RealClearPolitics' Susan Crabtree reports on the investigation into the secret service

you thinking about uh the first couple of days of the DNC and uh Team Obama last night uh all of the uh cater Walling and the criticism of trump everything that's wrong and they acknowledge a lot of things are wrong somehow the sole responsibility of trump who has uh been in the white house as a republican for four of the last 16 years so the last 16 years Democrats have controlled the White House for 12 of them and how's that going but somehow all the things that Bernie Sanders was U crabing about our Trump's fault interesting too if you look at like on Twitter and you see which parts of the speech that uh comrade Bernie gave are getting sort of the most cuts and pastes and comments yeah it's nothing to do with economics it's everything to do with him calling for a ceasefire in Gaza it tells you how far a field the activists are from those swing voters in Battleground States and so you can look at all those Battleground polls but I would direct people's attention to one number now this isn't the whole thing and you've heard me talk about the need to make for Trump to make an overall sociocultural to deliver an overall sociocultural message that ties everything up in a way that he hasn't so far it can't just be one issue after the other siloed and disconnected but um where uh Trump is versus Kamala in terms of the American public's confidence with respect to the economy in other words which candidate you trust more to improve conditions economically Trump has a double- digigit lead and that's according to a relatively recent wo NBC poll but you've seen in others too when you start to get into the cross tabs and look at it double- digigit lead on an issue that most voters say is their priority and something that Bernie Sanders Hit Upon but the activists don't want to talk about for obvious reasons because it presents all these complications like okay well who's been in office for the last three and a half years and who's been in office for 12 of the last 16 years and whose policies have been followed and like I said earlier I I'm a little perplexed on the one hand Biden's bust belongs on Mount Rushmore and he's been a wildly successful president pursuing the policies of Bernie Sanders and the Socialist Spice Girls on the other hand he's turning around in bitching about 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck and people not being able to afford rent groceries and gas so which is it how do you square that Circle you can't so instead of squaring that Circle you got team Obama to run the game they've been running for 20 years to project their con onto trumps all identitarian politics all the time first Michelle it's insane old con this same old con doubling down on ugly misogynistic races lives as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people's lives better look because cutting our health care taking away our freedom to control our bodies the freedom to become a mother through IVF like I did those things are not going to improve the health outcomes of our wives mothers and daughters shutting down the Department of Education Banning our books none of that will prepare our kids for the future demonizing our children for being who they are and loving who they love look that doesn't make anybody's life better that's a lot of spaghetti against the wall to uh direct people's attention away from pocketbook issues is it and Barack uh followed up tag team NOS it's easier to play on people's fears and cynicism always has been they will tell you that government is inherently corrupt that that sacrifice and generosity are for suckers yeah right it's our values let's let's unify the country around our values mhm okay okay we're going to try itth one more time she didn't get away with it one more time and then tonight we get to hear President Clinton talk about how misogynistic Trump is because that's not hypocritical at all uh for more on all this please be joined by Susan Crabtree she is the national political corespondent for realclearpolitics.com Susan thanks for joining us appreciate it it's my pleasure thanks for having me so um before we begin just because you've been doing such U excellent reporting on the topic um any Secret Service problems at the DNC so far anybody needing to breastfeed or chest feed while on duty um any such problems not so far but I do the rank and file special agents and uniform division officers are a little upset that a woman named Delisa Walker Hall is here she is the human capital coordinator for the Secret Service um I don't think it's her exact title but she's a psychologist and she's supposedly here to backck on the Secret Service that's what they the spokesman told me but there's some resentment that she's being fed around to parties by a gs14 driver and a lot of a lot she the the the director of human capital u that's a that's quite a title um are there people at the Secret Service or are these Droids anyway um that that person is there to what make sure there are no Secret Service agents suffering from PTSD what what yes this is what this is what I'm being told by the Secret Service but the way it came to me was from sources on the ground who are resenting they feel like she's just here to party and she's a Comm Harris supporter oh of course they can party together get their drink on and she did was not at the RNC just you know a two days a day after 48 hours after there was an assassination attempt on uh former president Trump they did not have a mental health specialist doing welfare checks to the Secret Service on at that convention but they do have one at this convention well if she's too busy um going from um you know social events a social event Brandon Johnson's got a team of people around him at all times so he could give a recommendation um and the and Kim Kim cheel I know she's a friend of of the regime too and and she's got some time on her has now is she she she partying she SE been seen she's I do not have not seen her here we're going to have Ron Row the acting director he is going to make an appearance here uh but you know I did report last week that Kimberly cheel does have her own secret service detail at now and I bet it's all men right it's a it's on you know people uh people were making comments that they thought she should have the incompetent women Secret Service agents well I don't know what the makeup is but it is unprecedented for a former secret service director to get protection I know she is receiving threats so you know maybe it's warranted and we certainly don't wish any any ill will on anybody or that that is facing threats to their lives but it but it is taxpayer expense and she's no longer employed by the federal government well speaking of threats president Trump is going back back out in outdoor campaigning today with JD Vance are going to talk about National Security but do you have any concerns at all do you think it's too soon since uh Butler Pennsylvania well I am concerned about the state of the Secret Service because of everything that we've know about their security lapses so far uh we I don't think that that you can turn that ship around that you know aircraft carrier around in immediately so knowing what I know and dating back to the years 12 years I've been covering the Secret Service uh they've had they're having Manpower shortages they have morale problems I'm hearing that dozens of special agents have retired or left the service since the assassination attempt because morale is so low so yeah I I I am worried I am concerned Well yeah if I was Kim cheel I might want to think about private security um I'm sure the TA they be taxpayers would be happy to put the bill for that too um the um the investigation how's that going are we going to have to have some Republican Senators Chase uh ronro around the convention floor the way they had to chase cheel in mil in mil in Milwaukee or or uh do we have any progress on that uh investigation and any sort of um indication that uh there'll be some uh disciplinary action taken against particular agents yes we do have some information uh I will share some with you that I'm I'm going to break uh I was on the radio show with our own radio show yesterday so I did break it then but I don't think it's been widely reported and I'm going to be reporting on it the Pittsburgh field office is on admin leave administrative leave uh they're not office the people that were involved in the butler rally oh okay so there there's a handful and the lead agent that was in charge of the secret um of the Secret Service security for that event there's also a counterpart on the Donald Trump detail so those people on an administrative leave and that is a sign that they are likely going to take the fall then not the Donald Trump detail um and including the lead site agent who is a woman and who planned the hold uh security for the event she was in charge charge and she has been known and I reported this to post on social media and she's under scrutiny for that but she's still working every day uh for posting on social media from her from moral Lago and other Secret Service assignments oh that's really interesting do we have her name I do have it I am not sharing that because there has been several suicides including one on that particular detail so my boss and I have decided not to share the names of the the the rank more Rank and file we are we have printed the names of the supervisors so you're saying one of the Secret Service agents that was at Butler Pennsylvania the day of the assassination attempt took his or her own life no that was last year there was a suicide on that team last year so there's been some disciplinary action taken but they're going to localize it rather than uh uh hold anybody sort of at corporate headquarters accountable that's the read yeah that's the read that I'm getting um from the my sources it's in the Secret Service community and Ron row you know he was cheo's handpicked Deputy he gave a speech last week to the entire Secret Service which I was able to hear the live stream of it U from my sources so I was tweeting about it in real time and he was saying that this is a new era we're going to turn this no longer going to to be I'm not following the Mantra of do more with less that was the big Mantra we're going to have we don't have the budget so we're going to do more with less and Ron row after those his address which I thought was a pretty Earnest um pep you know pep talk and it needed to be done but the Secret Service agents and officers that I spoke to afterwards like you were part this is your management style you're talking about the problems that you were you were the number too when all of this happened you were involved in not providing counter surveillance unit he's he's pulling he's pulling a kamla Harris I had nothing to do with that previous regime I was a part of exactly exactly that's a really good analogy exactly I mean he has little choice but the fact that he was appointed by mayorcas is ridiculous they should have chosen somebody either from outside the organization or somebody that is more it wasn't Cheetos picked right-hand man and um the FBI investigation into the shooter I mean we we learn things after the fact like uh they uh uh had the body of the Assassin cremated would be assassin cremated and um they you know as usual they're lacking a bit in transparency even internally so things leak out about what they're actually doing and it raises questions they won't answer um so just the you know their handle on on their responsibilities with respect to what happened in Butler I cannot believe that the FBI is is the one that's well of course we're going to have a task force from the on the house side that's being stood up but the FBI was homing in on this Pakistani man that has ties with Iran and arrested him the day before the butler rally so did they the question in my mind is did they tell the Secret Service that they were homing in on this man and did that did the headquarters let the site agent and all the people planning the security for Butler know about that that there was a high risk because uh ronro and director cheel then director cheel denied the amount of counter snipers that they wanted they wanted four teams they gave them two teams if they had had four teams they would have had somebody on that rooftop wait a second then then then didn't Ron R lie when he testified before Congress because didn't he say that he had nothing to do with resource allocation decisions with respect to Butler or TR or Trump generally yes he has said that repeatedly but other whistleblowers have undermined th those comments and saying that he was of course involved in these decisions he was of course involved with these decisions he used to be the director of the Opera that is called protective operations division before he was the deputy so all of these decisions to go to treat Trump like a former president and not like the like he broke the mold of any protocol you would ever have because he has these tens of thousands of people at his rallies they were treating him like a former president so he didn't get counter snipers up until this event this is the first event where they did get counter snipers because of the Iranian threat but why didn't they get the full package that's what it's called why didn't they get the four counter snipers why didn't they get the counter surveillance units that roam around they would have found as soon as he as soon as Crooks got that Rangefinder out they would have sent a investigative team over there and they would have nabbed him maybe uh maybe maybe the FBI tried to communicate with secret service but their radios were not interoperable maybe that's what happened yeah it is pretty unbelievable that the the siloed Communications and ronro said yet last week I'm going to change that and we're going to have not start having drones in fact they already are using drones when they hadn't before regularly used drones they only used tethered drones I won't get into the technical details but at a permanent sites like P David in the white house but they had the ability and there are people within the Secret Service pushing for the use of drones for years since 2016 so so he was in on those decisions he was the number two you can't absolve him from the security decisions to deny Trump repeatedly over the course of two years more uh assets security assets and those counter snipers that would have been on that roof that day so who the eth floor is the one that needs to the cleaning up it's really the leadership it's really yeah it's really something to behold I mean it literally is like what we talk about with Big City Mayors like you could put Brandon Johnson in um in uh you know pick pick a major city another major city put him in Philadelphia and the Philadelphia mayor in Chicago and and Kim Fox in LA and the LA prosecutor and it it wouldn't change anything and I feel this is the same way about all these um alphabet soup law enforcement agencies inside the federal government you could put to Cheeto Lao in FBI and Ray at secret service and and uh and and mayorcas at secret service and somebody else at DH I it wouldn't change anything they all operate the same way and that is why a blue ribbon Commission in 2015 said that somebody needs to be appointed from outside the agency not people that you're cozy with that President choose the people that they trust that they were cozy with on their detail like in kimel's case Joe Biden chose her to be the director and people kind of like why she's not even that respected in the agency itself and she was working for Pepsi at the time which I'm told Joe Biden had a role in getting her that private security job as well was very luid can't be doing this you now Congress Grassley Senator Grassley wants to have Congress appoint the director and be have it go through a nominations the regular nominations process but not the president's choosing their friends that protected them and maybe even protected their family in the case of Hunter Biden um and the cocaine incident we know Cheeto also wanted that cocaine destroyed right so this is not a good idea to have your friends leading the agency that help that you're so so cozy with I I I got a bunch of guys in Cicero uh that could do a better job providing uh security for these protectees than the Secret Service sounds like it's providing um but great reporting thank you for sharing that Susan Crabtree um just continues to be all over this she is the national political correspondent for realclearpolitics.com Susan thank you absolutely thanks for your interest thank you have a wonderful day and she joined us on our TurnKey Pro answer line connect with Dan and Amy on the am560 the answer mobile app just text the word app to 6463 6 to download the app