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Israeli Drone Strike in Beirut; Interview With Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO); Congress Grills Acting Secret Service Director. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired July 30, 2024 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:46]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We're following breaking news into CNN from Capitol Hill.

A joint Senate committee hearing on the attempted assassination of Donald Trump is still under way. The brand-new acting director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, admitting under oath that there were security failures at that Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, that he cannot defend and that have left him ashamed.

But, so far, none of the agents in charge of protecting Trump has been fired, that fact leaving some lawmakers fuming.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD ROWE, ACTING U.S. SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR: You're asking me, Senator, to completely make a rush to judgment about somebody failing. I acknowledge this was a failure of the Secret Service.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): Is it not prima facie that somebody has failed? A former president was shot.

ROWE: Sir, this could have been our Texas Schoolbook Depository. I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days, just like you have.

HAWLEY: Then just fire somebody to hold them accountable.

ROWE: And I will tell you Senator -- I will tell you, Senator, that I will not rush to judgment, that people will be held accountable. And I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people unfairly persecuted.

HAWLEY: I can't believe that you are -- unfairly persecuted?

ROWE: Unfairly, sir.

HAWLEY: we have got people who are dead.

ROWE: We have to be able to have a proper investigation into this, Senator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Also in the hot seat today, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, his agency preparing to interview Trump about his recollection of the shooting that killed one rally attendee and left others wounded.

CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez is here with us.

Evan, obviously, this is the latest in a series of congressional hearings on the attack. What have you heard today that has stood out to you?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, I mean, I think this is the most meaningful hearing as far as the amount of information we're getting, certainly from the Secret Service.

Paul Abbate the FBI gave us an update yesterday that provided a lot of what he just said today. But, certainly, for the Secret Service and for Ronald Rowe, he is now forcefully saying that he went to the roof of the AGR building, where the shooter took aim at the former president, something, by the way, that the former director did not do before her hearing.

So he went there. And you saw these extraordinary images that he showed at this hearing where he showed you the vantage point from the roof, the nearby roof, where, according to the information we got from the hearing today, local law enforcement snipers were supposed to be keeping watch.

It appeared that, at least during a part of that, one or more of them perhaps left their post to go find this suspicious person that was being reported by other law enforcement. That was a very big piece of information. We finally get some clarity about what happened there.

But you could see the outrage that he shared during the hearing there. Now, listen to this exchange with Senator Durbin, where he describes some of the lack of communication that happened with law enforcement, the local law enforcement. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROWE: I think he was identified as being suspicious by local law enforcement.

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): And nothing happened?

ROWE: Well, I know the local law enforcement was attempting to locate him.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Would you say the roof being unattended breaches standard protocol for setting up a security perimeter?

ROWE: What I would say, Senator, is that that roof should have had better coverage. And we will get to the bottom of if there were any policy violations.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PEREZ: And, Boris, we also heard from the acting director. He said he has been losing sleep certainly thinking about some of the lapses, especially this one.

The Secret Service has a system to defeat drones. We know the shooter operated a drone on the periphery of the rally site. He operated that drone about two hours before Donald Trump took the stage. What we know is that the Secret Service has a system that could defeat drones. It wasn't operating at that time.

It didn't become operational until 5:00 p.m. And the reason why is because they didn't have enough local cell phone coverage.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

PEREZ: So that was another part of the lapses and the failures that happened that day.

SANCHEZ: One of many eye-opening details that we have learned from this hearing.

Evan Perez, thank you so much.

[13:05:01]

PEREZ: Sure.

SANCHEZ: We want to go now to CNN senior national security analyst and former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Juliette Kayyem.

Juliette, great to see you, as always.

What were your biggest takeaways from what we have heard so far from Acting Director Rowe?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: OK, so I want to put his testimony into sort of two pools. The first is the safety and security one, which is the most important, ten the political.

He was a breath of fresh air. He's exactly what the Secret Service needs at this stage. He took responsibility for what happened, was contrite and somewhat shameful about just what was so glaringly obvious to those of us seeing it.

He talked about what specific gaps there were. So we learned about why the drones weren't up or the counterdrones weren't up. We learned about the communications challenges between text and radio.

But my big takeaway on the safety and security, which I think will help the Secret Service in the future, is what he talked about in terms of assumptions. He said, basically, we just make assumptions about state and locals. He didn't throw them under the bus.

And he said the Secret Service in their responsibility as leaders to protect the nominee and former president needed to challenge those assumptions, stress-test them, put them under duress, because, clearly, that gap in coverage, which we all know existed, was there.

So that's -- I think it was helpful. I think it was illuminating. I think it will help. The most important thing is that it's going to get the Secret Service to fill in the gaps that we obviously saw.

On the politics side, I will say, I have never seen -- I mean, he was good. I mean, look, they want -- the senators want some blood. He's not going to give it to them yet. He wants a thorough investigation about what happened. We have to assume agents are going to be fired at some stage.

But he's not going to do it on the senator's sort of political time frame. That's hard to do as an acting. Maybe he just feels like he has nothing else to lose. But I thought, in that regard, he really did quiet some of the GOP clamor, which is important, because we have an election with the threat environment as high as it is.

SANCHEZ: Juliette Kayyem, appreciate your perspective.

We're, of course, going to keep monitoring this joint hearing as we get new details -- Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Let's talk about this now with Democratic Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado. He is the ranking member of the newly created bipartisan task force that is investigating the assassination attempt of former President Trump.

I wonder, Congressman, what your biggest concern is coming out of this hearing?

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Well, first off, the American people deserve answers, and they're going to get them, which is why, last week, something pretty significant happened in the House.

And that is every member of the House of Representatives voted to create this task force, 416-0. So every voting member voted to create it, because this is a moment for us to -- in a nonpartisan and bipartisan way to get answers about a very troubling incident.

This should not have happened. There were clear failures here. We're going to find out where they occurred, who needs to be held accountable. And, importantly, what do we need to do to fix it to make sure it doesn't happen again?

KEILAR: There's no tape or record of communications, which would certainly be helpful, right, coming out of that day.

There were connectivity issues as well that we have learned prevented the Secret Service from detecting the shooter actually flying a drone just a couple of hours before Trump was on stage.

Let's listen to this part of Senator Chuck Grassley actually questioning the acting director about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R-IA): Why is the Secret Service dependent upon local cell -- cellular network? Does the Secret Service have a backup plan in place?

RONALD ROWE, ACTING U.S. SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR: Yes, thank you, Senator.

And that is something that I briefed in the closed-door and, again, something that has cost me a lot of sleep because of the eventual outcome of the assailant, that what if we had geolocated him because that counter-UAS platform had been up?

It is something that I have struggled with to understand, and I have no explanation for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: It seems like there were so many holes that day that certainly aligned. And there were a lot them to align and have something fall through the cracks.

Does it strike you as a one-off problem of that day, or does this seem to you to be something very systemic?

CROW: What we have right now is mainly questions and very few answers, which is why we created this task force to get those answers.

And we're going to have to follow a very methodical process, because, as you noted, there appear to have been many failures, right, not securing the counterdrone perimeter, not securing the rooftop, interoperability of communications between the local law enforcement and the Secret Service.

[13:10:05]

Many things seem to have fallen through the cracks or gone unaccounted for. So, what we're going to do is, we're going to conduct an investigation that starts from the very beginning. We're going to look at the chronology. We're going to look at who is involved. We're going to compare that against the protocols that were in place, the guidelines that the Secret Service and others were supposed to follow.

We're going to see what wasn't followed. And we're also going to look at what new needs to happen, right? Are there new guidelines, are there new protocols, new training and technology that need to be implemented, given the situation and the era that we're in right now, that we need to better resource as well?

KEILAR: As you make recommendations, how will there be oversight by Congress, by DHS to make sure that the Secret Service is implementing them?

CROW: Well, this is the beginning of that process, right?

What Congress has decided to do -- and this is the right answer -- is put all of the investigations under the umbrella of this task force, so you don't have committees fighting over jurisdictions, you don't have dueling hearings. It's all going to be done by this task force.

And we're going to do it very quickly, because we need to do it quickly. Security is very important. So we're going to issue a report to Congress by mid-December that's going to look holistically at what needs to happen and how to fix it.

And then we will have a broader discussion, both in Congress and with the American people, about what accountability and changes are necessary.

KEILAR: I think many people, just laypeople observing what has been reported, were surprised to learn that all of the folks on the ground in charge of security, local law enforcement and Secret Service, they're not actually talking to each other, right?

They're kind of playing a game of telephone. And Senator Ossoff was asking the acting director today about local law enforcement talking to Secret Service. And he said it would take months of planning to be able to do that. It seems that it would be impossible.

Do you think that should be a goal of Secret Service?

CROW: Well, it does appear to be a huge problem, the lack of communications and crosstalk, as we say.

I was a special operator in the Army and the Rangers, and one of the hardest things, but also the most important thing, is for units to be able to talk to one another across units, across jurisdictions, multinational operations. It's a difficult thing to achieve. But, if you don't achieve it, everything else can fall apart, right?

So it's actually the essential task, is make sure that there is communication between units and those that need to be able to talk to each other. And it does not appear as though that happened in this case, so certainly going to be one of the key aspects of things that we're going to look into here.

KEILAR: Yes, you know what happens when people can't talk to each other. And I know you will bring that to this task force.

Congressman, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: We're following more breaking news into CNN, this out of the Middle East.

According to a Hezbollah-run TV agency, a loud explosion has been heard in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Let's take you there live with CNN's Ben Wedeman.

Ben, what more are you learning about this explosion?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Boris, we know that, within the last half-hour, there was a large explosion in what's known as the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Southern Beirut. That's an area where many of the leaders of Hezbollah have been known

to operate. Now, we don't have a lot of details. We know that some local channels are saying that the -- one of -- the building hit was a residential building.

We don't know about casualties at this point. It still seems to be a fairly chaotic scene. We have seen pictures of smoke rising from that part of the city. But, certainly, that is what we know at this point.

It is the first time the southern suburbs of Beirut have been hit since early January, when the Israelis killed a senior Hamas leader who was in that area. But, as I said, this is the first strike since then. And Hezbollah has made it very clear all along that, if Beirut is struck, they will answer accordingly.

They have said that they will meet escalation with escalation in the aftermath of last Saturday's attack on the Golan -- the Israeli- occupied Syrian Golan Heights that left 12 children dead. So, perhaps this is the first major Israeli response to that attack -- Boris.

KEILAR: And, Ben, just to be clear, when this -- you're saying this happened in the Beirut suburbs. Can you give us some specificity on what Hezbollah might see as an attack, maybe Beirut proper, versus in the suburbs? Will this matter?

WEDEMAN: Well, we call it -- it's called the Beirut suburbs, El-Dahia (ph) in Arabic, but it really is part of the city of Beirut. It's between where I am down by the port and the airport.

[13:15:06]

So it really is Beirut proper, despite what we call it. And, of course, that has been made clear time and time again by Hezbollah that that's a red line. Now, just the other day, I spoke with the foreign minister of Lebanon, who told me that they had -- through diplomatic channels, they had received assurances from their friends, he called them, that Beirut -- that the Israeli response would be limited.

And the Lebanese government interpreted that as meaning that Beirut, the southern suburbs of Beirut and the airport, would not be targeted. That perhaps was not a very correct interpretation of those so-called assurances -- Brianna.

SANCHEZ: Ben, please stand by for us in Beirut.

We want to bring in CNN military analyst former General Mark Hertling, who is joining us now live.

General, thank you so much for being with us.

Walk us through the significance of these explosions happening in Beirut. And, specifically, what would give you evidence or what would suggest to you that this was in fact an IDF-led attack?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: We have nothing that leads to that just yet, Boris. It's the possibility of an IDF attack. Usually, it's not done this

early in the evening after sunset. The IDF usually waits until the later hours of the evening, where they can assure that there's no collateral damage on civilian casualties when they conduct a strike.

But when you're talking about explosions, you don't really know where they come from. And, again, I would suggest, because this is Lebanon, this is Beirut, that there is the potential for other types of an explosion in this area. So you can't conclude anything just yet?

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: I do -- General, I do want to stop you there because Israel is now claiming responsibility for this strike in Southern Beirut.

HERTLING: OK.

KEILAR: So, obviously, that's important information and changes your calculus of how you're seeing this. Explain the significance now that we know that we just literally got that in, the Israeli military saying that it carried out a targeted strike in Southern Beirut.

HERTLING: Well, Brianna, thanks for being the scout on the scream line right there.

(LAUGHTER)

HERTLING: As soon as you have confirmed it, then you can talk about it a whole lot differently.

The thing that I was about to say, Ben's reporting about promises of not striking or having limited strikes doesn't necessarily mean they're not going to strike in Beirut. There are areas there within and around the capital where Hezbollah has centers. Let's just call them that, anything from cells to intelligence centers to military command structures in and around the area of Beirut.

They have always had that. So, when you're talking about the potential to limit that and not go near the capital area or near the airport, I just find that a little bit -- that -- it's a little bit of hyperbole from the standpoint of someone hoping for the best that this wouldn't happen.

So, if it is -- and I will say one more thing. If it's just a couple of explosions, as Ben has reported, two explosions, that is a proportional response so far. It could get bigger, but when you're talking about what happened the other day with the killing of civilians and especially children in that playground or that soccer field, you're talking about the potential for a much greater response by Israel.

And, again, this could just be step one. But this is a proportional response not only against Hezbollah, but against -- it's a signal to the Lebanese government of get control of these terrorists that are living among you.

SANCHEZ: And I want to read and paraphrase a portion of the statement that we just got from the IDF taking responsibility.

It says -- quote -- "The IDF carried out a targeted strike in Beirut on the commander responsible for the murder of the children in the Golan Heights and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians."

General, I think the concern has been going back to October 7 of a wider regional conflict. The United States has repeatedly warned Israel about any potential attacks going into Beirut specifically, but we heard John Kirby, the spokesperson for the NSC, recently say that concerns about a wider conflict based on an Israeli response are exaggerated.

How do you see where the conflict stands now versus what this could potentially lead up to?

HERTLING: Yes. Well, there were a couple of actions, Boris -- and you're exactly right. John Kirby did say all those things.

And I think it was as a warning to all that an Israeli attack into Southern Lebanon, a ground attack, as it were, or an extensive air campaign in Lebanon would be significant, and it would not be to Israel's advantage, because it would open up a second front while they're continuing with their actions in Gaza.

[13:20:04]

But, truthfully, Israel has to respond to that kind of attack from Lebanon. So, again, a proportional response versus a ground incursion of Southern Lebanon or either a massive airstrike or an air campaign against various targets inside of Lebanon -- and, again, it's early yet. That could occur. More strikes could be conducted.

But this is a signal, if the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces say it was a kinetic strike against an identified target of an individual that conducted the command-and-control of that strike into Israel a few days ago, I think we're seeing a good thing.

It's something that -- I was talking to CNN on Saturday saying it would be devastating for Israel to open a second front with a major ground incursion or a massive air campaign. And it appears, at least so far, that they have limited their strikes to specifically the target that was the commander of the strike that occurred the other day.

KEILAR: General, if you could stand by for us, we will come back to you.

I do want to bring in Colorado Congressman Jason Crow, who we had stick around with us as we got word of this news. He's a former Army Ranger. He's also on the House Foreign Affairs and Intel committees.

As we get word of this, a targeted strike, Israel says, Israeli military says, on this Hezbollah commander that they say was behind this attack that killed 12 children in Northern Israel, what are you -- what are your thoughts as you see this news? CROW: Israel absolutely has a right and I'd even say an obligation to

respond to this attack that killed 12 children by Hezbollah.

But why we talk about issues of proportionality is that it goes directly to the concern about escalation. And I'm going to talk about why escalation in this case is a larger concern than maybe it has been in the past.

What we have to do is, we have to zoom out and talk about Iran. Iran works through these regional proxies, these proxy forces, right? Hamas is one of them. Hezbollah is one of them, the Houthis. They have other militias and forces throughout the Middle East. But Hezbollah is the largest and the most capable of all of those proxy forces, right?

So the concern about escalation is the most acute when we're talking about Hezbollah, right? The thing that could lead to a larger regional war is if Hezbollah opens up a northern front. They have far more rockets, far more personnel, far more sophisticated weaponry, and more capability across the board.

And that could be very devastating in the north.

SANCHEZ: And Hezbollah has vowed that, depending on the Israeli response, they wouldn't go to war with Israel alone. To your point, it would be these Iranian-backed groups.

Congressman Crow, great to get your perspective on this.

We do have to take a quick break.

When we come back, we're going to keep following the breaking news out of the Middle East, explosions heard in Beirut, the IDF taking responsibility, saying that they have killed a Hezbollah commander.

Stay with CNN. We're back in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:27:23]

KEILAR: We are continuing to follow our breaking news here.

The Israeli military says that it carried out a targeted strike in Southern Beirut on the Hezbollah commander that they say is responsible for this weekend's deadly rocket attack in Israeli- occupied Golan Heights.

Just to mention, we do not have confirmation that this commander was killed. There are questions, of course, about other casualties. But they say that this strike -- we have some reports that this strike was conducted by drone that fired three missiles.

SANCHEZ: Yes, we are joined again by CNN military analyst retired General Mark Hertling.

General Hertling, your response to hearing that this was a drone strike, apparently, according to local reports, carried out with three missiles. This is obviously a city in Beirut, and we understand that the translation is suburbs. But, nevertheless, this is a highly populated area. What do you make of this kind of attack being carried out there?

HERTLING: Yes, I was in that area a long, long time ago, Boris, about 10 years ago, and it is highly populated.

It is a typical Middle Eastern suburb with a lot of concrete buildings, narrow streets. But when you are talking about the fact that it was potentially, or at least the IDF is saying it was a drone strike, again, I go back to what I said earlier.

That is a very good thing, because it shows a limited kinetic operation against a specific target, as opposed to a massive campaign either by air or ground against multiple targets in Beirut. The thing I have been very concerned about is an incursion into Lebanon by the Israeli Defense Forces.

They are already having some challenges in Gaza and in the West Bank, and to have another front opening up with a massive amount of forces -- which we know Israel has mobilized forces for the potential of going into Lebanon. It is very concerning, because it would certainly widen that war and bring other actors in.

So, to me, as horrible as this may sound, a limited strike by a drone is the best possible of outcomes right now to keep this from expanding into a wider conflict.

KEILAR: Yes. And, also, the Lebanese foreign minister, General, had been warning of a regional war if Israel was to invade Lebanon following that deadly attack.

That is a very high bar that certainly this does not come close to meeting, nor does it exceed. What does that tell you?

HERTLING: Well, again, the word proportional is important, Brianna. You know that. You have seen this before.

The other thing that has been happening in Beirut is, there have been a lot of foreign governments who are emptying out their embassies and asking their citizens to return and to leave the area because they are concerned about this.