(WASHINGTON) — In her first network interview since the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said that the Pennsylvania rally shooting was “unacceptable.”
“It was unacceptable,” she said in an interview Monday with ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas. “And it’s something that shouldn’t happen again.”
The violent incident on Saturday, which left one rallygoer dead, marked the first time a current or former president has been wounded in an attempted assassination since Ronald Reagan in 1981.
When she first learned of the shooting, Cheatle said she was shocked and concerned — both for Trump and for the Secret Service agents who responded to the incident.
“It was obviously a situation that as a Secret Service agent, no one ever wants to occur in their career,” she said.
‘Buck stops with me’
As the head of the agency, Cheatle said it’s her responsibility to investigate what went wrong and make sure nothing like it can happen again.
“The buck stops with me,” she said. “I am the director of the Secret Service, and I need to make sure that we are performing a review and that we are giving resources to our personnel as necessary.”
Cheatle responded to reports that the suspect was seen and identified as potentially suspicious before he opened fire, saying that “a very short period of time” passed between then and the shooting.
“I don’t have all the details yet, but it was a very short period of time,” she said. “Seeking that person out, finding them, identifying them, and eventually neutralizing them took place in a very short period of time, and it makes it very difficult.”
She is expected to testify before the GOP-led House Oversight Committee next Monday, July 22.
Director says to have confidence in Secret Service
Still, she said, the American people should have confidence in the Secret Service’s ability to protect the president and former president.
In the aftermath of the assassination attempt, she “immediately” started looking at the protective details of those under Secret Service protection.
She said she reached out to the former president’s staff and attempted to contact him but hasn’t gotten through.
Cheatle also pushed back on the misinformation that is out there regarding the assassination attempt.
“Secret Service is not political,” she said. “Security is not political. People’s safety is not political. And that’s what we’re focused on as an agency.”
And she reiterated, as other officials have said, that there is “no truth” to the rumors the former president’s detail asked for more resources.
The decision to take out the shooter, she said, was a “split second decision” the agent made while perched on the roof.
“They have the ability to make that decision on their own. If they see that it’s a threat and they did that in that instance,” she said.
“And I applaud the fact that they made that decision and didn’t have to check with anybody and thankfully neutralized the threat.”
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