Tonya J Powers on the one-year anniversary of Trump's assassination attempt

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name's John Mounts filling in for JT. And like
we've been talking about all hour, this is the one
year anniversary. Anniversary is the long word. I guess a
remembrance of the assassination attempt on President Trump. Joining us
now is Tanya j Powers. Tanya, do you remember where
you were when that news broke a year ago?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, I was standing on a subway platform's
I was a friend of mine who was a producer
at the at the Fox Ftion channel downstairs from where
I'm sitting right now, sent me the video without an explanation,
just sent me the video clip because they were working
so quickly. Literally had just happened, and she said, did

(00:38):
you see this? And I clicked on it and was
like I thought, I literally thought I was just looking
at some sort of AI thing. Honestly, that was my
first response was this is not real? And then I remember, no,
he's speaking in Butler today. I think this is real.
And from then on I just immediately abandoned all plans
and came immediately to the studios where we did breaking

(00:59):
news coverage. Where were you I was?

Speaker 1 (01:01):
I was actually at my parents' house and I was
having like a late lunch and my mom looks up
and she said, Johnny, there's something going on on TV.
And I turned HERU I said, and it's this assassination
I saw and they kept running on loop the Donald
Trump hitting the deck and I was like, oh my gosh,
and like I jumped. I didn't even think about said
I gotta go. And I don't think I said goodbye.
I just jumped up and got my car and raced

(01:22):
home because I have all my equipment at home to
do the broadcasting things, so I can put coverage on
the radio stations. But it was just it's one of
those days. And you know, it's like, I won't say
it's the same as nine to eleven, but in terms
of the impact and what a big deal it was.
And here we are one year later, and so much
has changed in the country. How much has changed its
Secret Service since then?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, they've got a new director. I mean the agency
director stepped down ten days after the attack. There have
been investigator and by the way, the person who her
deputy was made the director at that point. He left
in January. There is a new director of the agency
and that was this was put in place in January.

(02:08):
The person who was put in place by the president
in January to run things. The agency director, Sean Curran
was actually the lead agent. I believe at the time
of the Butler shooting, Kurrent was the lead agent on
his personal security detail. He was one of those agents

(02:29):
that you know, you saw lunging to, you know, the
then candidate Trump's side to shelter him after the shots
were fired. So he is the person who's leading the agency. Now.
What we've also found out this week is with the
new information, is that the six agents have been suspended
without pay for their conduct at some point over the

(02:50):
last year. I'm not sure exactly when these suspensions took place.
They ranged from ten to forty two days. The only
person that was on the then candidate's personal detail who
was suspended, who got a suspension was a young junior
agent who was on the personal detail. They got the

(03:12):
longest suspension that everybody else apparently was out of the
Pittsford Field office. And that is also where some of
the kind of back and forth and finger pointing, if
you will, comes. As you know, the security for the
whole thing was a joint responsibility between the personal security
detail and the agents in the Pittsburgh Field Office, and

(03:34):
some of the reviews and investigations that have been done
in the last year found that the agents didn't communicate
very well with each other or with the local law
enforcement folks who helped support the operation. If you'll recall,
this was outside at the Butler Farm show Grounds. Is
an outside rally by fifteen thousand people. And you know,

(03:55):
when you take a look at this, you know kind
of open air, you know environment, and the that there
was an unguarded roof, you know, obviously within striking distance.
That's where you know, Thomas Crooks climbed up on the
roof and you know, started firing shots. It's also important
to remember a fifty year old man died in all
of this, Corey Comfertory. He was a volunteer firefighter and

(04:18):
a dad he had. He was just attending the rally
when he got shot by one of the bullets that
you know, had been aimed at at the you know,
now President then candidate. Two other people were hurt, but
a man lost his life and you know, their family
is forever changed by that.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
And that's some of the things I'm sure they're looking at.
Protocol wise, another protocol thing they're probably looking at is
communication between the local law enforcement and the Secret Service,
because local law enforcement was given the heads up, hey
there's somebody on the roof, but for some reason it
didn't filter over to Secret Service. Although I will say
the moment when you listen to that audio back, the

(04:57):
moment you hear that first shot and then you hear
all of the shots, and all the shots was them
taking the guy on the roof out, So they jumped
on him pretty quick after the fact, but that was
still kind of it could have been too much, too late.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, the Secret Service they did, they did eliminate the
guy who was doing the shooting. It's also interesting to
note that this the suspensions were not what the agency
had originally you know, asked for. They originally wanted to
put longer sentence longer suspensions in place, but apparently one

(05:29):
of the attorneys for one of the agents said after
they were after it was all you know, announced this week,
they said, well, they wanted longer suspensions, but we managed
to negotiate those down, so they weren't as you know,
stringent as the Secret Service actually wanted them to be. Apparently,
and you know that's been also the subject of some

(05:49):
you know, back and forth about you know, they should
have been tougher. Some of the former some former agents
have said, you know this, this, these suspensions should have
been a lot more stringent than this. You know, tend
to forty three days range. But anyway, that's kind of
where that's kind of where things are now.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
Well, we'll see where they go next TIMEY J. Powers
from Fox News, thank you so much for joining us
this morning on Alabama's Morning News.