Transcripts For MSNBC Chris Jansing Reports 20240926 : compa

Hezbollah missile heading toward tel aviv. The first time they have ever directly fired on that city. Israel calling up Reserve Brigades as it prepares for a possible Ground Invasion of lebanon. We are live in beirut. And the massive Storm Set to slam floridas big bend, covering an area 400 miles wide. Look at this thing. Its twice the size of the last hurricane that hit there. Well bring you the latest from the ground on Hurricane Helene with Land Fall fast approaching. Let us start with this, the motto of the u. S. Secret service is to be worthy of trust and confidence. But a new Senate Report is showing agents have not lived up to that motto. The bipartisan committee from the Homeland Security Committee found multiple agency failures culminating in a gunman taking a close Range Shot at the former president while he was campaigning in butler, pennsylvania, two months ago. Senator Richard Blumenthal said the public should be, quote, aghast and astonished at the sheer number of issues that they uncovered, including Glaring Holes in Donald Trumps protection plan, gaps in communication, and questions about who was really in charge. Other committee members, well, they agreed. I think how many failures by the Secret Service occurred, one after another, sort of a constellation of everything that could go wrong went wrong. Its bad enough having one point of failure, when you have many, the cumulative impact of that makes a dangerous situation even more dangerous. Again, a bipartisan team looking into this. Joining us now, Nbcs Justice and Intelligence Correspondent ken dilanian. Nbcs Julie Tsirkin whos on capitol hill, Garrett Haake is in washington, and robert mcdonald, a retired supervisory special agent for the u. S. Secret service joins us as well. Ken, i want to start with you. What did this report find . Perhaps the most striking finding is nobody was in charge of security for the Butler Event the agents and officials pointed fingers, deflected blame and didnt acknowledge how badly they mishandled this. The Secret Service said some of those people would be. And then because of a series of astonishing communication failures, the Secret Service agents protecting mr. Trump did not learn key information about the threat as local police discovered it. The report confirmed that local police and the Secret Service were not in consistent radio communication. It said the Secret Service was not notified about an individual on the roof of the building. Police learned that two minutes before the shooter opened fire. They were notified, but that information was not relayed to the team protecting trump who could have rushed him off the stage had they known that. The report said the Secret Service had counter Drone Technology that might have spotted crooks flying the drone hours before the rally. The senate investigators found the agents in charge of the system on site didnt know how to operate it and spent hours on the phone with Tech Support trying to get it to work. Secret Service Leadership denied alternates requests including a Counter Surveillance Team that may well have discovered the shooter before he got on that roof. Now, the Secret Service in a statement is acknowledging some of these failures and saying that they are already implementing fixing in some of them and promising to work to fix their communication woes. Seems like they have a long way to go. Communication woes is glaring issue. Ill get to that in a moment. The Secret Service director in charge at the time was already resigned. What does the committee want now . Well, they want answer, the way one senator Whos Part of producing this bipartisan report put it is that they need to know what the Chain Of Command is at the Secret Service. More pointedly, theyre asking for more information, and theyre pointing to Stone Walling from the department of Homeland Security as a whole. That is something in part that Senator Richard Blumenthal had pointed out in a statement. He said, quote, we have a lot of unanswered questions, and a lot of evidence and other materials that we are still seeking from the Secret Service, most especially the department of Homeland Security that has been less forthcoming than we need and deserve a reminder. This is an interim report. This is just step one for them to put into one place all of these glaring misbehavings, and everything that went wrong that you heard ken talk about. Their investigations are far from over. Theres a parallel effort happening in the house, a bipartisan Task Force there holding hearings, calling people in so they can have more information. We heard from senator josh hawley, talking directly to a whistleblower. Directoring rowe is disputing accounts the whistleblower is making, and there are inconsistencies that are not lining up. Congress has two roles when it comes to the investigation. One is oversight, and if the agencies need more resources and funding to get the job done. Yesterday we saw a bill passed in the Senate And House earlier last week that would just go to that effect. Really the question the senators is asking is whether they need more manpower or more resources and certainly they believe they have identified many things that went wrong when it comes to the rally in july, and they will continue identifying them, at least until The End of the year. Katy. So, julie, Thank You, garrett, whats the reaction from Trumps Team or Donald Trump himself . Theres been none to the reported sale. No specific reaction to it. The Way Trump has dealt with the issue of butler in general is to walk a thin line here. Heres personally quite fond of his security detail. He has praised their work. He has been critical of the broader effort to protect him, suggesting that the u. S. Government, the Secret Service more broadly had not moved fast enough to respond to threats against his life and nor needs to be dOne On that end. He has, as recently as earlier today, been beating up on the fbi, one of his favorite foils in the government for slow walking the investigation and their efforts to get into the suspects cell phone. Were going to hear more from Donald Trump about the investigation, more pressure to make sure he has adequate security going forward. Hes not been interested in critiquing the kind of finer details of the way the Secret Service protects him, in part because hes seeing these people every day, and hes quite fond of some of them personally. Robert, when youre hearing about what the committee found, theyre talking about leadership, well get to communication in a moment. Theyre talking about leadership. Is this a Leadership Issue . Would this have not happened if there was different leadership at the top of the Secret Service at the time . Good afternoon, its nice to be with you. I think its a leadership problem, and i think its a problem of potential complacency, with respect to the advances. You have been around us enough to know how these things work. We go out, do a protective advance, and we implement a security plan, brief on the plan and implement the plan. There were a lot of failures here, and quite frankly, reading this Report Today in preparation to come on with you brings a lot of disappointment, a lot of things pointed out in the report are Secret Service 101. They should not have been mishandled. Its the things we do every day. Those of us who have worked in the service a lot of years tell you how many times we lay await at night in the hotel room, trying to think of everything we can do to implement a robust security plan. A lot of disappointment and a lot of answers need to come. I was talking to a former head of or somebody in charge of the agency that is in charge of the Secret Service, and they were saying that complacency was an issue. It has been so long since anybody got close to president , since there was a real Assassination Attempt, felt like it couldnt happen any longer. They werent trained in the every day of it, like the 60s, 70s and early 80s. Robert, the question of communication, that one is really glaring. After 911, that was the big issue. The agencies werent communicating with Each Other. They needed to find a way to improve that. Thats why Homeland Security was created. The fact that the Secret Service, which is a department within the Homeland Security agency had a problem communicating with local law enforcement, how can that be . Thats one of the glaring questions thats going to be devilled into. While the Secret Services Communication Plan usually deal with a lot of facetoface communications and different agencies on different frequencies, talking to Each Other realtime, looking at Each Other One On one in the Command Post, its not just only about technology. Thats important, but its also about making sure that everything is seamless with respect to a protective advance, whether its the counter snipers, the Command Post people, all of those things have to be seamless, and its the responsibility of that Lead Advance Agent, while not a supervisor, until the supervisor hits the ground and does a walk through that, Lead Advance Agent is in charge of everyOne On that advance team. Thats where the initial leadership that has to come from. Then the other designated leadership comes in to bless off on the plan. That Lead Advance Agent is responsible for the plan. At the very least, lessons learned the past few months. The Trump Team has made the allegation that they have requested resources, they had requested more secret from Secret Service but were denied. Heres what the Acting Director of the Secret Service said last week. So based on the asset, based on the information i have right now, the asset request, all of the assets that were asked for were approved, and so what were looking at now, were there additional ones that came through in other channels, but what i can tell you, based on the information i have now, the assets were approved. Are they making that claim that they asked for resources and were denied . Well, look, its not something that comes up every day. It was something that was in the report, the magnetometers were not delivered. Whether this happens on a Day By Day Basis, i dont know, katy, but i can tell you the same Secret Service director was pressed hard about this at the News Conference after the second Assassination Attempt in florida, he has made the argue argument then and since that trump is now going to get every resource that is available to the current President Of The United States will be available to him. Its just a matter of fitting round pegs in square holes at every event the Trump Campaign does. Do they have the resources they asked for there. Is the event scaled right . What about the events, going golfing, how does that get staffed . This is going to be the kind of thing we have to track on a Day By Day Basis every time Donald Trump is in public. The Threat Profile remains high, and the wait hes protected on the trail, its a moving operation here. What about the update that Donald Trump got about threats to his life from iran . What did he hear from this briefing . This is interesting. Donald trump eshooed getting intelligence updates. He doesnt want to get accuse of leaking it. We know by his own words and confirmed by the office of intelligence, he did get briefed of ongoing threats and past threats on groups linked to iran. Trump was quick on Social Media to say this is basically unacceptable. He has this event youre showing now, just a few moments ago, suggested that Joe Biden needs to come out and say if anything happens to trump, Hell Blow iranian cities to smithereens, trumps words there. Hes putting iran Front And Center in the discussion about security going forward. The Homeland Security Committee passed this unanimously. This is according to julie who is standing there for us. The bill says not later than seven days after the dates of enaccountment of this account, shall submit a report, and the possession of Homeland Security or any of its components, including the united states Secret Service, include k the failed Assassination Attempt on the life of donald j. Donald trump in butler, pennsylvania, Thank You very much, ken dilanian, Julie Tsirkin, were back in 90 seconds, the international pressures on the white house, ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to the u. N. And israel is preparing for ground troops on a second front. For insurance. I didnt raise no insurance man. But you did, dad. Footballs your passion. But mine is providing Aroundtheclock Protection to progressive customers who bundle home and auto. Jamie, we need you out here for football. Youre giving up on your dream, james. No, dad. Im giving up on yours. No, james, wait oh, thats not the exit. [suspenseful music] trains. [whoosh] trains that use the power of Dell Ai and intel. 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