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Top five moments from Secret Service director’s hours-long grilling after Trump assassination attempt

Top five moments from Secret Service director’s hours-long grilling after Trump assassination attempt

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testified for hours on Capitol Hill Monday, facing a grilling from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over the agency’s lapse in security that enabled the assassination attempt on former President Trump.  Cheatle testified before the House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., after he subpoenaed her to appear. REP. MACE CALLS ‘BULLS—‘ ON RESPONSE FROM SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR CHEATLE Cheatle testified before the House Oversight Committee Monday, just over a week after a would-be assassin Thomas Crooks attempted to take the life of Trump at his rally in Butler, Pa. on July 13.  Trump, during his rally, ever-so-slightly turned his head—narrowly missing the bullet shot by 20-year-old suspect Crooks’ AR-15-style rifle by just a quarter of an inch. The bullet hit him, instead, in his upper right ear. The bullet killed firefighter, father and husband Corey Comperatore as he protected his family from the shots, and severely injured two others.  Cheatle admitted under oath that the Secret Service “on July 13th, we failed.”  Here are the top five moments from the highly-anticipated hearing:  Cheatle told the House Oversight Committee that “on July 13th, we failed” when it came to her agency’s handling of the assassination attempt on the former president and the shooting at his Butler, Pa. rally.  “As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency,” she continued. “We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like July 13th does not happen again,” Cheatle also said. “Our agents, officers and support personnel understand that every day we are expected to sacrifice our lives to execute a no fail mission.” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., called on Cheatle to resign, along with other Republican lawmakers.  But Democrats called for her resignation as well, including Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., who said, “If you have an assassination attempt on a president or a former president or a candidate, you need to resign.” Cheatle has maintained that she will not resign, and said she is committed to getting answers on the massive security failure for the American people.  TIMELINE: TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., says he plans to introduce articles of impeachment against her. “In light of Kimberly Cheatle’s unacceptable handling of the Trump assassination attempt, her disastrous appearance before the House Oversight committee today, and her refusal to resign, we have no choice but to impeach,” Steube said in a post on X. “I will be filing articles of impeachment against Kimberly Cheatle this afternoon.” And Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., accused Cheatle of perjuring herself and stonewalling members of the House Oversight Committee, telling her protectees are “sitting ducks” with her in charge. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., told Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Monday that her response that she had “no idea” how her opening statement for today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on the Trump rally shooting got leaked to media agencies is “bulls—.”  The fiery remark from the South Carolina lawmaker came after Cheatle was directed by Mace to answer a series of yes or no questions on the Secret Service’s response to the attempted assassination of former President Trump in Pennsylvania, in which Cheatle said “yes” to it being a “colossal failure,” and a tragedy that could have been prevented.  “Would you say leaking your opening statement to Punchbowl News, Politico’s Playbook and Washington Post several hours before you sent it to this committee as being political? Yes or no?” Mace asked Cheatle.  “I have no idea how my statement got out,” Cheatle responded.  Mace fired back: “Well that’s bulls—.”  Mace started mentioning news articles published between 5 and 7 a.m. ET, about three to four hours before she said the House Oversight Committee received Cheatle’s statement. Mace then asked Cheatle, “Have you provided all audio and video recordings in your possession to this committee, as we asked on July 15? Yes or no?”   SECRET SERVICE DIRECTOR OPENS TESTIMONY WITH FRANK ADMISSION: ‘WE FAILED’ — BUT WON’T RESIGN  “I would have to get back to you,” Cheatle said.  “That is a no. You’re full of s– today. You’re just being completely dishonest,” Mace told Cheatle, before being interrupted with a call for decorum inside the hearing room at the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle on Monday said that “for the event in Butler, there were no requests that were denied” from former President Trump’s team.  “They asked for additional help in some form or another. You told them no. How many times did you tell them no? And what’d you tell them no to?” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, asked Cheatle, referencing comments made by Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi.  “What I can tell you is that in generic terms, when people when details make a request, there are times that there are alternate ways to cover off on that threat or that report,” Cheatle responded.  Cheatle testified Monday that she called former President Trump after the shooting to apologize.  She stressed, though, that the Secret Service and “the people that are in charge of protecting the president on that day would never bring the former president out if there was a threat that had been identified.”  Trump told “Jesse Watters Primetime” in an interview that aired Monday night that Cheatle came to see him in the days following the assassination attempt. “It went very nicely. She was very nice, I thought. But, you know, somebody should have made sure there was nobody on that roof,” he said.  Fox News’ Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report.

Kamala Harris doesn’t answer whether Biden is fit for office

Kamala Harris doesn’t answer whether Biden is fit for office

Vice President Harris will not say whether she is confident President Biden is currently capable of serving as commander in chief amid calls by lawmakers to invoke the 25th Amendment. Biden withdrew from the presidential race on Sunday after his performance at the first presidential debate sparked concerns over his fitness and mental competency. After the sudden announcement, several lawmakers began to question the president’s ability to serve the remainder of his term if he is not able to seek re-election.  After the announcement, Harris was quickly positioned as the Democrat replacement for Biden on the 2024 ticket, but some lawmakers – including Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C. – don’t want to wait until January for Biden to leave office. Fox News Digital asked Harris whether she believes Biden is able to serve as president but did not receive a response despite several attempts to reach her office. GOP SENATOR DEMANDS CABINET INVOKE 25TH AMENDMENT AGAINST BIDEN AFTER SUSPENDING HIS RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN Biden has not made any public appearances since testing positive for COVID-19 last week and suddenly ending his re-election campaign just days later via a written statement. Fox News Digital also asked if the vice president knew where Biden has been the past several days and if they were in contact but did not receive a response by press time. AFTER BIDEN DROPS OUT OF RACE, DOCTORS REVEAL WHY DECISION WAS BEST FOR HIS HEALTH Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., sent a letter to Harris on Monday stating that Biden is unfit to serve and demanding she invoke the 25th Amendment. “Joe Biden has decided he isn’t capable of being a candidate; in so doing his admission also means he cannot serve as President,” Schmitt wrote. “Therefore, it is in the best immediate interest of the safety of the United States for Joe Biden to resign from office or face removal under the 25th Amendment.”  Over the weekend, Mace also said she was going to propose a similar resolution. “If Joe Biden does not have the cognitive ability to seek reelection, he does not have the cognitive ability to serve the remainder of his term,” Mace wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday. “Tomorrow I will introduce a resolution calling on Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th amendment and assume the duties of acting President.” Before Biden announced his exit from the 2024 presidential race, vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, suggested Congress should consider the amendment if the president decided to suspend his re-election bid. “If Joe Biden can’t run for president, he can’t serve as president. And if they want to take him down because he’s mentally incapable of serving, invoke the 25th Amendment,” Vance told Fox News in a sit-down interview with running mate and former President Trump. Biden endorsed Harris for the Democrat nomination, and the vice president is reportedly seeking to solidify her name on the ballot as soon as this week. Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report.

The race to define Kamala Harris, as Pelosi endorses her and no challengers emerge

The race to define Kamala Harris, as Pelosi endorses her and no challengers emerge

Kamala Harris may well be unstoppable as the Democratic nominee – no one has emerged to run against her – but an ugly brawl over defining her will not be so easily won. The vice president has been a nationally known figure for nearly four years, but has never had to operate under the searing scrutiny of a presidential nominee, and with just a month to go before her party’s convention. Even with Joe Biden’s endorsement, she faces an uphill battle against Donald Trump, who’s just come off a hugely successful convention and the miraculous survival of an attempted assassination.   The Trump narrative: Kamala is weird, with a strange laugh, an awkward speaking style and a foreign-sounding name (which some Republicans insist on mispronouncing, like Democrat Party). She is a radical left-winger from San Francisco who makes Biden look like a raging moderate. Harris owns the failures of the Biden administration, especially at the border, where Biden nominally put her in charge. And she shares the blame for rising inflation. She was complicit in a coverup of the president’s frailty and declining mental acuity, helping hide that from the public. Harris ran an abysmal campaign in 2020, not even making it to Iowa, a true measure of her political incompetence. The Harris narrative: She is a former prosecutor taking on a crook. AS CAMPAIGN LEAK PUSHES BIDEN OUT, WILL DEMOCRATS ANOINT KAMALA HARRIS? (This is an actual example. I got an email from the Harris campaign – which has obviously taken over the Biden mailing list – saying “Kamala Harris stands up to fraudsters and criminals. Donald Trump is a convicted felon.”) The real issue is Trump, who is a danger to democracy, consumed by personal grievance and would return the White House to the days of constant chaos. Harris would bring energy and vigor to the presidency. At 78, Trump, some Democrats are saying, perhaps with tongue in cheek, he’d be the oldest person ever elected to the White House. Trump’s idea of dealing with a porous border was to cruelly separate children from their families.  The former president could pull out of NATO and abandon Ukraine, boasts of his relationship with Vladimir Putin, and speaks admiringly of such authoritarians as Kim Jong-un and Viktor Orban.  Harris has consistently been underestimated in her rise to the top of California politics My take: Kamala Harris is a bit odd, but that also makes her interesting. VP HARRIS EXPOSED FOR NEVER MEETING WITH KEY BORDER OFFICIAL AS CRISIS RAGES She is definitely to the left of Biden, having endorsed Medicare for All during the last campaign. Harris did run a lousy campaign last time. The rate of inflation has slowed, but people don’t perceive it that way, so the economy (remember Bidenomics?) does hurt her. The airwaves will be filled with Harris’ circuitous “word salad” answers, but those are mostly from her first two years and she is sharper now, especially since she became the administration’s point person on abortion rights. Still, that first impression may prove indelible. The question of whether she hid Biden’s infirmities from the public is definitely fair game, and undoubtedly true, but she can just say she was being a loyalist. Trump would probably not leave NATO but would likely seek a quick settlement that would allow Russia to keep part of Ukraine. He almost never criticizes Putin. He was convicted in that flimsy Stormy Daniels case, but has successfully portrayed all four indictments as the administration’s weaponization of law enforcement, which only boosted his poll numbers. Harris went to Wilmington yesterday to thank the campaign staff, and Biden called in with rambling remarks. I think that was a mistake. When the vice president got around to going after Trump, she tied it to her record as a prosecutor. Harris said she took on predators who abused women, and “Donald Trump was found guilty of sexual abuse. “I took on the big banks,” while Trump was found guilty of “34 counts of fraud.” She also took pains to lay out an agenda. “Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” while Trump gave “huge tax cuts to big corporations….We are not going back.” She spoke of the freedom to vote and to live safe from gun violence. But Harris said some things that were either exaggerations or simply not true. She said Trump put Social Security and Medicare “on the chopping block,” whereas he said as early as 2015, in interviews with me and others, that he would protect those programs. In talking about reproductive rights, she said Trump would “sign a national abortion ban.” He’s specifically denied that and said under the Dobbs ruling it should be left to the states. Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, who is more responsible than anyone for the leak campaign that led Biden to step aside, endorsed Harris yesterday, and the president remains furious with the former speaker. TED CRUZ ISSUES WARNING AGAINST UNDERESTIMATING KAMALA HARRIS Joe Manchin also said yesterday he won’t get into the race. Gretchen Whitmer, who had been considered a possible contender because she runs Michigan, said yesterday she’ll be co-chair of the Harris campaign. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who would be the second Jewish nominee on a major-party ticket, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear also backed the VP. So who’s left to challenge her? What Democrats would want to risk their career for a likely loss, especially given the racial and sexist repercussions if the first black woman and first of Asian-American descent were to be passed over. One of the oldest sayings in politics is you can’t beat someone with no one. That has shifted attention to the newest veepstakes, the search for Kamala’s running mate. It can’t be Gavin Newsom because they’re from the same state. The choice of Whitmer would ask voters to accept an all-female ticket, and she says she doesn’t want to be VP. Besides, as Trump has told me and others, people vote for

Biden makes bizarre call in to Harris headquarters hours after dropping out of race

Biden makes bizarre call in to Harris headquarters hours after dropping out of race

President Biden on Monday made his first public comment since announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race a day earlier during a call into the headquarters of Vice President Harris, who he endorsed following his announcement.  Speaking to campaign staffers in Wilmington, Delaware, Harris acknowledged that the past day had “been a roller coaster” after Biden announced he was dropping out of the race. Biden addressed his sudden departure from the race just weeks before the Democratic National Convention.  “I know yesterday’s news is surprising, and it’s hard for you to hear, but it was the right thing to do,” he said. “I know it’s hard because you have poured your heart and soul into me to help us win this thing, help me get this nomination, help me win the nomination and then go on to win the presidency.” FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS: IS KAMALA HARRIS UNBURDENED BY WHAT HAS BEEN? Biden noted that he planned to be “fully engaged” and would be campaigning for Harris. “I’m going to be working like hell, both as a sitting president, getting legislation passed as well as campaigning,” he said.  During her opening remarks, Harris acknowledged the severity of Biden’s exit but had only kind words for the commander in chief.  WHAT COMES NEXT FOR DEMOCRATS AFTER BIDEN’S CAMPAIGN SUSPENSION? “We’re all filled with so many mixed emotions about this,” Harris said. “I just have to say, I love Joe Biden, I love Joe Biden, and I know we all do when we have so many darn good reasons for loving Joe Biden.” Democratic Party delegates are expected to hold a virtual roll call soon, with Harris favored to become the nominee.  Biden had been besieged by calls from within his own party to step aside amid concerns about his ability to beat former President Trump in the November general election. On Monday, he thanked Harris and wished her luck.  “I’m watching kid,” he said. “I’m watching you kid. I love you.”