Lawmakers raise questions about security after second apparent assassination attempt

WASHINGTON — Federal leaders in Washington are pushing for answers about what happened in Florida after a second apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.

On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson posted online that it’s a top priority to understand how the former president has faced multiple assassination attempts.

His response comes as President Biden urges Congress to take action.

“Thank God the president is okay. The one thing I want to make more clear is service needs more help and I think congress should respond to their needs,” said President Biden.

On Capitol Hill, there’s already a bipartisan task force in place investigating the first assassination attempt. Now its members plan to meet with secret service leaders again. They want to know what happened Sunday and if the agency has enough resources.

“Whether or not they’re being deployed appropriately because it’s simply unacceptable that anybody who’s under the protection of the secret service is endangered,” said Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D – Pennsylvania.

“Two attempts in two months - clearly there are some systematic failures here,” said Rep. Mike Waltz, R –Florida. “As I’ve said to secret service leadership, this has got to stop, the divisive rhetoric has got to stop, clearly people are being radicalized.

This latest incident comes after the task force visited the site of the first shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania in August.

“None of us are looking at it as ‘we have to get a quick answer.’ we’re looking at it as ‘we have to get the right answer,” said Rep. Mike Kelly, R – Pennsylvania, during the task force visit to the rally site on August 26, 2024.

Security expert Bishop Garrison said the political climate is different now compared to previous election cycles.

“We’re seeing publicly is a level of rhetoric that arguably we have not regularly maintained in the courts of political discourse for some time now. So you are seeing a lot of online threats, and you’re seeing a lot of this type of language that we just typically have not seen,” said Garrison, senior fellow at the National Security Institute.

He added that congressional and White House leaders will have to work together to figure out where there may be gaps within U.S. Secret Service and what can be done to fix them.

“You can’t just come out flatly and say it’s all budget or it’s all people. You’ve got to understand well, what are what is our mission, our values, our goals, what are the actual issues? Issues at play here, what are our gaps? Do that analysis and then determine the best way to go about closing them,” said Garrison.

Ronald Rowe, the acting Director of the Secret Service, has briefed both House and Senate leadership about the investigation. This comes as the previous director of the agency stepped down after the July attempt on former President Trump’s life.

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