In her first network interview since the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said the shooting at the Pennsylvania rally was “unacceptable.”
“It was unacceptable,” she said Monday in an interview with ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas. “And it’s something that shouldn’t happen again.”
Saturday’s violent incident, which left one attendee dead, marked the first time a current or former president has been injured in an attempted assassination since Ronald Reagan in 1981.
When Cheatle first heard about the shooting, she said she was shocked and concerned — both for Trump and for the Secret Service agents who responded to the incident.
“It was clearly a situation that no Secret Service agent wants to experience in their career,” she said.
‘Buck stops at me’
As head of the agency, Cheatle said it is her responsibility to investigate what went wrong and ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again.
“The responsibility is mine,” she said. “I’m the director of the Secret Service, and I have to make sure that we do an evaluation and that we give our personnel the resources that are necessary.”
Cheatle responded to reports that the suspect had been seen and identified as a potential suspect before he opened fire, saying there was “very little time” between the moment of shooting and the shooting.
“I don’t have all the details yet, but it was a very short period of time,” she said. “Finding, finding, identifying and ultimately neutralizing that person happened in a very short period of time, and that makes it very difficult.”
Cheatle also said that local authorities were tasked with securing the building where the alleged gunman fired the shots before he was taken out by a Secret Service sniper. He confirmed that local police were present in the building when the gunman was on the roof.
“In this particular case, we shared our support for that particular location and that the Secret Service was responsible for the inner perimeter,” Cheatle said. “And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter. There were local law enforcement in that building — there were local law enforcement in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.”
Cheatle said she has contacted Trump but has not yet spoken to him.
Since the attack, Cheatle and the Secret Service have come under increasing scrutiny for their failure to prevent the incident, with some even calling for his resignation.
Cheatle said she would not resign.
She is expected to testify before the Republican-led House Oversight Committee next Monday, July 22.
Director says he has confidence in Secret Service
Still, she said the American people should have confidence that the Secret Service can protect the president and the former president.
After the attempted assassination, she “immediately” began looking into the protective records of those under Secret Service protection.
She said she had reached out to the former president’s staff and tried to reach him, but was unable to do so.
Cheatle also pushed back against the misinformation circulating around the attempted assassination.
“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 had said, that there was “no truth” to rumors that the former president had asked for more resources.
The decision to take out the shooter, she said, was a “split-second decision” the officer made while on the roof.
“They have the ability to make that decision themselves. If they see it is a threat and they have done so in that case,” she said.
“And I appreciate the fact that they made that decision without having to ask anyone and fortunately were able to neutralize the threat.”