>>182368, >>182371, >>182372, >>182373, >>182374
Ari Fleischer @AriFleischer - I’ve waited a few days so I could read everything insightful and watch as many videos as possible. I try to never immediately comment on complicated, breaking news where “facts” are subject to change.
Here now are my observations on the attempted assassination attempt on Pres. Trump:
1) It wasn’t perfect, and mistakes were made, but the USSS did its job and did it well. Most people don’t know it, but the USSS agents who form the PPD (presidential protective division) are the most highly trained evacuation force you will ever meet. Their only job when things go wrong is to get the President out of there to an always-existing designated evacuation route. They did their job.
2) It’s not the USSS’s job to ask for IDs or to check tickets at an event outside the WH. The USSS could care less if someone was sitting at the wrong table or didn’t pay to get in. That’s the job of the host organization, the WH Correspondents Association. The USSS’s only job is to protect designated people.
3) Presidents routinely hold events and stay overnight at hotels. Their routes in and out are out of sight and reach from hotel guests and visitors. Stairways are blocked and elevators can’t open on certain floors. They use different elevators, hallways, ingress and exit points than the general public. For overnight trips, the travelling party blocks off a certain number of floors, but the overall hotel is typically still open to guests. Perhaps Presidents in the future need to stay at smaller hotels so they can reserve the entire place. But no hotel will make itself available to a President if it means no one else can stay at the location if that means hundreds of rooms must go empty.
4) Who tackled the gunman? Did he fall and trip? How was he captured? Could he otherwise have breached the ballroom? There still is a lot we don’t know.
5) Why were the magnometers taken down when they were? The event had begun and guests were already in their seats. But agents, including the Uniform Division officers who man the mags, let down the perimeter that must always block entrance to a potus event. No one should be able to run in a straight line and get past the outer perimeter, not even by 60 feet, which is not a great distance, but that’s the distance it’s been reported of the breach past the mags. They need to keep in place physical obstructions, in addition to human ones. They also should consider pushing the perimeter back so there is a greater distance between the mags and potus.
Note: There must always be a perimeter somewhere. On one side, the “dirty” side is regular life, meaning people with guns, knives and craziness. On the other side is the “clean” side, protected by an army of security. It’s impossible to stop the dirty side from approaching the clean side. But it’s the USSS job to make certain nothing gets beyond the perimeter. There are layers of defense inside the perimeter, but it’s troubling the gunman ran past the perimeter even for only sixty feet.
6) Who shot the USSS agent? Was it the would be assassin or was it friendly fire. One video indicates it was friendly. If that’s the case, the USSS should have admitted it already. I don’t rule out friendly fire. We need to learn the truth.
7) Shooting and hitting a running target is not easy. Even expert marksmen often miss. Is USSS training adequate?
Bottom line: In an atmosphere like this, things will go wrong. But unless the gunmen fell on his own before he could be captured or tackled, it appears the USSS layered defense did the job. PPD certainly did their job. Good questions remain about better perimeters, checkpoints and training.
But the excessive criticisms and allegations of failure by the USSS are off the mark.
I want the USSS to learn the right lessons. I’m grateful to them for doing their job and protecting the president.
https://x.com/AriFleischer/status/2049160404543103215
6