Donald Trump says no one warned him there was a potential problem during his rally in Pennsylvania last week where a gunman tried to assassinate him.
In a Fox News interview set to air Monday, host Jesse Watters asked the former president if anyone had told him not to take the stage while authorities monitored the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks. “Nobody mentioned it,” Trump answered. “Nobody said there was a problem.”
The Secret Service is facing intense scrutiny as to how 20-year-old Crooks was able to pull off his attempt on Trump’s life, particularly amid multiple reports claiming authorities had been monitoring the gunman before he opened fire from a rooftop around 150 yards from where Trump spoke. Crooks was killed during the incident.
“I would have waited for 15,” Trump says in the Fox News interview. “They could have said: ‘Let’s wait for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 5 minutes—something.’ Nobody said [that]. I think that was a mistake.”
Trump, who appeared alongside his running mate J.D. Vance in the interview, also wondered about how the attack was allowed to happen at all.
“How did somebody get on that roof, and why wasn’t he reported, because people saw that he was on the roof?” Trump asked, speaking with medical dressing on his right ear for an injury sustained during the assassination bid which left one person dead and another two critically injured.
Referring to his supporters as “Trumpers,” the former president said rally attendees had been screaming: “There’s a man on the roof who’s got a gun.” “And that was quite a bit before I walked onto the stage,” Trump added. “So you would’ve thought somebody would’ve done something about it.”
The comments came as a Washington Post report Saturday claimed senior Secret Service officials denied requests from Trump’s security detail for more resources in the two years leading up to the attack. The report appeared to contradict the federal agency’s previous denials that such requests had been rebuffed.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told the Post the agency had learned new information indicating that some requests for additional security might have been rejected. In a statement, he told the newspaper the Secret Service has a “vast, challenging, and intricate mission.”
“Every day we work in a dynamic threat environment to ensure our protectees are safe and secure across multiple events, travel, and other difficult environments,” the statement added. “We execute a comprehensive and layered strategy to balance personnel, technology, and specialized operational needs.”
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