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Acting Secret Service Director, Ronald Rowe, Gives Briefing On Attempted Trump Assassination; Pentagon To Direct "Multiple Force Posture Moves" In Middle East Amid Tensions. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired August 02, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

RONALD ROWE, ACTING DIRECTOR, SECRET SERVICE: Yes. So when we -- when I said it's a failure to challenge our assumptions, meaning the assumption that, hey, that's going to be addressed or that's going to be covered by state and local.

So earlier this week, I convened a call with all of our special agents in charge of all of our field offices. And I expressed to them, listen, we need our state and local counterparts. But we also have to be very direct, very clear about what our expectations are about what we need from them.

Whether it's a particular asset, whether it's a particular number of personnel, we need to be very clear so that they have an understanding of exactly what we you need from them.

That is -- that's on us. We need to be better communicators and articulate exactly what we need to mitigate any challenges, concerns, or anything that we identify during that advance process.

And so I have full confidence in our SACs in the field. I have full confidence in our -- in our state and local counterparts, that moving forward now, we're not going to have this assumption that, oh, we think that they have it.

No, we're going to -- we're going to work together. We're going to have good, hard, fierce conversations about what we're going to do. And then we're going to go out there and we're going to make all of these venues secure moving forward.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you, Director.

One thing, for starters, I was hoping you could elaborate a little bit on a portion of the timeline in which you address a communication between the Secret Service detail and personnel at the Pittsburgh Field Office.

It just struck me as a little vague. And I was curious if you could elaborate on what that communication was.

ROWE: Yes. So the former president's details, they had a -- an advanced person on the ground who was responsible for the site. The radio transmission goes out about locals working an issue at the 3:00. That -- the member of that detail called their Pittsburgh Field Office counterpart, hey, what do you -- what do you know about this. In the midst, right in the middle of that phone conversation, the shots begin firing. So that's -- that's the context of it.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And sorry if I missed it. Could you say how they became aware of the locals working an issue in the first place to even have that conversation?

ROWE: That was the radio transmission that was put out by our security room.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: I got it. OK.

The other, just to follow up, I'm curious about your -- you mentioned that this was the first event where Secret Service counter-snipers had been assigned as part of this security for former President Trump.

To what extent do you think that factored into what we're ultimately shown to be the failures, that just this was a first time, at least in a while in his capacity as a former president, that they were there on the site?

ROWE: So --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: The novelty of it.

ROWE: Sure, sure. So let me -- let me just clarify one thing. This was the first time that Secret Service counter-snipers, but the former president, at campaign rallies, has actually been getting state and local resources, so tactical assets, counter-snipers from state and locals.

So with respect to why they were there in Butler, listen, we evaluate our threat landscape every day. We calibrate based on that threat. We evaluated a threat stream that we have and we put our Secret Service counter-sniper personnel out there.

And looking back, it was very fortunate that we did. But the former president will have counter-sniper coverage moving forward, as will the president, the vice president, Senator Vance. And then we'll await the eventual Democratic vice-presidential nominee.

We are going to put full resources out there to make sure that our -- campaign cadence now has obviously picked up and we're going to make sure that we have all the resources out there to address any challenges that we have.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.

As you're doing this review, are you looking at the days leading up to this event and the instructions that you gave to state and local and federal partners?

I know, in the past, there used to be a PowerPoint presentation that was given before events, like people who we're part of each unit and the Secret Service would stand up, go through the mission, who was assigned to them, what they'd be doing.

I understand that did not happen in this case and hasn't been happening for some time prior. Is that something you think was missing here? Is that something you might review and bring back?

And do you also think the Secret Service is too reliant on state, local and federal? I mean, you have on 2,000 HSI agents helping in events coming this fall. That's a third of their workforce and it takes a lot from state and locals as well.

So, first, would you bring back the PowerPoint? Do you think there should have been more planning? And are you too reliant on state and local and other partners.?

ROWE: Thanks, Julia.

So that will be part of the mission assurance, the communications and what was communicated leading up to it.

[14:35:06]

What I can tell you now, based on information I have, is there was -- and what you're referring to is what we call the police meeting, where we bring in all the agencies together that will be directly supporting a particular visit.

We know that there was a (INAUDIBLE). We know that there were agencies from the various jurisdictions, were present, the ones -- and when I say that, the ones that were the primary ones identified with providing support and were going to be involved in the advanced planning process, meaning they we're going to provide a counterpart.

Kind of like what you said, the PowerPoint. If you're going to be conducting the site, this is special agent so and so, and here's their contact info.

And then usually, at the end of that meeting, everyone kind goes off and they form up and they go over, you know, how they're going to go out and do the walkthroughs and identify some of the things.

I --

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

ROWE: Based on the information -- I don't know about the PowerPoint. I can tell you that there was a police -- a police meeting.

With respect to the PowerPoint, I certainly think that visuals are always good. I think that if we're not using it, we certainly will.

But that goes back to my -- my direction that we have to be very specific about -- about what we're communicating and what our expectations are moving forward.

With respect to the reliance on state and local law enforcement, listen, there are there are 700,000 full-time law enforcement officers, over 700,000 full-time law enforcement officers in the United States.

The majority of prosecutions in the criminal justice system in the United States are done by state and locals. That's a result of criminal investigations that they do every day in their communities to keep them safe.

One hundred, over 130 or 135 -- 135 officers died last year serving their communities, federal, state and local. Forty-seven of them died by violent means, gunfire.

There's not overreliance on them. They're out there every day securing their communities. They know the terrain. They know the people.

More importantly, they know the local laws. If you are in a state where it's open carry, we're going to rely on them to enforce local laws. I, as a federal agent, cannot go out there and enforce the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

I need those state and local law enforcement officers. So I would push back on that.

With respect to leveraging other federal partners, when we were in the Department of Treasury and I was a brand-new agent, I would stand post during a campaign year with agents from ATF, IRS Criminal Investigations.

You know, we were all one big happy family. Customs, customs moved over to DHS, just like we did. So we do this every four years. We rely on those partners.

We use them during national special security events, like the Democratic National Convention, the United Nations General Assembly, the presidential inauguration.

Those are whole-of-government security operations, which the Secret Service is the lead planning for. And we're going to bring in partners from across the government.

I don't feel that it's an overreliance. It's something that we have done going back to our days at Treasury. And we're going to continue to do that. We need those partners and we need those state and local officers.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

ROWE: Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

ROWE: So there was -- we had our security room and then they had a unified command post and we had a Pennsylvania -- Pennsylvania State Police officer representative in our security room.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

ROWE: No, there was not. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

ROWE: That -- that was unique. As I understand it, that's an emergency management model that they -- that they use. And, you know, as I mentioned, in that conversation with our special agents in charge in the field, I've directed, hey, we need to rethink where we put our security room.

If the large majority of our partners are in a unified command post or in a different location, we need to probably be there, too. And so we have to rethink how we -- where we put our security rooms. And we are, in fact, doing that now moving forward.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thanks so much.

You know, appropriators in Congress this week delayed consideration of DHS' budget for fiscal '25. They want to know more about what Secret Service needs.

I know you said Tuesday -- obviously, every agency head is always going to say they need more resources. But can you be specific about what resource needs there may be, particularly when we're looking at the technology issues, radio transmissions --

(CROSSTALK)

ROWE: Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- systems?

ROWE: Sure. So following this, we have had tremendous support from the Department of Homeland Security and from the secretary.

[14:40:03]

And we have, in fact, looked at all of these needs, given this dynamic high threat environment that we're operating in, in order to meet this. We can meet this now.

But it is going to require additional investments and resources. And we are having those conversations.

We certainly have been -- we've had great support not only from the department, but also our appropriations committee -- committees. And we are working through kind of what our needs are right now.

We will have future conversations about this. And we are appreciative that everyone is really coming together to make sure that we have what we need to meet this high threat.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

ROWE: Listen, that's not -- that's not for me to weigh in on. But what I would tell you is, you know, there's also a lot of

discussion about, why should the Secret Service do criminal investigations? And what I will say is this, We were founded in 1865 as an investigative entity. It's in our DNA.

I firmly believe that the best protection agents learn those skills being criminal investigators. You learn how to interact with people. You learn organizational skills. You learned to be analytical. Those are all traits that you need to have when you're on a detail.

Moreover, if you look at where we are today, buildings, communities, everything is interconnected. And so we have a particular expertise in cyber and in cybercrime and critical systems protection.

And so when you overlay that, that investigative skill set that we have, you know, it's more than just securing the president or our protectees in a brick-and-mortar setting. It's also protecting them from things that make them vulnerable due to cyber.

And so the only way to learn that -- those skills to be able to detect, to be able to analyze, to be able to make sure that we are hardening not only cyber systems but hardening a building that is fed by cyber systems, the only way to gain that experience, that knowledge is to be able to do criminal investigations.

Additionally, it is within our investigative authority to follow up on threats. People make threats to the president and the people we protect every day.

We need to have that domestic and international network of field offices to be able to track down those threats. And if necessary, bring those people to justice and present them to a U.S. attorney's office.

So this -- this -- you know, I know there's been a lot of talk, should we or shouldn't we, should we do this? Should we be in DHS?

The bottom line is this. If you want the Secret Service to continue to be the Secret Service and be effective at what it does, it needs to be doing investigations and it probably needs to be in the Department of Homeland Security until Congress or others have an opportunity to weigh in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Just a quick question. There's a report that a whistleblower has alleged that you personally directed cuts to the Counter-Surveillance Division, which led to the threat assessments team failing to perform its duties that it typically would before the before the Butler rally.

Is that accurate? Is that allegation accurate?

ROWE: So I've recently -- I've become aware of this. We got to congressional letter on it. What I can tell you is that the Counter-Surveillance Division, they do

a fantastic job. They have a very specific mission set. A lot of that mission set is here in the national capital region, focused on permanent protective sites.

But they do go out and they support -- when requested, they go out and support former details.

I know that there's been allegations that I personally cut or that I -- let's say, that I denied requests. The Counter-Surveillance Division has been out there supporting the former president's detail at some very high-profile events. They continue to provide that support. And they are out there providing support right now.

So we're going to respond to the letter that we received. And we'll be sure to make that -- I'm sure they will -- we'll be able to share that response when the committee says it's OK to respond.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

ROWE: I do not, no.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did you -- did you finally figure out what -- how he got that gun on the roof? Did it fit in the backpack?

ROWE: We're working -- we're working to determine that. That's something that the FBI is working on. There's a couple of -- I don't want to speculate as to exactly how he would have gotten it up there.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE QUESTION)

[14:45:04]

ROWE: So we have already trained numerous details to be able to mobilize, to pick up multiple candidates. Most of the presidential campaign activity usually picks up coming out of the conventions. So we are prepared for this.

It's just that now we are in such a heightened dynamic environment. We are actually making sure that we are probably putting everything we can to make sure that we don't have a mission failure.

It is incumbent upon everyone in the Secret Service. We all understand the gravity of this situation. And we are rising to meet this moment.

And we are certainly, as we go into the Democratic National Convention, as we await picking up another candidate with the eventual naming of a vice-presidential nominee from the Democratic side, we're going to staff that.

And we're going to make sure that we have all the resources and assets necessary to provide that level of protection.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Thank you.

ROWE: Thank you, everyone. BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We've been listening to Ronald Rowe, the

acting director of the Secret Service, giving a press briefing answering questions in detail about July 13th and the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

The acting director there saying that he recognizes that these are dark days, not only for the agency, but for the nation. Saying, though, quote, "We will earn back your trust."

He sees going about doing that as a path toward seeking accountability up to potentially holding Secret Service agents accountable if, through due process, they're found to have committed policy violations.

He also said, notably, that no local law enforcement should be held responsible for any Secret Service failures.

This comes, Brianna, after some finger pointing between local law enforcement and the Secret Service over what happened that day.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yes. And he was obviously just in the hot seat --

SANCHEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: -- before Congress after his predecessor, the now former Secret Service director, resigned following her rather abysmal performance before Congress.

And one of the really testy exchanges that he had during that hearing had to do with accountability. And he seemed to put a little more flesh on the bone about that where he was kind of describing the process about what that would look like.

Because as Senator Josh Hawley challenged him on this, he was saying, essentially, that there would be accountability, but that he wasn't going to do it in kind of a slap-dash kind of way.

And here, he laid out that if there were violations, the accountability would be -- there would be an investigation.

If the investigation found violations, that would be referred to the Office of Integrity. They would meet out whatever the punishment might be and it seems like, up to the point of firing someone.

So he sort of laid that out. He's clearly trying to thread a needle here, too, between dealing with the fact that certainly this is an organization with a morale problem, no doubt, following what has happened.

He pointed out that heroism was present that day. And he's also trying to create this idea that there is some transparency.

He's saying, I'm telling you what I know based on what I know at this point and these are extraordinary circumstances. Normally, I wouldn't comment on an investigation, but I'm doing it in this case. SANCHEZ: To that point about transparency, he actually provided a timeline of even before July 13th, what it was like for Secret Service to send in an advanced person, some of the procedures that they went through. And he also provided some details that we should ask our experts about.

We've got CNN law enforcement analyst, Jonathan Wackrow, with us and CNN senior national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem, joining us as well.

Julia, starting with you. What were your main takeaways from what we heard from the acting director?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, this was a long press conference and so the details may have been lost. But I -- the story is now becoming clear to me between the testimony and what was disclosed today.

There was, by the counter-snipers, we now know a concern about the rooftop. They expressed that concern. Then you heard the acting director say we discussed that concern and there was a division of labor. In law enforcement talk, that means it wasn't us. It was them. It was the state and locals.

He then says the Secret Service made assumptions. He keeps coming back to that word "assumptions," about what that meant. He criticizes the Secret Service for those assumptions. They were clearly erroneous.

And that meant that the state and locals did not have coverage of that building, which was, at the outset, put outside the security perimeter, which also was a fundamental mistake.

So you heard the acting director also talk about a new task force looking at about how security perimeters are done.

For me, this is the first time, exactly -- you know, this question that we all had is, how the heck did they leave that open? Which we've all had is -- they actually didn't. They actually were concerned about it. There's a mistake or a miscalculation on assumptions about who's covering it?

[14:50:01]

And then that's -- everything, everything else flows from that. You can't regroup after you leave a building like that. If you have an assassin determined to kill the former president.

KEILAR: Yes, that it comes down, Jonathan, very much to a giant gaping communications problem here.

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Brianna, absolutely.

And I just want to get back to that conversation around assumptions. You know, when -- there can -- you cannot assume anything when it comes to protection. And when I hear Acting Director Rowe talk about the failure to

question the assumptions or the assumptions that are in the field, I do appreciate the fact that he has gone out, has made a mandate to special agents in charge in the field to eliminate those assumptions, right?

But to me, that is -- you're starting to move the needle towards a systemic problem with the protective model. Because we have agents that are out there doing these advances. We heard that timeline of how long the preparation was for this event.

If we're making any type of assumptions with local law enforcement, other key stakeholders within the security plan, that is, you know, you creating that intrinsic potential for failure. And we cannot ever have that again.

So eliminating those assumptions is absolutely critical. And with that, to your point, is the communication, right? You cannot have bifurcated communication between local and -- local, state and, you know, federal agencies all working in unison.

That can no longer be the norm. The new norm has to be a unified approach to communication, a unified approach to roles and responsibilities when it comes to executing a common security plan.

And at the end of the day, Brianna, it's a shared fate by everybody.

SANCHEZ: Jonathan, we should point out, you're a former Secret Service agent. I wonder how that call from the acting director for accountability and for due process for agents, if there was a policy violation that they can sustain through evidence, how is that being received by the rank and file do you think?

WACKROW: Well, listen, I mean, I think that in the Secret Service, you know, our motto is worthy of trust and confidence. So this is nothing out of the norm.

What I'm afraid of here is that, you know, will accountability actually be shielded by administrative policy, specifically, the fact that the acting director brought up the Table of Penalties, right?

As a Secret Service agent, you know, yes, when you violate a policy within the Secret Service, there is a penalty structure that's to that.

My question is, were there penalties -- I mean, were their policies that weren't even in existence, is this more procedural? And you know, of the procedural side of thing in that communication and the structure with local law enforcement and how do we work together? Those are more procedural, not actual policy.

So I think that what you're going to see coming out of this are two things. Changes to policy on how we actually engage with our local law enforcement partners, probably formalizing Memorandums of Understanding on an event-by-event basis. But also changing our practices and procedures on site to allow more accountability to be held by those who have the responsibility of these security plans.

KEILAR: Juliette, I want to ask you, it was one of the last questions that the acting director got, which had to do with his personal involvement and a letter that has been sent from Senator Josh Hawley to him requesting a lot of information.

It's talking about a whistleblower, who has alleged to Hawley's office that it was Rowe personally who cut, by 20 percent, the Counter- Surveillance Division.

And Hawley is alleging that that actually would have created a situation where that sort of outside area that's in question would have been basically completely secure.

KAYYEM: Yes.

KEILAR: It seems -- it does seem very hypothetical. It also may raise some really important questions as well. Let's say that. What did you think about that?

KAYYEM: This is what -- this is what Hawley does. He wants to create a headline that heads towards him and not towards the significant problem that the Secret Service obviously has.

First of all, that -- that decrease in -- in personnel out, we need to find out, is it true?

Number two, why did it occur?

And number three, did Congress authorize it? Because, if Congress authorized it, then it's back to the Senator and not on the Secret Service.

The second is, it's wishful thinking to think it's the counter- surveillance group that would have been -- that could have solved this problem. I know that this is what people who haven't been in public safety or -- or Homeland Security think there's just like one solution, right?

[14:55:07]

The real issue is, is -- and I keep going back to this -- is the person I want, in terms of my interest, is, who established the security perimeter a couple of days before? Because I look at it now and think that seemed not right given where the roof is.

And then when concerns were made about the security perimeter, why didn't the Secret Service take it over? That has nothing to do with counter-surveillance, which Hawley wants you to think it does.

It has everything to do with the operational planning and some of the judgments made on the ground by the protective details. So I -- if -- just the idea that if only, right, this one thing had happened, that the Senator has discovered, that therefore the president would be saved is wishful thinking.

I'm glad that the director is pushing back on these Senators who don't seem -- who don't understand law enforcement, Homeland Security preparedness, operational planning, all the things.

No one's defending what happened. Huge mistake. But it doesn't -- it does not mean that the Senator is right.

KEILAR: Yes. Listen, on one hand, congressional oversight is so important. And they should be raising questions.

KAYYEM: Yes.

KEILAR: We also did hear Senator Hawley have some, seemed like, serious, I don't know, misunderstanding about even how some basic sniper operating worked at the hearing.

KAYYEM: Yes.

KEILAR: Thank you, Juliette. We appreciate it.

Jonathan, Thank you. We appreciate it.

Let's turn now to events in the Middle East. Fears of a wider conflict are growing as U.S. officials are warning about Iranian retaliation against Israel that could come within days.

Tensions, of course, on the rise since the assassination of Hamas' political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who was buried today in Qatar.

SANCHEZ: The Iranian government and Hamas say that Israel carried out that assassination. Now, Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for that attack.

But meantime, we are learning about moves by the Pentagon in response to these developments.

Let's bring in CNN national security correspondent, Natasha Bertrand, who joins us with the details on that -- Natasha?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris, we just learned from the Pentagon's deputy press secretary that the U.S. is going to be making a number of force posture changes in the Middle East.

In light of this increased threat by the Iranians, given that it is widely expected that they are going to retaliate for that alleged Israeli assassination of that senior Hamas figure into Iran earlier this week.

Now the deputy Pentagon press secretary declined to detail what exactly those force posture changes would look like, other than to say that it is essentially going to be an attempt to bolster the security of not only Israel, of course, but also U.S. forces who really have a footprint all across the Middle East and in Iraq and Syria, of course.

And so this is going to be an attempt primarily to bolster their air defense systems, which, of course, are going to be necessary if Iran does decide to launch some kind of large-scale ballistic missile attack, like they did back in April.

It also is expected to potentially involve the movement of all of the naval assets in the region right now, including the Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, which is currently in the Gulf of Oman, but could be moved a little bit closer to the area here, including Lebanon, if the situation calls for it.

But, you know, the U.S. has a lot of assets in the area right now, including amphibious assault ships in the Eastern Mediterranean. So they are pretty prepared at this point to respond at a moment's notice.

But still, additional reinforcements here are probably going to be sent in, just given the likelihood that this Iranian attack is going to be potentially larger and even more complex than what we saw in April.

KEILAR: All right, Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much. We know you're keeping a close eye on that.

And we will be right back with much more.

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