Secret Service made ‘preventable’ errors that led to Trump rally shooting, Senate report finds – US politics live | US elections 2024
Key events
'There will be no shutdown', Democratic Senate leader Schumer says
The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer just announced that by the end of the day, he expected Joe Biden to be able to sign legislation to keep the government open through the November presidential election.
“Americans can breathe easy that, because both sides have chosen bipartisanship, Congress is getting the job done. We will keep the government open. We will prevent vital government services from needlessly coming to a halt,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor.
He noted that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is expected to this afternoon vote on a bill to fund the government until 20 December. “Once the Senate receives the House bill, we will immediately move to its consideration. We hope to vote early this evening, with final passage set at 60 votes. So if all goes well in the House, the Senate should be sending President Biden a bill before the end of today,” the New York Democrat said.
Last week, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson tried and failed to pass a bill tying government funding with a measure, demanded by Donald Trump, to require people prove their citizenship when registering to vote. The measure’s failure raised the possibility of a standoff over government funding ahead of the 5 November presidential election, but Johnson ultimately decided to drop the non-citizen voting bill, paving the way for Congress to officially ward off a shutdown today.
“This is a good outcome for the country. There will be no shutdown because finally, at the end of the day, our Republican colleagues in the House decided to work with us,” Schumer said.
Donald Trump laid out his own economic policy in a speech in Georgia yesterday, which centered on lower taxes for corporations that make products in the United States, and steep tariffs on manufacturers who offshore jobs. But as the Guardian’s Justin Glawe reports, the former president meandered, and dedicated substantial parts of his speech to attacking immigrants:
At an event intended to tout economic policies that would usher in what his campaign calls a “new age of American industrialism”, Donald Trump spent as much time discussing personal grievances and blaming immigrants for everything from fentanyl overdoses to crime and taking Americans’ jobs as he did discussing the economy.
“This is a speech on economic development but this is a big part of economic development,” the former president said of immigration at a speech in Savannah, Georgia, on Tuesday.
After about 30 minutes of sticking to prepared remarks about the economy, Trump’s speech veered into other topics like immigration, much to the crowd’s delight.
“Close the border!” a man in the crowd yelled as Trump said that undocumented immigrants were responsible for myriad ills.
Some of the loudest cheers from a crowd of about 2,500 came when the Republican presidential nominee claimed that the United States already has much of what it needs to become an “economic powerhouse”, as he put it, including natural resources, skilled workers and leading companies.
“The only thing we don’t have is smart people leading our country,” Trump said.
Kamala Harris will be in battleground state Pennsylvania today to outline her economic plans in a speech to the Economic Club of Pittsburgh.
Citing a senior campaign official, Politico reports:
She will be presenting her economic philosophy as “pragmatic” and herself as “a capitalist” who “understands the limitations of government and has always sought to take good ideas from wherever they come and harness the power of innovation.”
We can also expect to hear more from Harris about her vision for an “opportunity economy”, a phrase we began hearing the vice-president use after launching her presidential campaign in late July, Politico says.
Harris to sit for interview with MSNBC
Shifting to campaign news, MSNBC just announced that Kamala Harris will speak with host Stephanie Ruhle this evening from Pittsburgh, in what will be the vice-president’s first solo interview with a television network since launching her presidential campaign:
JUST ANNOUNCED: @VP Harris will join @MSNBC host @SRuhle in Pittsburgh for her first one-on-one network interview since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.
Watch the full interview tonight at 7pmET on MSNBC.
CNN interviewed Harris earlier this month alongside her running mate, Tim Walz. Since then, she has done a small number of interviews, mostly with local outlets or those catering to specific audiences, such as Hispanic radio host Stephanie “Chiquibaby” Himonidis, and Wired, the tech magazine.
The Secret Service’s failures to adequately protect Donald Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans on the homeland security committee, which issued the report today.
Here’s Democratic committee chair Gary Peters:
From planning missteps, to the siloed and flawed communication to the lack of effective coordination between law enforcement, to the breakdowns in technology, the Secret Service’s failures that allowed an assassination attempt on former President Trump at his July 13 rally were shocking, unacceptable, and preventable – and they led to tragic consequences.
And Republican ranking member Rand Paul:
Our initial findings clearly show a series of multiple failures of the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and an inexcusable dereliction of duty.
Not only did USSS fail to ensure the AGR roof was adequately covered, they were also aware of a suspicious individual with a rangefinder for at least 27 minutes and did not delay proceedings or remove former President Trump from the stage, even after being informed that the suspicious individual was on the roof of the AGR building. Someone needs to be held accountable for these egregious failures by the USSS, and despite USSS, DHS, FBI, ATF, and other federal agencies’ continued obstruction of our bipartisan investigation, I will continue to push for answers and accountability.
Secret Service plagued by communications failures at Trump's Pennsylvania rally, report finds
The Secret Service’s ability to protect Donald Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally was hampered by a range of communications failures, including faulty radios and a lack of ability to quickly get in touch with state and local police on the scene, the Senate homeland security committee found in its interim report into the assassination attempt.
The radios used by agents were known to be faulty, and the report found at least one instance of an agent giving his radio to a colleague whose device was not working. There was also no system for the Secret Service to quickly communicate with the local police agencies on the scene, and the agency did not “adequately consider” local law enforcement’s plans at the rally.
The committee also found that Secret Service employees responsible for planning the security of the rally “deflected blame”, and claimed that all decisions were made jointly with local law enforcement, with no single individual responsible.
Senate finds 'preventable' Secret Service errors in preparing for Trump Pennsylvania rally where assassin opened fire
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The Secret Service made “preventable” errors at Donald Trump’s July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania that was marred by an assassination attempt, the Senate homeland security committee found in its interim report into the incident released this morning. The report said that a warning from local police of a shooter on the roof of a building overlooking the rally was not relayed to the Secret Service, that a Secret Service counter-sniper who saw officers running towards the building with guns drawn did not think to tell his colleagues to pull Trump off stage, and that law enforcement agencies on the scene used different radio channels to communicate.
It’s the latest damning finding about the failures by the Secret Service to safeguard Trump at one of his trademark outdoor campaign rallies. An internal report from the agency last week detailed similar communications breakdowns, and the Senate report’s release comes a day after prosecutors announced a charge of attempted assassination against a man arrested in Florida last week for allegedly plotting to shoot Trump at his golf course. We’ll tell you more about the Senate’s finding, and the reaction to them, later in the day.
Here’s what else is happening today:
Kamala Harris will lay out her vision for the economy with a speech in Pittsburgh expected at 3.15pm ET. Trump did the same yesterday in battleground state Georgia, where he proposed high tariffs and lower taxes he said could bring back jobs from overseas. Economists are skeptical of his plan.
Congress is expected to late this afternoon approve a spending bill that will keep the government open till 20 December, forestalling a shutdown in the weeks before the November election.
The UN general assembly continues in New York, with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy set to address world leaders. You can follow our live blog on the latest Ukraine news here.
