Jesse Watters: Secret Service Let Trump Take Rally Stage Despite Threat
Charlie Kirk Staff
07/19/2024

Fox News host Jesse Watters openly questioned why the Secret Service would allow former President Donald Trump to take the rally stage in Butler, Pa., last week despite having already identified the eventual would-be assassin as a threat.
Watters opened the Thursday segment ahead of Trump’s highly anticipated speech at the Republican National Convention, where he accepted the GOP nomination.
“His first since dodging an assassin’s bullet, or as he’s calling it, the greatest earache he’s ever had. And as the details keep dripping out, we have more questions. Tonight, we’re learning that the gunman was on law enforcement’s radar for three hours, and the Secret Service designated Crooks a threat 10 minutes before Trump took the stage. And the Secret Service never said, Mr. President, don’t go out there. They let Trump take the stage anyway. And eight minutes later, he was shot,” Watters began.
“Crooks first aroused suspicion at around three on Saturday, when security saw him with a rangefinder passing through the metal detectors. Police say they had an eye on him until he disappeared. Crooks was later spotted for a second time, this time by a sniper looking up at the roof, observing the building that he scaled and shot from,” the host continued.
“This was radioed into the command center. At one point, a sniper saw Crooks sit down and start scrolling through his phone, and investigators believe he may have actually had two phones. More on that later,” Watters continued.
“This is when Crooks looked so suspicious that a local sniper team took this picture of him an hour before he opened fire. All of this information was being sent to the Secret Service command team at the rally. A Trump supporter in the crowd then caught him on camera lurking around,” he said.
After showing several clips of Crooks and other news reporting, as well as some input from experts like Dan Bongino, Watters closed out the segment:
Every Secret Service agent and every local officer knew there was an armed threat on the rooftop. Secret Service protocol requires the president to be evacuated immediately. But they let the president step on stage like a sitting duck.
A 20-year-old with no military training was able to outfox the Secret Service team and local law enforcement for three hours and open fire from a roof of a security watch post 150 yards from the most famous man in the world. And the Secret Service was aware of this guy the whole time. All they had to say was, Mr. President, sit tight for five.
Don’t take the stage yet. We have a threat. We need to handle it. …
And now we’re getting leaks from the intelligence community that the Iranians have a fatwa on 45. And, quote, there may be more attempts on Trump’s life in the coming weeks. This is completely unacceptable.
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