Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News at the Republican National Convention, said Secret Service leaders are covering up mistakes that allowed an assassin’s bullet to hit President Donald Trump.
Rubio began by describing how he felt watching Trump get shot by an assassin’s bullet.
“I actually saw it. I was watching it live,” Rubio told Breitbart’s Washington bureau chief Matt Boyle. “And my impression is, when you see this thing, it takes your brain a second to process it. It looked as if something exploded in the crowd and from the president’s reaction it looked as if something sprayed the president. And, you know, you hear agents yelling, ‘Down, down, down,'”
Matt Boyle greets Marco Rubio at the 2024 Republican National Convention
Alana Mastrangelo/Breitbart News
Rubio, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said concerns were heightened by the ongoing uncertainty surrounding Trump being pinned to the ground by Secret Service agents.
“For a few seconds while he’s on the ground you have no idea what’s happened and you start to wonder,” he said. “Finally he stands up and, obviously, you feel a sense of relief and then you realize, oh my goodness, they shot him. And at some point, there’s this popping sensation and you’re like, ‘I don’t know what this is.'”
The Florida senator reflected on how tragic it would have been if President Trump had been fatally wounded.
“I think what would have happened to our country on that day, if we hadn’t had God’s help, of course the death of President Trump would have been a tragedy, but especially for America at this moment, it would have been devastating, it would have been a catastrophe,” he said. “You don’t even want to think about how horrible we would have been as a country as a result of that.”
Rubio said he then remembered the shooter.
“We’re getting pretty clear indications early on that this isn’t the work of a highly skilled assassin or a ninja,” he said. “This guy, from what we know so far, was 20 years old, and everybody saw him walking around. People were screaming, there’s this kid on the roof. People had known about it for four or five minutes, and they’d allowed the president on stage, and he was close enough to shoot.”
Rubio made it clear that such mistakes would not be tolerated: “You don’t have to be a Secret Service expert to know that it’s not possible for a kid with a rifle to be on a roof 150 yards from the president. It’s not possible. And that’s the Secret Service’s fault.”
He said the Secret Service and others inside and outside the Biden administration were quick to assign blame, but that the American people should not be fooled.
“Even if you want to go around and say we handed it over to local authorities, that’s not true. It’s the local police department that was in charge of traffic control. But they still have the overall responsibility. They’re the ones that put it together.”
He continued:
I don’t know if they were the ones that sat there saying, “Let’s respond in the worst way possible.” I mean, what is the worst way to respond? This is it. There is no transparency, and every day a little bit of information leaks out, most of it not from them. They should be having press conferences every day and discussing it. Here’s what we know today. Here’s what we know so far. Here’s what we’ll do next. Otherwise people will start to wonder, “Hey, why aren’t these people telling us more? Why do we have to get information from X or from the person posting the video?” This was just too badly responded to. And it has to be at the top. It’s what I think is the worst way to respond. [Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas, but it actually starts with the director of the Secret Service.
Boyle noted that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention. Rubio’s colleagues, Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), confronted her on Wednesday evening after she refused to answer questions about the missteps that led to Saturday’s assassination attempt.
“To be fair, they didn’t go after her,” he said. “They met with her, had private conversations with her, and started asking her questions that she wouldn’t answer. She told them, ‘This is not the place to discuss that.'”
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Rubio opposed Cheatle, saying:
In fact, I think this is the place to discuss this issue. She gets up and walks out, and they follow her down the hallway, because, aside from everything else, she doesn’t think she’s in charge, that she doesn’t have to answer to anybody. She should be on TV every day, holding press conferences and telling everyone, “This is what we found and this is what we know.”
I mean, we’re not going to take this to court. The guy who did it is gone. So why don’t we put this out there every day, so the American people can understand, and be honest and identify where the internal failings were? We haven’t done that. We haven’t done that, and we still don’t. I think it’s a combination of incompetence and arrogance.
Boyle was referring to a Wednesday conference call between FBI Director Cheatle and senators, which Cheatle reportedly ended without answering any questions from senators.
“They were waiting in line, and people were saying I want to speak,” Rubio said, “and they basically said, ‘Well, we don’t have a speaker, we don’t have any questions left,’ and they hung up. And that started to stoke the anger.”
Rubio said authorities have not been cooperative.
I think at this point they’re in a mode of protecting their reputation and themselves. And just to be clear, as I’m talking to you, there were a number of agents who were here yesterday guarding the president. I know some of them. They’ve been with us a long time. I thanked them. I said thank you for your work. I’m not talking about them. I’m not talking about them. I’m talking to the leadership of the Secret Service. I think they failed. They realize they failed, and now they’re [saying] “We don’t say anything. They try to blame someone else.”
Rubio slammed Secret Service leaders for trying to shift the blame for their failures onto local police, saying, “The Secret Service leaders are 100 percent responsible. They are the ones who drove this, and they are the ones who protect President Trump and all of the other leaders that they protect. They’re not just protecting these people, they’re protecting our country.”
He said the Secret Service’s primary mission is to prevent destructive political assassinations. “They’ve failed in that mission, and they’re trying to cover it up, and I think they’re looking for someone else to blame.”
Boyle discussed the widespread belief that Trump’s life was spared by divine intervention, as the president miraculously turned his head just as the assassin pulled the trigger.
“I don’t even want to think about what that would mean for the country. People would have to watch an execution live, it would have been broadcast around the world, the impact would have been horrific,” he said. “The president, as he told people and as he told me, shouldn’t be here right now. He knows it, we know it.”
He continued, “I can’t think of any other way to explain it other than the hand of God. We all witnessed a miracle. We literally witnessed a miracle that was broadcast on national television.”
Bradley Jay is Capitol Hill correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter. translator.
