It's clear that many things went wrong with security on the day of Trump's near-assassination at his rally in Pennsylvania. "The Secret Service, in my view, is inept," Glenn says. Former Department of Defense intelligence analyst Jason Buttrill, who spent years planning and leading protective details for politicians, stars, and other high-profile people, joins to explains what he believes the biggest failures were. Why weren't law enforcement officers placed on the rooftop the attacker used? Should the Secret Service have shot first? Why has it taken so long for the government to release more information on the killer? And — scariest of all — did he work alone?
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: All right. We have Jason Buttrill with us. Who is my chief researcher.
And also, in charge of national security, and -- and -- and global wars and everything else, that we have to look at. He has extensive background in military intelligence. And that's why you know military intelligence was a joke, because Jason was involved in it.
But it was also -- you were never a lead of my detail, right? Of my protective detail?
JASON: I was never the lead, but I was the manager on your detail, and I led many other details in the past.
GLENN: Yeah. Yeah.
So the reason why I'm still alive today, is Jason was not in charge of the detail.
JASON: That's good. That's good.
GLENN: Yeah. But I will tell you, that we have had many dealings with Secret Service. And without getting into any of the details, but I would be running to testify on it, the Secret Service is in my view, inept. It's nothing against the agents or anything. I think the people who run it, they rely on money and technology, and they just don't think.
And we have seen things that could get people killed, quite honestly. We've experienced it, with the Secret Service ourselves.
And I've been warning about this, for a very, very long time.
Now, Jason, you have actually planned events like this with the Secret Service. You have been with major politicians, and done major events, not only with me, but with others. And worked side by side with the Secret Service. How could this have happened?
JASON: I'm glad you had me on today, Glenn. Because I saw a lot of speculation. I think it's important to understand how these things happened.
How did we get to where we got to on Saturday. And I just want to briefly run down.
I will reveal a few tricks of the trade here. I think it's good for crazy people and potential attackers to know this as well, to know how difficult it is.
It should be almost impossible to pull off what happened on Saturday.
But, as you know, Glenn. You've seen this work, an advance team is always sent out. This is copied from the Secret Service level all the way to the governor's protected details. All the way to public officials. Or, you know, personalities like yourself.
But an advance team would go out. Secret Service would go out, weeks in advance. They would go out and set up a multi-tiered security plan. So basically, like let's say you see a president on a rope line. And he's shaking hands.
And, you know, patting people on the back. That's political smoke and mirrors.
Those are not people that just randomly show up. Those are friends, family, highly trusted people that have been vetted. That talks a little bit of the sexiness out, but that's the same way as when Donald Trump is on a stage. The people right in front of him are supposed to be there.
They have been given access. They have a wristband or lanyard. They're wanded. They're checked. They're fully vetted, trusted people right in front of them. There's another tier beyond that.
They're usually high level donors. They're also very, very trusted. Vetted. They've been searched. Then once you get beyond that, there's not a thousand Secret Service agents out there. So they have to delegate to law enforcement officers. Local law enforcement officers, SWAT, just regular beat cops. They designated those areas.
Now, as all this is happening, they also identify further out threats. And they -- they identify sectors of fire. Positions of fire.
Potential sniper positions. Going all the way to like a thousand yards.
130-yard sniper position. Absolutely, which -- which is where this attacker was. Would have been identified.
And there would have been several designated. They would have said, this is alpha position. This is bravo position. Whatever.
They can go through them. So they can quickly address the situation. They would also, in this instruct the witness not to answer plan, have local law enforcement guarding those areas to make sure no one would gain access to those areas. And they would number contact with the Secret Service.
Now, there's multiple different questions here, that need to be asked. As you said in full transparency. Knowing this entire complex plan, A, did the Secret Service designate those sniper positions as they always do, and as they're supposed to?
Now, let's assume they did. The second question. Did law enforcement adequately man those positions?
It does not appear so, on the videos that we have seen.
I mean, we've got tailgaters, basically, screaming at law enforcement. The only thing missing was like a couple of beer cans hanging off their helmets. And they're chugging down beers. That's basically -- hey. Look over there. There's a guy climbing up there. How did no one respond? That breaks the entire plan. There should have been a law enforcement officer or officers watching it.
GLENN: Right. So there's also the fact that when you have a position like that.
First of all, that position, if it was left open.
They keep saying. Well, it wasn't part of the secure perimeter.
It was 130 yards away. You know, when you are on rooftops and sniper positions, you don't have to be on just the building right across the street. You can be watching all of the rooftops, all the way around, that have any kind of angle at that street. So not only should they have somebody there, or at least had a team around. And it looks like they had local police. And I don't know if local police failed.
But they also, when you have a position like that, and, for instance, there's woods in this same venue area.
You always put up something that blocks the view, so you would go up on that roof. And you would say, okay. There is the podium.
So let's put up a big screen. Or a big sign, or something, that blocks that view from that position. They didn't do that either.
PAT: Yeah. To say, as an excuse, that it was outside the secured perimeter, is absolutely ridiculous. I cannot believe someone would say that. I've been at events where Secret Service was there. Where there was a river, hundreds of yards away. But they still had local law enforcement driving Zodiacs up and down the river, because they were worried about potential snipers coming from a boat. That was not inside the perimeter, but that was a potential firing position that they had identified.
Now, that's the key right here. They would have identified all these positions, especially 130 yards, with a clear line of sight to the president. That would have been identified. There would have been a team of law enforcement officers, or should have been, protecting that area. Now, did they leave that -- this is the second question. First question was, did Secret Service identify them? I'm assume they did.
Second question, did law enforcement adequately man those positions? Third, and this is probably the scariest part of the question, was there a law enforcement officer there?
Was there help given to the shooter? Now, this is not a conspiracy theory. It's a question. It needs to be asked. Because we heard people saying, there's the shooter, no one did anything about it.
So they -- look, this has to been done in full transparency. Can you imagine, Glenn? And the JFK assassination. All these weird things that happened. Right?
You have, let's just say, there were cell phones and camera phones. And they were like, again with their beers and helmets. And they're like, look at that. And they're film the grassy nothing like. Look, officer, there are guys at the grassy nothing like. They have fedoras on. They have sniper rifles.
And they're about to shoot. Like, can you imagine, if we had all of this evidence, what would the conspiracy theories be like then? This is what we have right now. We need to ask these questions. It's very, very rational to do so.
GLENN: So we're about to have Dallas Alexander on. Do you know who he is?
JASON: Oh, yeah. Very, very famous sniper here.
GLENN: Yeah. So he's a sniper, and he says, there's no way this happened without help. I don't want to go there. I don't want to believe that.
Because that takes us into an entirely different world.
JASON: Yeah.
GLENN: Do you believe that as a realistic possibility?
JASON: Okay. Okay. I think it is a possibility. There are also the other random possibilities that it was just lackadaisical security, by the local law enforcement, in my opinion. I'm not jabbing law enforcement. But I don't think they make great security guards because they're primarily reactionary.
GLENN: Right.
JASON: The Secret Service aspect of security like that is not reactionary. It's preventing the attack before it happens. The law enforcement, as a security --
GLENN: It's why they -- it's why the shooter, which I don't believe was a Secret Service sniper, may have only shot after shots were fired.
JASON: That's what I mean.
GLENN: Where Secret Service. You're in Secret Service, you have permission. You see a guy with a gun, pointed at the president, shoot him before he shoots.
Where, law enforcement would need the permission to shoot, unless he shot first. Would they not?
JASON: Right. That's exactly right. Secret Service is a different mindset than other law enforcement. Basically, they don't manage a situation with a firearm. If you see a Secret Service with a firearm, it typically means someone is getting shot. Law enforcement is completely different.
But I will not rule out the fact that it could just be very lax security. Maybe they were big Trump fans. Maybe they weren't fans at all. Maybe it was the exact opposite.
And they weren't as vigilant as they could have been, and someone was able to sneak over there. That is possible.
But the most random things in assassinations happen. Who would have known that Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian activist, would have been posing as, or blending in with hotel staff, and would have been in the right place at the right time, and caught RFK going through that private areas. You've been through those areas yourself, in public events? It's chaotic. Who would have known? Things like that happen.
Who would have thought that a crazed Hinckley would have -- looking to gain the support of Jodi Foster. Had no political ideology at all, just was a crazy guy looking to impress a movie star, would have been able to get to Ronald Reagan. These things do happen.
GLENN: So I want to ask you about the things that are being said now about the shooter, that we really don't know who he is.
I don't believe that for a second. If so, what the hell is the CIA and NSA doing with all of the eavesdropping on all of our communications? I don't believe that at all.
And this ruse, this lie, that, well, we just don't know. We don't know anything about him. We don't. You know, it smells of the Nashville shooter. Now, it's still early. But if they don't come out with the full detail on this guy, they're going to lose all credibility.