Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Colorado is tied for the fourth biggest increase in unemployment
from May twenty twenty four to May twenty twenty five.
I hope you're proud of it. Governor Poulis and Mayor Mikey.
You two, along with the Denver City Council and other
dens are destroying Colorado.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
That's kind of disappointing. We're just tied for fourth.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
At least we're top ten, top.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We're in the top. Yes, we're in the top five,
which is good news. And we can just if we
try just a little harder. I know that, you know,
Mayor Mikey and Governor Jerret can get us up into
that number one position in unemployment. Here's hoping. Yes, we
just got to work harder, Which is kind of funny
considering that we're talking about unemployment. Right, Yeah, it makes sense,
(00:47):
makes total sense. Well, you know, if you're a Democratic,
makes total sense to you. Susan Crabtree is a national
political correspondent at Real Care Politics. She's done some really
amazing reporting in the wake of the July thirteenth JECKX calendar.
Oh coming up on Sunday twenty twenty four, one year
(01:11):
attempted assassination of Donald Trump and Butler County, Pennsylvania. Her
reporting really did surpass the rest of the cabal. Crabtree
posted this report on her ex account, and trust me,
you want to hear this exclusive and hashtag breaking. I
(01:32):
didn't know that we were using hashtags on x anymore.
But beside the point, exclusive and hashtag breaking, the real
story behind the Secret Service suspensions over the Butler failures.
Key supervisors who signed off on the Butler security plan
and two who were on the final walkthroughs before the
(01:55):
January thirteenth rally were never disciplined, but in st Dad
received big promotions. Multiple sources in the Secret Service community
tael real clear politics. That's astounding to me in my
interaction with and let me just and I say this
(02:17):
just to give you perspective that I kind of know
what I'm talking about here. The former director of the
Secret Service during the Bush administration, Ralph Basham, was actually
a personal friend of mine. Ralph is a great guy.
He went on to become the head of Customs and
Border Patrol eventually too after he retire from the Secret Service.
But Ralph and I got to be pretty good friends,
(02:39):
and we would have lunch together often, and we would
talk a lot about because I was not maybe unnaturally,
but I was very, very curious about the presidential detail
and just the inner workings of the Secret Service, so
much so that h camera, I got Paul Irving, who
(03:04):
was the deputy director of the Secret Service, to take
Tamra and a couple of her friends on a tour.
They got to sit in the Beast, they got to
do all sorts of things at Secret Service headquarters and
at Quantico. Simply because I was fascinated, you know, with
my detail, I was, I mean pretty I eventually stopped
(03:27):
doing it, but I was always asking my detail, why
are we doing this? Why do we do that? Explain
to me why, you know. I mean. One of the
things that stays that always sticks out of my mind
because it still happens today, was I could never walk
into a hotel room first, and I always thought that
(03:52):
was bizarre, And so I asked Kenny, who was the
head of my detail the very first time it happened,
why are we doing this? And he said, well, one,
we want to make sure that the room is empty. Two,
depending on where we are now. The first time it happened,
it happened. It actually happened in the States. But we'll
sweep the room for bugs. And two we don't want
(04:15):
to We want to make sure that there's no one here,
i e. Think prostitute or you know, a honey trap
that's going to put you in a really bad position.
So we sweep the room, we check it, and then
you can you know, and then you can go in.
But we're not going to allow you to go in
until we've checked the room out. It's that kind of deep.
(04:39):
Now that's foreign undersecretary. Imagine what they do with the president.
So I got to be involved with the advanced teams
from the White House that whenever the President was going
to travel, whether I was traveling with him or meeting
him someplace, I was involved in all the details about
the advanced planning. So these when they talk about the
(05:04):
key supervisors who signed off on the Butler security plan
and two who were on the final walkthroughs, I've been
on those walkthroughs with the Secret Service of the White
House Advanced Team, and it goes like this. You you know,
you meet at the appointed location at a certain time.
(05:27):
Everybody gets out of their vehicles or you know, they
arrive and they go into the building whatever it is,
and you have the agenda, you have every detail minute
by minute. You know, potus or whatever key word they're
using for potus, will you know, will arrive at such
and such time. And that's where you start in terms
(05:49):
of the walk through. Everything else before that is also
also checked through. You know where you're going to land,
air Force one, are you going to use Marine one on?
You're gonna use a motorcade? What are you gonna do?
All of that is worked out in advance too. But
because she mentions the final walkthrough, and I know that
(06:10):
most of you have seen the video of Butler Pennsylvania,
that is a key point that the supervisors, the two
who were on the final walk through before that rally,
were not disciplined but instead got big promotions, at least
according to her reporting, which means they walk the ground.
(06:33):
They walk the ground from They probably did it like this, Okay,
where is the former president and the presidential candidate Donald Trump?
What time is he going to arrive? They would oftentimes
do the walkthrough starting at the same time that the
(06:56):
principal in this case Donald Trump, former president.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Would arrive.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Why would that be because they want to see what
the venue looks like at that time of day. Well,
you know, if it's inside, what's the lighting like, if
it's outside, what's the sunset? What's the sunrise? What's the weather?
What do we need to know? What? What do the
grounds look like? All those things. So they would start
(07:21):
over where the where the limousine might pull up by
the reviewing stand, by the by the stand, and then
they would walk all through the grounds. They walk around,
they'd look at the risers, they'd look at the elect
and they'd look at you know, the steps up. They
would they would do everything. Where are we going to
put the press, where's the rope line? How how far
is the rope line? How many members of the press
(07:43):
do we expect to be here? What's the size of
the crowd. Now, let's walk all across the venue, Which
means they saw all of those buildings, they saw everything,
or maybe I should say they should have she can continues.
One of those supervisors in the final walkthroughs, Nick Minster,
(08:06):
was assigned this year as the number two in charge
of the Laura and Eric Trump protective Detail. The other,
Nick Olzowinski or Alzuski, ironically became the chief special Agent
in charge of the Inspection Division, which is responsible for
ensuring the accountability and integrity of the agency's personnel and operations.
(08:30):
Inexperienced agents positioned for failure, and a more senior agent
who spoke out about the ambiguity of the AGR roof coverage.
That's the roof from which the shooter shot. Let me
start that paragraph again. Inexperienced agents positioned for failure, and
(08:51):
a more senior agent who spoke out about the ambiguity
about the AGR roof coverage. According to Secret Service sources
and congressional testimony, are taking the fall. Well, if there
was ambiguity about the roof coverage, how did the supervisors
(09:13):
of the Trump detail? How did those supervisors get away
scott free? Now I heard yesterday I was out walking
the dogs and I heard on Laura Ingram. I forget
who she was. Oh, she was talking to Laura Trump,
That's who it was. She was talking to Laura Trump,
and Laura Trump made some comment to this effect. My
(09:33):
father in law has looked at the reports and he's
satisfied that everything's been fixed and everything's fine. Okay, I
mean if he is, then so be it. The reporter rights.
Rank and file agents are incensed over the decision not
to hold the supervisors accountable, further sinking to lowell morale
(09:57):
in exacerbating retention problems through out the agency. The Secret Service,
secret Service Director Sean Kerhn and in fact Laura Trump
last night specifically mentioned Sean Kerran, who was handpicked by
Potus to be the head of the Secret Service. He
was the one that was in charge of the Trump
detail at the time of the rally. Minster served under
(10:23):
his command. Another big point, Well, let me before I
move on from that. So the current Secret Service director
was in charge of the Trump detail at the time
of the rally. I'm hesitant to criticize him. So I'll
(10:47):
just say this, if you're the head of the presidential detail. Now, Eddie,
who is the head of Bush's detail, was always asking
questions I because I wasn't always right next to Bush.
I might be next to the people that Eddie would
(11:07):
be next to because he would be asking questions. He
might look at something and say did we check that out?
Or he might you know, you know, put his hand
up and you know, talking to his into his calms
and say, did we ever check that stairwell, or who's
(11:29):
on this stairwell today, or who's doing who's doing the
drone coverage today? Things like that. Well, that guy was
at Butler, Sean Kerrn, who's the current Secret Service director,
is the guy that was on the ground with Trump
at that time. My only question is did he ever
(11:53):
look at the look up at the building, the one
building that was in the line of sight of Trump
standing at the lectern, and just say, who's covering that?
Or I don't see anybody on that building? Would somebody
check it? I just I find that based on my
(12:14):
experience with the Secret Service, who I've told you this before,
but I think it bears repeating here. I one time
asked Ralph that then have the Secret Service, why do
you do some of these things that seemed to me
to be over the top, like truly over the top
and unnecessary, And he says, because we can, because we can,
(12:38):
And our attitude is we want zero chances. We want
to eliminate as humanly possible every possible scenario that might
occur in any given locale, which makes me again just
wonder why didn't Sean Kerrn, who was at the head
of the detail and Butler look up at a building
(13:02):
and say, I don't see a sniper up there?
Speaker 3 (13:07):
What?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Why? Because I think about the number of times that
I heard Eddie say, do we have somebody else? Like
you might point out. I remember one time in Philadelphia
we were I don't even remember what the building was,
but Trump was Trump, but Bush was giving a speech
in Philly. We had flown up to Philly, and I
(13:29):
was I was not on the stage. I was just
sitting off with staff on the side, and Eddie was
over there, you know, watching the president, and he spoke
to somebody on his calms and said, how many people
do we have up on the higher level? The higher
level was roped off, but he wanted to know how
many people we had up there, or that they had
up there. That's the kind of constant I mean, constant
(13:54):
interaction when the president's not sitting in the oval office,
when the president's out anywhere, the head of the presidential
detail is just there is nothing else on his mind
except that she goes on to write this.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
This is over on X.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Another big point. Multiple Secret Service sources tell me that
the original Secret Service disciplinary recommendations varied but maxed out
at fifty two days without pay. However, lawyers for the
agents were able to scale that discipline down to between
ten and forty two days without pay. That is relatively
(14:33):
light punishment for such egregious failures, but the fact that
some of these agents didn't receive the supervisory oversight that
an outdoor rally of this magnitude required is likely a
mitigating factor. If so, that begs the question of why
were key supervisors allowed to skate Because you might say, okay,
(14:58):
they were not quite as experienced, but they had supervisors,
And that gets to my point back about mister Kerran.
Why did he not when the president got out of
the limo and is starting to speak in butler, why
was he not? I mean, their heads on a swivel,
they're looking all the time. Why did he not look
(15:21):
up and see the AGR building and go, that's kind
of interesting. I don't see anybody on that roof. Now.
Remember the shooter was down below. He hadn't crawled up
far enough yet, but a sniper would have been on
the edge and they would have and Kerran would have
looked up and seen at least one person up there
with a rifle and gone, oh, that's our guy, and
(15:42):
probably not even asked the question when he didn't see anybody.
That's my point. Why didn't he ask, why do I,
my gosh, that roof is what was it one hundred
yards away or less? Why do I not see anybody
on that rooftop. Larry Berger, an attorney for several of
the suspended agents who previously has served as general counsel
(16:04):
for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, says, quote, we
avoided more severe sanctions, and now we're assessing the next
steps with respect to these discussions. Three of the six
who are taking the fall are Motsoy Something Perez, an
(16:24):
inexperienced agent according to congressional testimony, which did not name her,
who was the site agent in charge of the security
for the rally. She was part of the regular Trump detail,
was not chosen for the big outdoor January thirteenth rally,
but simply had her rotation come up. According to Secret
Service sources, Meredith Bank, a far more experienced agent out
(16:50):
of the Pittsburgh Field Office who was serving as the
lead agent for the day of the rally, overseeing operations
from the time that then Canada Trump arrived at the
airport to the final departure. Now, if she was there,
then she also said, we have two points of failure there,
(17:12):
the head of the detail and the lead agent for
that particular event. Why does she not look up? And
it may seem minor to you, but I'm telling you
you've seen them on television. They're always looking, they're always watching.
(17:32):
How could you not look at that building and say,
why isn't nobody there?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I answer your earlier question, Michael, about why there wasn't
a sniper on the roof already is because there they
knew that there would shortly be one there.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Whoa do do do do?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Do?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Do?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Do doo? Uh eighty ninety four, Mike, because I recall
it was one hundred degrees outside and nobody wanted to
go up there. And also this secret service said the
roof was too steep. I replied to that message because
I remember something about somebody at one point in time
said something was too steep, but then pictures later proof
(18:12):
that not to be true, not to be true, and
it may have been one hundred degrees. That's your job,
and that reminds me. I talk about Eddie a lot.
His name is Eddie Morenzo. Eddie was just one of
those guys that you knew was a man's man. He
was no nonsense. I never knew him that side his
(18:37):
official duties. The head of the presidential detail, I'd like
I never had lunch with him. It was unlike the
director of the Secret Service that you know. Ralph and
I became good friends. But Eddie no, because one he
always traveled with the president and I wasn't always with
the president. But Eddie. I think about what went on
(19:01):
in Butler and that text message if Eddie Merrenzo had
gotten out of the Beast at Butler, Pennsylvania and looked
around as he was always doing. Because somebody said, Michael,
did you ever have any close calls with Bush? Or
did the Secret Service constant observation, chatter and awareness to
tear a lot of that. And my reply was I
(19:23):
never had any close calls and I never once felt
uncomfortable about anything. The only thing that I was ever
told by my detail was remember this, when you're with
the president, you're not the principal. So while they will
try to help you, you may be on your own.
(19:48):
So if, for example, if the Beast gets attacked or
the President gets attacked, they're going to shove him back
in the car. He saw him shove Trump back in
the car. Well, if I had been with Trump that day,
I would have not gotten shot back in the car. No,
I would have been left to fend for myself. Now
there might have been there might have been an agent,
(20:09):
you know, other agents would have seen that I was
part of the entourage, so they may have jumped on
me and pushed me to the ground and hidden me
in the you know whatever. But I would have not
been shoved in the car unless there was some extraordinary reason.
I just happened to be standing by the door or something.
So that was the main lesson that I learned was
you're not the president, You're the lowly undersecretary. I think
(20:34):
Eddie would have told whoever's triving with the president, you
do whatever you can, but don't forget our only and
number one obligation is to potus. So I'm those text
messages just kind of reminded me of Eddie and how
he was probably the only person that I'm sure that
(20:59):
Laura Bush at times told her husband no, no, we're
not going to do that, or no you can't have that,
or no, well whatever. But the only person that I
ever publicly or privately heard say no to the president.
Was Eddie Marenzo. We were in California, we were we
(21:19):
were in the motorcade. Bush wanted to stop. Eddie kept
saying no, and he finally turned around to the President
and said, sir, no, we are not going to stop.
We're going right back to Marine one. Well, so I
just did a quick search and I found this CBS
news story where Eddie is talking about what happened to
(21:41):
nine to eleven. Bush wanted to go back to d C.
Guess who it was that made the decision that said no, sir,
you may want to go back to d C, but
we're not taking you there.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Secret Service agents who protected the first family on the
day America was attacked.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Here CBS is Jeff Gaze.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Sixteen.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
In this now iconic moment from nine to eleven, President
Bush is informed of the attack by his chief of staff,
Andy Card. Eddie Morenzel is off to his right.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
When I saw the look on the President's face, I
knew that there was something that was bad.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
He was the lead Secret Service agent on the President's detail,
and with the nine to eleven attack in progress, his
mission became getting the president out of that elementary school
classroom and onto Air Force One as quickly as possible.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
We did a very steep takeoff.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Why was that?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Our idea was to, you know, hide in the sky
until we could figure out what was what was going on.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
Hide in the sky, right Hyder jets escorted Air Force One,
protecting the president from any possible attack. The Twin Towers
and the Pentagon were feared to be the beginning of
a Lord your al Qaeda battleplane onboard Air Force One Forrenzel,
(23:05):
Card and a military aid huddled deciding who was going
to tell the commander in chief that Secret Service supervisors
had determined that it was too dangerous to return to Washington.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Don't bring them back. It's too unsettled.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
We don't know what else is out there, and so you.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Said, as far away from Washington as possible.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
At this point, I said to the President, we have
come up with a plan that we could go to
Barksale Air Force Base, regroup and find out what's going on.
I was working in the afternoon shift that day.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Steven Stashik, who was off duty, began running toward the
White House.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Everybody just showed up. Don't one had to be told
to come in.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Nick Trotta was with the First Lady on Capitol Hill
before evacuating her at a secret Service headquarters.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
We perform a role, and that role is really to
evacuate and to provide that safety.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
At the White House, Tony Zado was ordered by his
supervisor to rush Vice President Dick Cheney down into the
White House bunker, where a military aid told him yet
another hijack plane was incoming.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
That's enough. My point about that is they're on Air
Force one and Eddie has made the determination that no,
we're not taking you back to Andrews. We're not going
back to d C yet because we don't know what
the situation. We don't have situational awareness of what's going on,
so you are not going back. And you have Andy
(24:35):
card Bush's lead for his personal detail, and the military
aid on board, and this video shows them huddling because
they're trying to decide who's going to tell him, because
Bush was adamant, I'm going back to DC, and Eddie
(24:55):
was adamant, no, sir, you're not going back to d C.
That's how much they when Ralph Basham told me, we
do what we can do, because we can do it.
That's how they operate. So Eddie was the one to
tell Bush, no, we're not going back. Well, we got
a plan. We're gonna take you to Barksdale, get situational awareness,
(25:17):
and then when we feel it safe, then we'll take
you back. Because they only have one objective. Now, let's
not forget that in terms of Butler, it's not just
Donald Trump candidate, it is former President Donald Trump, who
is also even at that time, because remember we're talking
(25:38):
about July. It's not presumptuous, but I would say most
people are beginning to believe that Trump's gonna get reelected.
So for that detail to walk out of that limo
(25:59):
and do what I always saw them doing, scouring the horizon,
looking at everything that they've already been through so they
know what the layout is. It's not like they looked
up and went, oh, holy Fece's batman, there's a building
there that we didn't check. No, they knew that building
was there, and they don't see anybody on the rooftop.
(26:24):
That is a vulnerability. And I guess I'm just saying that.
What really pisses me off about this is that neither
Ralph Bashim or for that matter, mister Kurran, who's the
current head of the Secret Service, would have or should have.
I know Ralph never would have. Heads would have rolled,
Heads would have absolutely rolled. It would be And maybe
(26:48):
it's just because of my experience of being inside that bubble,
But had I been in b I shouldn't say it
that way. That's too arrogant, I guess. But I think
that i'd been anywhere with Bush and seeing something that
seemed odd to me, like a vulnerability like that, which
(27:10):
would be we should be pretty obvious to almost anybody.
I would have said something to Eddie, and probably would
never have had to because I think that Eddie himself
would have seen that and gone, why do I not
see ahead and a barrel of a sniper rifle on
(27:30):
that rooftop? That's just way too obvious. And the fact
that we've had people just suspended and not fired over that,
I just find incredulous, really incredulous. Now the person that
(27:50):
has to be satisfied about his own detail, now he
has to be he has to be concerned about his
own personal detail. So if Laura Trump says to Laura
Ingram that Trump is satisfied with Kerran as lead detail
and he thinks everything is fine. Well, then that's that.
(28:11):
But it's still incumbent upon the Director of the Secret Service,
mister Kerran, to make sure his agency is of the
caliber that at least I experienced that no stone is
left unturned. Oh you turn that stone over once, we'll
go do it again, and when we show up, we
(28:33):
might want to look at that stone one more time.
That's the extent to which the presidential detail goes before
an event occurs, let alone win the event occurs. So
this political reporting I think is a bombshell. Michael.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
Remember when the two Secret Service agents, the females got
into a fight, neither one of them were fired. How
many DEI hires are on the staff that were part
of that detail that had never been fired. That's the
question that needs to be asked.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It is a question that needs to be asked. I
want to go to. This is Congressman Mark Green, He's
a congressman from Tennessee. This is back in December of
last year, so about six months or so ago, and
he's talking to Oh, what was the stupid guys? I
don't mean that way, Ron Rowe. He was put in
(29:37):
as the acting director of the Secret Service at the time.
The reason I want to I want you to hear
this is because Congressman Green, in describing his background, describes
what really is and should be. The attitude of the Secret.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Service almost to me like it was lacks a day's ago.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
I mean, it's hard to fathom that someone would say,
we don't need to cover this. Yeah, and the communications issues.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
With the local law enforcement.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
I asked the question when they came before the committee recently,
when everybody showed up on the day, was there a
check in and there were law enforcement agencies that had
never even talked to Secret.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Service that day? I mean, these are really basic.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Things, and that's absolutely right. I mean, in terms of
White House Advance, which should have been involved in this,
I can't say for certain they were. This is exactly
the kind of thing that you would do. Everybody would
know who everybody's going to be on that.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Day, and he would think they would know to do
those kinds of things.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
So it speaks of apathy or complacency that is really
unacceptable in an organization like the Secret Service.
Speaker 7 (30:58):
You know, one of my questions you is, you know
the level of the failure. It seems unfathomable. The internal
policies that weren't. It here to the failure to mitigate
very obvious risks.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
It speaks to a culture that.
Speaker 7 (31:14):
You know, lack of attention to details, lack of sense
of urgency, complacency. I mean, these are leadership, these are
command climate issues. What is the command climate of the
Secret Service? That that's the thing that concerns me the most.
When I reported to the one sixtieth Special Operations Aviation
Regimen Commander to be their doctor, right at that point
(31:38):
in my life, I was thirty eight years old. I
had graduated from West Point Ranger School, commanded in the
eighty second Airborne Division and Infantry Company. I had a
master's and systems information. I had a medical degree, top
of my med school class, and I wondered if I
was good enough to be on that tool. That's what
I'm talking about, elite culture where everybody comes to work
(31:59):
every day saying I can't.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I will do everything.
Speaker 7 (32:03):
I can to make sure I don't fail, and I'll
tell you going to war, I didn't if I died.
What I didn't want to do was fail.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
But your guys showed up that day and didn't you.
Speaker 7 (32:17):
There was apathy and complacency period, and that's your mission.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Now.
Speaker 7 (32:23):
I appreciate all the systems and the technology that everybody
else is asked about.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
This is a leadership issue. This is a command climate issue,
a culture.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Issue, and I think it's a command it's a command
climate issue. It's a culture issue. But bear with me.
I think it is kind of a problem with the
entire culture of the country. I think that DEI, I
think that ef ESG has done this to everything public
(32:58):
Empire
Colorado is tied for the fourth biggest increase in unemployment
from May twenty twenty four to May twenty twenty five.
I hope you're proud of it. Governor Poulis and Mayor Mikey.
You two, along with the Denver City Council and other
dens are destroying Colorado.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
That's kind of disappointing. We're just tied for fourth.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
At least we're top ten, top.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
We're in the top. Yes, we're in the top five,
which is good news. And we can just if we
try just a little harder. I know that, you know,
Mayor Mikey and Governor Jerret can get us up into
that number one position in unemployment. Here's hoping. Yes, we
just got to work harder, Which is kind of funny
considering that we're talking about unemployment. Right, Yeah, it makes sense,
(00:47):
makes total sense. Well, you know, if you're a Democratic,
makes total sense to you. Susan Crabtree is a national
political correspondent at Real Care Politics. She's done some really
amazing reporting in the wake of the July thirteenth JECKX calendar.
Oh coming up on Sunday twenty twenty four, one year
(01:11):
attempted assassination of Donald Trump and Butler County, Pennsylvania. Her
reporting really did surpass the rest of the cabal. Crabtree
posted this report on her ex account, and trust me,
you want to hear this exclusive and hashtag breaking. I
(01:32):
didn't know that we were using hashtags on x anymore.
But beside the point, exclusive and hashtag breaking, the real
story behind the Secret Service suspensions over the Butler failures.
Key supervisors who signed off on the Butler security plan
and two who were on the final walkthroughs before the
(01:55):
January thirteenth rally were never disciplined, but in st Dad
received big promotions. Multiple sources in the Secret Service community
tael real clear politics. That's astounding to me in my
interaction with and let me just and I say this
(02:17):
just to give you perspective that I kind of know
what I'm talking about here. The former director of the
Secret Service during the Bush administration, Ralph Basham, was actually
a personal friend of mine. Ralph is a great guy.
He went on to become the head of Customs and
Border Patrol eventually too after he retire from the Secret Service.
But Ralph and I got to be pretty good friends,
(02:39):
and we would have lunch together often, and we would
talk a lot about because I was not maybe unnaturally,
but I was very, very curious about the presidential detail
and just the inner workings of the Secret Service, so
much so that h camera, I got Paul Irving, who
(03:04):
was the deputy director of the Secret Service, to take
Tamra and a couple of her friends on a tour.
They got to sit in the Beast, they got to
do all sorts of things at Secret Service headquarters and
at Quantico. Simply because I was fascinated, you know, with
my detail, I was, I mean pretty I eventually stopped
(03:27):
doing it, but I was always asking my detail, why
are we doing this? Why do we do that? Explain
to me why, you know. I mean. One of the
things that stays that always sticks out of my mind
because it still happens today, was I could never walk
into a hotel room first, and I always thought that
(03:52):
was bizarre, And so I asked Kenny, who was the
head of my detail the very first time it happened,
why are we doing this? And he said, well, one,
we want to make sure that the room is empty. Two,
depending on where we are now. The first time it happened,
it happened. It actually happened in the States. But we'll
sweep the room for bugs. And two we don't want
(04:15):
to We want to make sure that there's no one here,
i e. Think prostitute or you know, a honey trap
that's going to put you in a really bad position.
So we sweep the room, we check it, and then
you can you know, and then you can go in.
But we're not going to allow you to go in
until we've checked the room out. It's that kind of deep.
(04:39):
Now that's foreign undersecretary. Imagine what they do with the president.
So I got to be involved with the advanced teams
from the White House that whenever the President was going
to travel, whether I was traveling with him or meeting
him someplace, I was involved in all the details about
the advanced planning. So these when they talk about the
(05:04):
key supervisors who signed off on the Butler security plan
and two who were on the final walkthroughs, I've been
on those walkthroughs with the Secret Service of the White
House Advanced Team, and it goes like this. You you know,
you meet at the appointed location at a certain time.
(05:27):
Everybody gets out of their vehicles or you know, they
arrive and they go into the building whatever it is,
and you have the agenda, you have every detail minute
by minute. You know, potus or whatever key word they're
using for potus, will you know, will arrive at such
and such time. And that's where you start in terms
(05:49):
of the walk through. Everything else before that is also
also checked through. You know where you're going to land,
air Force one, are you going to use Marine one on?
You're gonna use a motorcade? What are you gonna do?
All of that is worked out in advance too. But
because she mentions the final walkthrough, and I know that
(06:10):
most of you have seen the video of Butler Pennsylvania,
that is a key point that the supervisors, the two
who were on the final walk through before that rally,
were not disciplined but instead got big promotions, at least
according to her reporting, which means they walk the ground.
(06:33):
They walk the ground from They probably did it like this, Okay,
where is the former president and the presidential candidate Donald Trump?
What time is he going to arrive? They would oftentimes
do the walkthrough starting at the same time that the
(06:56):
principal in this case Donald Trump, former president.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Would arrive.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Why would that be because they want to see what
the venue looks like at that time of day. Well,
you know, if it's inside, what's the lighting like, if
it's outside, what's the sunset? What's the sunrise? What's the weather?
What do we need to know? What? What do the
grounds look like? All those things. So they would start
(07:21):
over where the where the limousine might pull up by
the reviewing stand, by the by the stand, and then
they would walk all through the grounds. They walk around,
they'd look at the risers, they'd look at the elect
and they'd look at you know, the steps up. They
would they would do everything. Where are we going to
put the press, where's the rope line? How how far
is the rope line? How many members of the press
(07:43):
do we expect to be here? What's the size of
the crowd. Now, let's walk all across the venue, Which
means they saw all of those buildings, they saw everything,
or maybe I should say they should have she can continues.
One of those supervisors in the final walkthroughs, Nick Minster,
(08:06):
was assigned this year as the number two in charge
of the Laura and Eric Trump protective Detail. The other,
Nick Olzowinski or Alzuski, ironically became the chief special Agent
in charge of the Inspection Division, which is responsible for
ensuring the accountability and integrity of the agency's personnel and operations.
(08:30):
Inexperienced agents positioned for failure, and a more senior agent
who spoke out about the ambiguity of the AGR roof coverage.
That's the roof from which the shooter shot. Let me
start that paragraph again. Inexperienced agents positioned for failure, and
(08:51):
a more senior agent who spoke out about the ambiguity
about the AGR roof coverage. According to Secret Service sources
and congressional testimony, are taking the fall. Well, if there
was ambiguity about the roof coverage, how did the supervisors
(09:13):
of the Trump detail? How did those supervisors get away
scott free? Now I heard yesterday I was out walking
the dogs and I heard on Laura Ingram. I forget
who she was. Oh, she was talking to Laura Trump,
That's who it was. She was talking to Laura Trump,
and Laura Trump made some comment to this effect. My
(09:33):
father in law has looked at the reports and he's
satisfied that everything's been fixed and everything's fine. Okay, I
mean if he is, then so be it. The reporter rights.
Rank and file agents are incensed over the decision not
to hold the supervisors accountable, further sinking to lowell morale
(09:57):
in exacerbating retention problems through out the agency. The Secret Service,
secret Service Director Sean Kerhn and in fact Laura Trump
last night specifically mentioned Sean Kerran, who was handpicked by
Potus to be the head of the Secret Service. He
was the one that was in charge of the Trump
detail at the time of the rally. Minster served under
(10:23):
his command. Another big point, Well, let me before I
move on from that. So the current Secret Service director
was in charge of the Trump detail at the time
of the rally. I'm hesitant to criticize him. So I'll
(10:47):
just say this, if you're the head of the presidential detail. Now, Eddie,
who is the head of Bush's detail, was always asking
questions I because I wasn't always right next to Bush.
I might be next to the people that Eddie would
(11:07):
be next to because he would be asking questions. He
might look at something and say did we check that out?
Or he might you know, you know, put his hand
up and you know, talking to his into his calms
and say, did we ever check that stairwell, or who's
(11:29):
on this stairwell today, or who's doing who's doing the
drone coverage today? Things like that. Well, that guy was
at Butler, Sean Kerrn, who's the current Secret Service director,
is the guy that was on the ground with Trump
at that time. My only question is did he ever
(11:53):
look at the look up at the building, the one
building that was in the line of sight of Trump
standing at the lectern, and just say, who's covering that?
Or I don't see anybody on that building? Would somebody
check it? I just I find that based on my
(12:14):
experience with the Secret Service, who I've told you this before,
but I think it bears repeating here. I one time
asked Ralph that then have the Secret Service, why do
you do some of these things that seemed to me
to be over the top, like truly over the top
and unnecessary, And he says, because we can, because we can,
(12:38):
And our attitude is we want zero chances. We want
to eliminate as humanly possible every possible scenario that might
occur in any given locale, which makes me again just
wonder why didn't Sean Kerrn, who was at the head
of the detail and Butler look up at a building
(13:02):
and say, I don't see a sniper up there?
Speaker 3 (13:07):
What?
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Why? Because I think about the number of times that
I heard Eddie say, do we have somebody else? Like
you might point out. I remember one time in Philadelphia
we were I don't even remember what the building was,
but Trump was Trump, but Bush was giving a speech
in Philly. We had flown up to Philly, and I
(13:29):
was I was not on the stage. I was just
sitting off with staff on the side, and Eddie was
over there, you know, watching the president, and he spoke
to somebody on his calms and said, how many people
do we have up on the higher level? The higher
level was roped off, but he wanted to know how
many people we had up there, or that they had
up there. That's the kind of constant I mean, constant
(13:54):
interaction when the president's not sitting in the oval office,
when the president's out anywhere, the head of the presidential
detail is just there is nothing else on his mind
except that she goes on to write this.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
This is over on X.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Another big point. Multiple Secret Service sources tell me that
the original Secret Service disciplinary recommendations varied but maxed out
at fifty two days without pay. However, lawyers for the
agents were able to scale that discipline down to between
ten and forty two days without pay. That is relatively
(14:33):
light punishment for such egregious failures, but the fact that
some of these agents didn't receive the supervisory oversight that
an outdoor rally of this magnitude required is likely a
mitigating factor. If so, that begs the question of why
were key supervisors allowed to skate Because you might say, okay,
(14:58):
they were not quite as experienced, but they had supervisors,
And that gets to my point back about mister Kerran.
Why did he not when the president got out of
the limo and is starting to speak in butler, why
was he not? I mean, their heads on a swivel,
they're looking all the time. Why did he not look
(15:21):
up and see the AGR building and go, that's kind
of interesting. I don't see anybody on that roof. Now.
Remember the shooter was down below. He hadn't crawled up
far enough yet, but a sniper would have been on
the edge and they would have and Kerran would have
looked up and seen at least one person up there
with a rifle and gone, oh, that's our guy, and
(15:42):
probably not even asked the question when he didn't see anybody.
That's my point. Why didn't he ask, why do I,
my gosh, that roof is what was it one hundred
yards away or less? Why do I not see anybody
on that rooftop. Larry Berger, an attorney for several of
the suspended agents who previously has served as general counsel
(16:04):
for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, says, quote, we
avoided more severe sanctions, and now we're assessing the next
steps with respect to these discussions. Three of the six
who are taking the fall are Motsoy Something Perez, an
(16:24):
inexperienced agent according to congressional testimony, which did not name her,
who was the site agent in charge of the security
for the rally. She was part of the regular Trump detail,
was not chosen for the big outdoor January thirteenth rally,
but simply had her rotation come up. According to Secret
Service sources, Meredith Bank, a far more experienced agent out
(16:50):
of the Pittsburgh Field Office who was serving as the
lead agent for the day of the rally, overseeing operations
from the time that then Canada Trump arrived at the
airport to the final departure. Now, if she was there,
then she also said, we have two points of failure there,
(17:12):
the head of the detail and the lead agent for
that particular event. Why does she not look up? And
it may seem minor to you, but I'm telling you
you've seen them on television. They're always looking, they're always watching.
(17:32):
How could you not look at that building and say,
why isn't nobody there?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
I answer your earlier question, Michael, about why there wasn't
a sniper on the roof already is because there they
knew that there would shortly be one there.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Whoa do do do do?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Do?
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Do?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Do doo? Uh eighty ninety four, Mike, because I recall
it was one hundred degrees outside and nobody wanted to
go up there. And also this secret service said the
roof was too steep. I replied to that message because
I remember something about somebody at one point in time
said something was too steep, but then pictures later proof
(18:12):
that not to be true, not to be true, and
it may have been one hundred degrees. That's your job,
and that reminds me. I talk about Eddie a lot.
His name is Eddie Morenzo. Eddie was just one of
those guys that you knew was a man's man. He
was no nonsense. I never knew him that side his
(18:37):
official duties. The head of the presidential detail, I'd like
I never had lunch with him. It was unlike the
director of the Secret Service that you know. Ralph and
I became good friends. But Eddie no, because one he
always traveled with the president and I wasn't always with
the president. But Eddie. I think about what went on
(19:01):
in Butler and that text message if Eddie Merrenzo had
gotten out of the Beast at Butler, Pennsylvania and looked
around as he was always doing. Because somebody said, Michael,
did you ever have any close calls with Bush? Or
did the Secret Service constant observation, chatter and awareness to
tear a lot of that. And my reply was I
(19:23):
never had any close calls and I never once felt
uncomfortable about anything. The only thing that I was ever
told by my detail was remember this, when you're with
the president, you're not the principal. So while they will
try to help you, you may be on your own.
(19:48):
So if, for example, if the Beast gets attacked or
the President gets attacked, they're going to shove him back
in the car. He saw him shove Trump back in
the car. Well, if I had been with Trump that day,
I would have not gotten shot back in the car. No,
I would have been left to fend for myself. Now
there might have been there might have been an agent,
(20:09):
you know, other agents would have seen that I was
part of the entourage, so they may have jumped on
me and pushed me to the ground and hidden me
in the you know whatever. But I would have not
been shoved in the car unless there was some extraordinary reason.
I just happened to be standing by the door or something.
So that was the main lesson that I learned was
you're not the president, You're the lowly undersecretary. I think
(20:34):
Eddie would have told whoever's triving with the president, you
do whatever you can, but don't forget our only and
number one obligation is to potus. So I'm those text
messages just kind of reminded me of Eddie and how
he was probably the only person that I'm sure that
(20:59):
Laura Bush at times told her husband no, no, we're
not going to do that, or no you can't have that,
or no, well whatever. But the only person that I
ever publicly or privately heard say no to the president.
Was Eddie Marenzo. We were in California, we were we
(21:19):
were in the motorcade. Bush wanted to stop. Eddie kept
saying no, and he finally turned around to the President
and said, sir, no, we are not going to stop.
We're going right back to Marine one. Well, so I
just did a quick search and I found this CBS
news story where Eddie is talking about what happened to
(21:41):
nine to eleven. Bush wanted to go back to d C.
Guess who it was that made the decision that said no, sir,
you may want to go back to d C, but
we're not taking you there.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Secret Service agents who protected the first family on the
day America was attacked.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Here CBS is Jeff Gaze.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Sixteen.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
In this now iconic moment from nine to eleven, President
Bush is informed of the attack by his chief of staff,
Andy Card. Eddie Morenzel is off to his right.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
When I saw the look on the President's face, I
knew that there was something that was bad.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
He was the lead Secret Service agent on the President's detail,
and with the nine to eleven attack in progress, his
mission became getting the president out of that elementary school
classroom and onto Air Force One as quickly as possible.
Speaker 4 (22:34):
We did a very steep takeoff.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Why was that?
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Our idea was to, you know, hide in the sky
until we could figure out what was what was going on.
Speaker 5 (22:45):
Hide in the sky, right Hyder jets escorted Air Force One,
protecting the president from any possible attack. The Twin Towers
and the Pentagon were feared to be the beginning of
a Lord your al Qaeda battleplane onboard Air Force One Forrenzel,
(23:05):
Card and a military aid huddled deciding who was going
to tell the commander in chief that Secret Service supervisors
had determined that it was too dangerous to return to Washington.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Don't bring them back. It's too unsettled.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
We don't know what else is out there, and so you.
Speaker 5 (23:22):
Said, as far away from Washington as possible.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
At this point, I said to the President, we have
come up with a plan that we could go to
Barksale Air Force Base, regroup and find out what's going on.
I was working in the afternoon shift that day.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Steven Stashik, who was off duty, began running toward the
White House.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Everybody just showed up. Don't one had to be told
to come in.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
Nick Trotta was with the First Lady on Capitol Hill
before evacuating her at a secret Service headquarters.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
We perform a role, and that role is really to
evacuate and to provide that safety.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
At the White House, Tony Zado was ordered by his
supervisor to rush Vice President Dick Cheney down into the
White House bunker, where a military aid told him yet
another hijack plane was incoming.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
That's enough. My point about that is they're on Air
Force one and Eddie has made the determination that no,
we're not taking you back to Andrews. We're not going
back to d C yet because we don't know what
the situation. We don't have situational awareness of what's going on,
so you are not going back. And you have Andy
(24:35):
card Bush's lead for his personal detail, and the military
aid on board, and this video shows them huddling because
they're trying to decide who's going to tell him, because
Bush was adamant, I'm going back to DC, and Eddie
(24:55):
was adamant, no, sir, you're not going back to d C.
That's how much they when Ralph Basham told me, we
do what we can do, because we can do it.
That's how they operate. So Eddie was the one to
tell Bush, no, we're not going back. Well, we got
a plan. We're gonna take you to Barksdale, get situational awareness,
(25:17):
and then when we feel it safe, then we'll take
you back. Because they only have one objective. Now, let's
not forget that in terms of Butler, it's not just
Donald Trump candidate, it is former President Donald Trump, who
is also even at that time, because remember we're talking
(25:38):
about July. It's not presumptuous, but I would say most
people are beginning to believe that Trump's gonna get reelected.
So for that detail to walk out of that limo
(25:59):
and do what I always saw them doing, scouring the horizon,
looking at everything that they've already been through so they
know what the layout is. It's not like they looked
up and went, oh, holy Fece's batman, there's a building
there that we didn't check. No, they knew that building
was there, and they don't see anybody on the rooftop.
(26:24):
That is a vulnerability. And I guess I'm just saying that.
What really pisses me off about this is that neither
Ralph Bashim or for that matter, mister Kurran, who's the
current head of the Secret Service, would have or should have.
I know Ralph never would have. Heads would have rolled,
Heads would have absolutely rolled. It would be And maybe
(26:48):
it's just because of my experience of being inside that bubble,
But had I been in b I shouldn't say it
that way. That's too arrogant, I guess. But I think
that i'd been anywhere with Bush and seeing something that
seemed odd to me, like a vulnerability like that, which
(27:10):
would be we should be pretty obvious to almost anybody.
I would have said something to Eddie, and probably would
never have had to because I think that Eddie himself
would have seen that and gone, why do I not
see ahead and a barrel of a sniper rifle on
(27:30):
that rooftop? That's just way too obvious. And the fact
that we've had people just suspended and not fired over that,
I just find incredulous, really incredulous. Now the person that
(27:50):
has to be satisfied about his own detail, now he
has to be he has to be concerned about his
own personal detail. So if Laura Trump says to Laura
Ingram that Trump is satisfied with Kerran as lead detail
and he thinks everything is fine. Well, then that's that.
(28:11):
But it's still incumbent upon the Director of the Secret Service,
mister Kerran, to make sure his agency is of the
caliber that at least I experienced that no stone is
left unturned. Oh you turn that stone over once, we'll
go do it again, and when we show up, we
(28:33):
might want to look at that stone one more time.
That's the extent to which the presidential detail goes before
an event occurs, let alone win the event occurs. So
this political reporting I think is a bombshell. Michael.
Speaker 6 (28:52):
Remember when the two Secret Service agents, the females got
into a fight, neither one of them were fired. How
many DEI hires are on the staff that were part
of that detail that had never been fired. That's the
question that needs to be asked.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It is a question that needs to be asked. I
want to go to. This is Congressman Mark Green, He's
a congressman from Tennessee. This is back in December of
last year, so about six months or so ago, and
he's talking to Oh, what was the stupid guys? I
don't mean that way, Ron Rowe. He was put in
(29:37):
as the acting director of the Secret Service at the time.
The reason I want to I want you to hear
this is because Congressman Green, in describing his background, describes
what really is and should be. The attitude of the Secret.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
Service almost to me like it was lacks a day's ago.
Speaker 7 (30:00):
I mean, it's hard to fathom that someone would say,
we don't need to cover this. Yeah, and the communications issues.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
With the local law enforcement.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
I asked the question when they came before the committee recently,
when everybody showed up on the day, was there a
check in and there were law enforcement agencies that had
never even talked to Secret.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Service that day? I mean, these are really basic.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
Things, and that's absolutely right. I mean, in terms of
White House Advance, which should have been involved in this,
I can't say for certain they were. This is exactly
the kind of thing that you would do. Everybody would
know who everybody's going to be on that.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Day, and he would think they would know to do
those kinds of things.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
So it speaks of apathy or complacency that is really
unacceptable in an organization like the Secret Service.
Speaker 7 (30:58):
You know, one of my questions you is, you know
the level of the failure. It seems unfathomable. The internal
policies that weren't. It here to the failure to mitigate
very obvious risks.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
It speaks to a culture that.
Speaker 7 (31:14):
You know, lack of attention to details, lack of sense
of urgency, complacency. I mean, these are leadership, these are
command climate issues. What is the command climate of the
Secret Service? That that's the thing that concerns me the most.
When I reported to the one sixtieth Special Operations Aviation
Regimen Commander to be their doctor, right at that point
(31:38):
in my life, I was thirty eight years old. I
had graduated from West Point Ranger School, commanded in the
eighty second Airborne Division and Infantry Company. I had a
master's and systems information. I had a medical degree, top
of my med school class, and I wondered if I
was good enough to be on that tool. That's what
I'm talking about, elite culture where everybody comes to work
(31:59):
every day saying I can't.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I will do everything.
Speaker 7 (32:03):
I can to make sure I don't fail, and I'll
tell you going to war, I didn't if I died.
What I didn't want to do was fail.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
But your guys showed up that day and didn't you.
Speaker 7 (32:17):
There was apathy and complacency period, and that's your mission.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Now.
Speaker 7 (32:23):
I appreciate all the systems and the technology that everybody
else is asked about.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
This is a leadership issue. This is a command climate issue,
a culture.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Issue, and I think it's a command it's a command
climate issue. It's a culture issue. But bear with me.
I think it is kind of a problem with the
entire culture of the country. I think that DEI, I
think that ef ESG has done this to everything public
(32:58):
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