Former United States Secret Service agents Evy Poumpouras and Dan Bongino separately reviewed potential security failures that appeared to lead to an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a Saturday campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“This is obviously an abysmal failure, nobody should ever try to cover for this,” Dan Bongino, an agent formerly assigned to protect Presidents Bush and Obama and host of “The Dan Bongino Show,” said on his show Sunday. “I have a lot of loyalty to my colleagues at the Secret Service. Their motto is ‘Worthy of Trust and Confidence.’ However, this is an abysmal failure, there’s no excusing that at this point.”
Evy Poumpouras, an agent assigned to protect former President Obama and the first lady and host of “Spy Games,” said she suspects the shooter didn’t take position until after Trump took the stage. She also noted the shooter, who the FBI identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, appeared to be camouflaged in clothing which matched the color of the roof he was positioned on, she told NBC’s “Today” on Sunday morning.
The Secret Service immediately neutralized Crooks following his assassination attempt, according to the New York Times.
Both former agents also pointed out the steel armor in front of the podium, which the Secret Service immediately dragged Trump down behind following the shooting, may have saved his life.
“The armor may have saved him, ladies and gentlemen. If you look on the stage, that what appears to be the — you know, looks ceremonial — you see it looks kind of like a flag design with the red, white and blue. That’s likely armor. There’s a darn good chance that that armor possibly saved him,” Bongino noted.
Poumpouras appeared to corroborate Bongino’s guess, noting the efforts Secret Service agents went to in order to shield Trump with their bodies.
“So if we just break this down as the shooting is happening, we hear the shots being fired. President Trump goes down, he takes cover, and it’s also very likely, when you look at that banner — there’s like this banner around that stage — that tends to be some type of steel that’s there by design for an incident like this so that the protectee can hit the ground and take cover. We see the agents come in now from the sides. That’s the ‘shift.’ That’s what’s called the ‘shift.’ They come in and they are the armor. They’re the ones who are literally gonna come around, they’re going to secure his body,” Poumpouras noted.
TOPSHOT – Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with what appears to be blood on his face surrounded by secret service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pennsylvania, July 13, 2024. Republican candidate Donald Trump was evacuated from the stage at today’s rally after what sounded like shots rang out at the event in Pennsylvania, according to AFP. The former US president was seen with blood on his right ear as he was surrounded by security agents, who hustled him off the stage as he pumped his first to the crowd. Trump was bundled into an SUV and driven away. Rebecca Droke/AFP via Getty Images
Both agents noted the challenges in building a robust security detail; Poumpouras, in particular, cited the difficulties of resource allocation.
“At the end of the day … resources. Money. This all costs something,” Poumpouras noted. “So when you’re doing these security advances, you are negotiating. I mean, there are times where I’ve been, ‘I need 75 agents,’ and it will come back, and it’s like, ‘You know what, we don’t have the resources or the funds but we need these folks to be somewhere else. Can you do it with X amount of people?’ And it’s not just the Secret Service, it’s gonna be law enforcement. Their resources are tapped as well.
Bongino lamented the nature of Trump’s security detail, calling for a stronger security force and called U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle “utterly unqualified.”
“It’s time for a full presidential package for President Trump,” Bongino urged. “President Trump does not have that. He doesn’t have that now. I get it, there are some legalities involved, but President Trump is a former president running for re-election. You essentially have two incumbents running. Folks, he does not have a full presidential package right now. It is putting the man in danger. His threat level is apocalyptic and catastrophic. It is time, right now, for Kim Cheatle, the Secret Service director, to get her head out of her ass and do the right thing,” Bongino concluded.
