President Trump [at restaurant]: I want to do debates, but the head of ABC is her, Comrades, best friend. You know that, right? What kind of a deal is that? I want to have a fair debate. And you know, they can ask me tough questions, I don't mind…I think it's very unfair. The single worst network for unfairness, I think, worse than CNN, worse than NBC…CBS is probably the best of the group; FOX is the best, but of the other side.
President Trump: People don't respect us anymore as a country, and where is our; we don't even have a president. We have a fascist person running, who is incompetent, and we have a president who is not even around. He went to California for a vacation, because they threw him essentially out of the party, and then he came back home, and I said, 'Is he going to go to the White House?', no, he went to Delaware to take another vacation. And you got Russia over there with nuclear threats; you gotta have a president. We got to have a real president that's respected.
President Trump: It's disgraceful. I think ABC is a disgrace. I think having Donna Brazile sitting on that panel, and she's the one who gave the answers and the questions to Hillary Clinton before a debate; I think ABC really should be shut out. I'd much rather do it on NBC. I'd much rather do it on CBS…I'd even do it on CNN.
President Trump: The truth is, they're trying to get out of it, because she [Harris] doesn't want to debate. She's not a good debater. She's not a smart person. She doesn't want to debate.
Reporter: President Trump, how are you specifically preparing for the debate vs. Harris?
President Trump: I'm not. I'm not spending a lot of time on it. I think my whole life I've been preparing for a debate…you have to be real. You can't cram knowledge into your head; thirty years of knowledge in one week. There's a little debate prep; I've always done it more or less the same way. You have to know your subject, and I think I know my subject. I think I know it better than anybody.
It started at 10:33.
A Vietnamese restaurant in Virginia.
Mills [forum on assassination attempt on President Trump]: I think that this is just the start, as we continue to unpeel the layers and layers of why was there not an early morning briefing with all to ensure communications, and last minute security plans. Why was a surveillance drone not utilized, even though it was offered? And who, ultimately, is responsible, be held accountable, for one of the truly most life-changing incidents for a lot of us, where we almost lost the former president of the United States. I think that it's easy to see why an independent investigation is needed.
Crane: Accountability must be inescapable for those responsible [attempting to assassinate President Trump].
Bongino: They have a technology problem. The joke in the Secret Service, which is sadly no longer funny, when I was there, and it wasn't funny then either, is they rely on yesterday's technology, tomorrow.
Erik Prince: President Trump was definitely deprived of resources that day [July 13], for whatever their political reason. They had one-third the number of agents covering him as were covering Jill Biden, in the same region, at an indoor event. She had twelve post-holders covering her; again, no statutory or constitutional authority for the first lady. Donald J. Trump had four Secret Service Agents assigned.
Crane: Mr. Bongino, in your opinion, is the Secret Service in a better spot today, with Director Rowe in Charge?
Bongino: No, it's worse, and, sadly, I'm glad this is all being recorded, because when something else happens, and I hope it doesn't; I pray to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that I'm wrong…you think this is the last incident, you're out of your mind. We have seen these incidents over and over. We saw the Georgia grenade incident with President Bush, they overtook the magnetometers. The Secret Service leadership in charge now with the exact same people.
Gaetz: Senator Hawley now has a whistleblower saying there was a manpower request that was coming out of Pittsburgh, and headquarters, Secret Service, was putting downward pressure on the local agents to try to reduce the intensity of that manpower request.
Bongino: I was told by a direct source, this is the quote, that at Mar-a-Lago, they were begging the DTD, the Donald Trump Detail, begging for enhanced security. 'We can't secure this place like this'. And one of the quotes from one of those three people I just told you about [Secret Service] was, "We don't secure nightclubs."
Bongino; I absolutely believe Donald Trump, and an enhanced security posture he should have had, would have made him look more presidential, would have facilitated the logistical operation of him traveling. I think they were concerned about optics and making him look like a big shot…and they were making some of these decision based purely on grade school-level politics.
Bongino: I can't count on one hand, I would probably need two, and toes as well, to count how many agents who could not meet even basic protective functioning skills, and criminal investigative skills, but who met other criteria, completely irrelevant to job performance, who were pushed through and told with a wink and a nod, this woman or man needs to graduate [Secret Service training]. Well why? They're clearly incompetent, every instructor who has encountered this person has said this person ins incompetent, to the point where, in judgement drills, they're killing the protectee in the judgement drills…you're not supposed to shoot the protectee yourself.
Question: So what you're saying is that DEI plays a major role, not meritocracy, in regards to current culture that's been fostered?
Bongino: The major role. The Secret Service right now is dominated [by DEI].
Bongino: Everyone missed that guy crawling across the roof, when he defeated the external, the middle, and the internal perimeter? Layered incompetence like that is absolutely intent.
Erik Prince: The fact is, clearly this [protective] bubble was less than a hundred yards, because they disregarded the industrial facility, the water tower, etc, and it speaks to the lack of seriousness of Secret Service leadership in how they were conducting these missions. I don't think they regarded Trump as a worthy protectee. They were doing the absolute minimum.
Crane just read email sent to him by someone who said the Secret Service recently failed to properly secure an event with Speaker Johnson at a hotel in Vancouver, Washington.