Trump and Vance talk VP selection and assassination attempt: ‘We’re getting down to the small bandages’ – live

Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle admitted Monday her agency failed to protect Donald Trump from an attempted assassination at a campaign rally, calling it the “most significant operational failure … in decades.”

Cheatle was grilled by House members at a contentious hearing over the blunders that allowed a a 20-year-old gunman wielding his father’s AR-15 assault-style rifle to scale a roof and open fire. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have come out demanding Cheatle step down as the agency’s leader.

Eric Garcia and Justin Rohrlich report.

In his first televised interview after an attempted assassination, Donald Trump argued that President Joe Biden did not need a robust security detail for his campaign rallies as the former president questioned why there weren’t “enough people” protecting him when shots were fired at one of his own.

“The problem is Biden doesn’t draw anybody. He draws flies,” said Trump, sitting beside his running mate JD Vance for their first interview together on Fox News on Monday.

“He draws nobody,” Trump said. “You don’t need very many people for that because he does not draw — 30 people show up. We have 55, 65,000 people.”

For weeks, reports abounded about President Joe Biden’s cognitive condition in the wake of his terrible performance at last month’s CNN presidential debate. With mounting pressure, finally, this weekend, he quit the presidential race.

But not nearly as much ink has been spilt on the mental condition of Donald Trump.

But as the former President accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for the third consecutive election, conservative attorney George Conway was determined to give him a diagnosis.

Trump said Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle met with him following the assassination attempt.

“She was very nice, I thought but, somebody should have made sure there was nobody on that roof – that roof was a dead aim right onto the stage,” Trump told Fox News on Monday night. “And they said they didn’t have the manpower for it, which is crazy.”

He added: “130 yards is like sinking a one-foot pot. It’s considered really close.”

Trump said on Monday night that he would declassify the assassination attempt files if he’s elected to a second term.

“There should be nothing to hide here,” he said.

Trump said the Secret Service sniper at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally was a “world-class shot.”

“I guess he didn’t want to take the shot. I can understand that one a little bit because … you don’t want to shoot somebody if that person’s not going to be carrying a gun,” he added.

Speaking about the gunman at his rally, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Trump said: “They were monitoring this guy for an hour beforehand.”

“No one told you not to take the stage. Nobody mentioned it,” he added. “Nobody said there was a problem … They could have said let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes … I think that was a mistake.”

Trump described his call with President Joe Biden following the assassination attempt, saying: “It was good. It was a nice conversation. He said you’re lucky you turned to the right.”

“This country would be lucky if it turned to the right,” Fox News host Jesse Watters said.

“Well, I guess, maybe, certainly to a certain extent it would, wouldn’t it be nice,” Trump said.

Gustaf Kilander has the story.