The Secret Service Is Not Incompetent...It's Worse

Is the Secret Service hiding a sinister plot behind the attempted assassination of President Trump? In this riveting episode, we pull back the curtain on a series of alarming security failures that suggest more than just incompetence. From unguarded high ground to the ignored early warnings, we reveal how the suspect's actions hours before the incident, like setting off magnetometers, were shockingly overlooked. We discuss the dire need for courageous whistleblowers within the Secret Service to step up and ensure accountability, sparking a critical conversation about integrity in leadership.

But the scandal doesn't stop there. We dive into the cultural rot within the Secret Service, putting a spotlight on the actions of a 20-year-old individual and the problematic organizational environment that allowed such behavior to go unchecked. This episode calls for a profound examination of the internal dynamics that contributed to these lapses, urging insiders to speak up despite potential career risks. With courage and integrity at the forefront, we compel our listeners to stay vigilant and proactive in demanding the truth and accountability from those in power.

Join Our Tribe of Courageous Leaders:

Get The Book
Get Weekly Articles by Travis Yates
Join Us At Our Website
Get Our 'Courageous Leadership' Training
Join The Courageous Police Leadership Alliance

Chapters

• 0:02 Assassination Attempt
• 9:02 Cultural Breakdown in Organization

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Welcome back to the show. I'm so honored. You decided to join us today and I recorded an episode just after the attempted assassination of President Trump and, of course, just several hours after that. There were a few assumptions in that episode and I wanted to briefly come to you and make at least one, I think, correction, but then also give you an update. An update Very rarely does your initial assumptions actually pan out completely, but even more rare is when your initial assumptions are actually. It's actually worse afterwards.

Speaker 2: 0:56

Folks, I talked about incompetence in that episode. This is not incompetence. This is not incompetence. It's far, far more sinister. This is some sort of malice, even intent, that is incomprehensible. And let me sort of give you an update on that, based on that episode. So if you haven't listened to that episode, just go back one episode to do that. I think that'd give you some context on that, a lot more emotional, a lot more raw, because it was just in the aftermath. But I think that will help you understand some of this. It is 2024. It's not 1865. It's not 1963. Nobody with a scope rifle on a stable platform gets to take a shot at a former president of the United States period. That's just the way it is.

Speaker 2: 1:50

So the idea that we did not place anybody on the roof and the head of the Secret Service has admitted that we didn't know that a few days ago that we didn't put anybody on the roof because she said it had a sloped roof, it was too dangerous Okay, well, the snipers for the Secret Service that took him out it may have been local law enforcement. They were on a much steeper slope on that roof. So that roof is sloped at about 12 degrees not that much of a slope. And, as I wrote in an article a few days ago, for $50, we could have prevented this. Hey, we don't have the manpower for this, this or that. It's obviously a huge threat. You pay some security guards to be on top of the roof. It's literally that simple. You have to stop access to the roof. That's the high ground. And so, once again, the idea that that wasn't done and now that we know it was intentionally not done is beyond incompetence. I don't know what this is, but it's not just a lack of training, it's not just incompetence, it's not just bad leadership. It is something far more sinister. There's no other explanation. They're going to try to tell you that's the explanation, but there is no other explanation. When you look from that podium, in a direct line of sight to a roof, there was a water tower even further out that I bet you wasn't taken up either. So you had two high points, but one, specifically that roof with direct line to that podium. That that was not covered. That's not incompetence, it's something far worse. I don't have much confidence that we'll get to the bottom of it, but we better get to the bottom of it. Secondly, the director of secret service said that they put elements inside the building. Well, putting elements inside the building does not prevent people getting from on top of the roof, and we found that out.

Speaker 2: 3:48

Even more insane is coming out today that at 3 pm the suspect set off the magnetometers. He came into the internal perimeter of the location. He set the magnetometers off. He had a range finder which would give you yardage. He had that on him. That's what set it off. So what they ended up doing is they started watching him. That was their words, not mine. They watched him until they lost him. Then the comms were telling people to look for him. It's one point between three o'clock and 6.11, when this happened at one point early on. In that time frame, a sniper took a photograph of him because he was that suspicious, and they sent that photograph to the ground units to look for him. 26 minutes before this event he was labeled a threat.

Speaker 2: 4:41

Why did they put President Trump on a stage until he was located? We also know that two minutes before the shots went off, people in the crowd were screaming and pointing at him, and we have video. You can find side-by-side video of him on the roof with the rifle and citizens screaming, yelling for the police, and Trump is still talking. We also hear reports of a local law enforcement officer confronting him before this and he turned and pulled a rifle on the officer. Obviously, it's going to be a communication failure. I bet that officer could not communicate to the people that need to be communicated to as that's going on. But President Trump should have never been on the stage, and so this is not just the idea. I need people to understand this the idea that a direct line to sight, high point 130 yards away, was left unoccupied. That's intent, that's not incompetence. They purposely did that.

Speaker 2: 5:38

Now that leads me to my next question, and it's going to take real courage to do this. There are people out there that know these answers. It's time to stand up. It's time to get a little courageous. It's time to speak. We're already hearing from anonymous sources inside of Secret Service that they had requested additional security for months and it was denied. Of course. Now, after this happened, president Biden has now put that additional security in place.

Speaker 2: 6:05

But how do you do that? I mentioned that on the previous podcast. How is the most threatened president in the history of our country former president, but the most threatened politician in the history of our country not given additional security? He's given. A detail like Jimmy Carter is no offense to Jimmy Carter, but he's not threatened very much. Right? There's not a big threat against his life, carter, but he's not threatened very much. Right? There's not a big threat against his life. So there's a lot of people that need to answer for things, but I, once again, we're going to need some men and women of all ranks that know these answers to stand up. Courage is calling my friends. This cannot be Now.

Speaker 2: 6:41

I want to get to something that's even more difficult to say and no one's saying it, but I'm going to tell you. If you're President Trump's team or you know somebody inside his team, send this message to them. You can leave Secret Service body folks on you. That's a totally different element than an interior or exterior perimeter at a stage site. You know the body team is completely different. Moving from place to place you're responsible for that body, so to speak. That's the interpretation terms.

Speaker 2: 7:12

But you need to understand the safest place for a public event, for a protectee, is what we saw Saturday. It's a known location. It's a known event. They get to pre-site it. They get to check it that morning. There's known location. It's a known event. They get to pre-site it. They get to check it that morning. There's known quantities, the unknown quantities. When you move a protectee, that's the most dangerous. This wasn't a moving event. They knew everything and they still failed on this level. That's incomprehensible.

Speaker 2: 7:38

If you're in President Trump's team, you cannot have the Secret Service in charge of your perimeters, interior and exterior, anymore. Period. It can't happen. Until we find out what happened here, until we get to the bottom of what happened here, you are putting your life in the hands of people that did this. It's that simple. And listen, I know Secret Service agents. I know they're doing the best they can. I am convinced this wasn't them on the ground that made these decisions. It was somebody else, somewhere, that made these horrific decisions.

Speaker 2: 8:09

You need to hire private contractors, apolitical contractors, that can ensure that you are protected. It's that simple. Until we figure out what's going on, I would also hire experts to go back on every Trump event to see exactly if these holes were left open then I'm not saying that high-level government officials wanted to assassinate President Trump. What I'm saying is they left holes in his protection detail for the event, for it to occur. I'm not saying just so I'm'm clear that there was an intent to kill President Trump. What I'm saying is risk management principles.

Speaker 2: 8:52

If you leave these type of gaps in protection, it can be expected that it would occur, and of course it did occur. It should have never occurred. I mean, this wasn't some special operations, camouflage foreign actor here? Okay, this is some 20-year-old knucklehead kid. This is unfathomable. I don't see that type of outrage. I see people talking about oh, the Secret Service Director needs to be fired. Oh no, this is much worse than that. This is not sheer incompetence. This is some sort of exorbitant cultural breakdown in that organization that created this environment, and I can guarantee you that environment was not just in that event. So I'm hopeful the courage prevails. I'm hopeful, hopeful that courageous men and women stand up. I know your job could be at risk. I know these things are there. I know these are in your mind, but there are people that know these answers and we need to get to the bottom of it. That's it for now. Thank you for listening and just remember stay courageous.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at travisyatesorg.