Former President Trump and his 2024 running mate JD Vance sat down for their first joint interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters on Monday following the assassination attempt on the GOP nominee’s life at a rally in Butler, Pa., last week.
Trump told “Jesse Watters Primetime” embattled Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle came to see him in the days following the assassination attempt.
“It went very nicely. She was very nice, I thought. But, you know, somebody should have made sure there was nobody on that roof,” he said.
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is sworn in before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee about the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign event in Pennsylvania, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, July 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.)
The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired several shots at the former president from the rooftop of a building roughly 130 yards away.
Investigators are piecing together how the 20-year-old local resident was able to gain a clear line of sight at Trump. Eyewitness Michael Difrischia filmed Crooks lying down on top of the American Glass Research building, looking down the sights of an AR-style rifle.
“I saw a younger kid running through the crowd and somebody had spoke[n] up [and] said the guy had a gun,” Difrischia told “The Ingraham Angle” last week.
WHO WAS THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS? WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT TRUMP’S ATTEMPTED ASSASSIN
“The problem was the police officers were too close to the building. They could not see him,” he added. “We were trying to tell them he’s right there, he’s right there, but they just couldn’t see him.”
Law enforcement officers stand over the body of would-be Trump assassin, Thomas Crooks on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (Todd the Driller)
Other eyewitnesses said they tried to warn police officers of a shooter before he fired the shots that grazed Trump’s ear, killed former Pennsylvania fire chief Corey Comperatore and injured David Dutch and James Copenhaven.
Trump told Watters he was surprised at how close Crooks was able to get.
“They said it’s really, it’s a — a bad shot would usually hit the target. And so I mean, it’s got to be, somebody’s got to be there. And it’s essentially a flat roof. I mean, I noticed that she [Cheatle] said, well, this is a slope roof where you think of like a barn where you have, this thing had just a little — a little upswing in it, a few degrees. This was a not — it essentially was a flat roof,” he said.
Cheatle told ABC News last week the building the alleged shooter was on top of had a “sloped roof at its highest point.” “And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” she said.
Two FBI investigators scan the roof of AGR International Inc, the building adjacent to the Butler Fairgrounds, from which alleged shooter Matthew Thomas Crooks fired at former President Donald J. Trump, in the aftermath of the attempted assassination at a campaign rally on July 14, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was escorted away by the Secret Service with an injury to his ear. One attendee at the rally on July 13 was killed and two others severely injured. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)
Trump said he believes Cheatle was given “false information” when she mentioned the roof’s slope as a reason why there weren’t any Secret Service agents atop the building.
The 2024 Republican nominee questioned why he wasn’t told to stay off the stage for 5-20 minutes before he came out and started speaking if there were concerns about a potential threat.
OFFICER REPORTED MAN AT TRUMP RALLY WITH RANGE-FINDER 30 MINS BEFORE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: SOURCE
“You have to answer why couldn’t I have stayed off the stage for five minutes while they do their work? Why couldn’t, you know, how does a situation happen where a roof that’s plainly in sight from the location where I was speaking… why would somebody not have seen that?” he asked.
Former President Trump survived an assassination attempt on Saturday during Pennsylvania rally. (Trump Campaign Office / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Cheatle appeared on Capitol Hill Monday to answer for the security failures that almost led to the assassination of a former president.
She acknowledged the attempt on Trump’s life was the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades.
Two ranking members of the House Oversight Committee, Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., called on Cheatle to resign from her post in a letter following her testimony, saying she failed to “provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures.”
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle attends a House of Representatives Oversight Committee hearing on the security lapses that allowed an attempted assassination of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., July 22, 2024. (REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt)
Trump praised the actions of his Secret Service agents, who rushed to cover him after shots rang out at his rally.
He told Watters his ear is healing and getting better. “We’re getting down to the small bandages. But it was a nasty one. And it was nasty, period. That was exactly one week ago from today, exactly. And, you know, when you think about it, it’s — that’s been a lot of territory covered,” he said.
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“Who — who would’ve thought this was going to be happening? But it happened. And I got very lucky, or God, I think it was God, actually.”