigation, narrated by Kevin Donovan
1.
On the first day of our Four Days investigation, we went to the New York City apartment where the president’s son was shot in the head. At first we thought his name was Robert, but he said he was the president’s oldest son, John.
There’s a huge difference between how we think and how the public thinks when it comes to the president’s sons. After Robert was shot, we were told that the president’s oldest son was still in the hospital, recovering from surgery and a long recovery, but we weren’t told if he was alive to answer any questions.
At one point during the investigation, ABC’s Barbara Walters flew in from New York City to interview the president’s son, though she didn’t actually have an appointment with him. The president’s press secretary said it was because his son was the family’s “rock star.”
Our first question was, who is your rock star?
At that point, I realized that we weren’t going to get anything by asking this question. You’re not going to get anything from this rock star if he’s alive.
So I took out my notebook and asked it the way you normally ask questions in the field, asking, “How did it happen?”
The son’s friends and family, who were all there with us, say that he had no idea he was going to be on the news. All he knew was that he learned that President Trump was the target of a criminal probe.
According to the book The Secret Life of Donald Trump, he received a phone call from his father the day he was shot. That day, Trump was in the Oval Office with his children when he received a phone call from his son’s best friend, Rob Goldstone. Goldstone called him from the president’s hotel room. Trump asked him to tell Goldstone that his father was not angry with him that night, but Goldstone said he wanted to talk to the president a second time.
It was almost as if he knew he was going to be shot