And we're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle,
Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for
Knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio at the Federalist
dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST, make sure to subscribe
wherever you download your podcast, and of course to the premium version of our
website as well. I'm joined today and honored to be joined today by Ken
Valentine, a former US Secret Service special agent involved in protecting three sitting US
presidents. His new book, Cheating Death Time Presidential Secret Service Agent Lives to
tell you how an amazing book and I can't think of a more timely conversation
to have right now. It definitely this book offers a unique view into a
by design secret world. Ken, thank you so much for joining us on
the Federalist Radio Hour. Matt, I'm going to say it's a pleasure to
be with you, although it's a tough time to use the word pleasure.
Certainly had no idea when the book was published in April that we would come
so close to not Cheating Death in the Secret Service, and so it's timely
and appropriate to be with you. Thank you. Scary times these and all
the more scarier by what we saw obviously on Saturday in Pennsylvania and just covering
the Republican National Committee convention. Keep hearing the word miracle over and over again.
I don't think it's hyperbole. I think that the miraculous series events kept
the former president and the GOP's presidential nomination from serious harm's way or an assassination,
which is indeed, what was the goal here by a killer Let's delve
right into that and we'll get into your book. It would seem to me
and a lot of people are asking the same questions that this was an abject
failure by the US Secret Service. As a former agent, what say you,
Well, first of all, I agree with your perspective that you know,
as a born again believer in Jesus Christ and God Almighty, I believe
that his hand was upon that situation and that God saved President Trump, and
I am thankful to him for that. With respect to failure, it's hard
to use the word failure when the person you've been given the mission and the
privilege and the responsibility to protect is risked off the stage bleeding from a gunshot
wound. So failure is in the air there, because prevention is plan A,
and that's the mission and the goal of the Secret Service is to prevent,
to thwart, to make sure that these things don't happen. And you
know, Plan B is reaction, but action is always faster than reaction.
And so what you saw in the reaction was really outstanding. In my opinion,
that is what I did. I was a protection agent with three different
presidents and others in a twenty four year career, and that is what you
saw was exactly how we trained. And you know, I think the word
heroic is appropriate to describe the reaction from the shift working former President Trump to
to jump up while bullets are still in the air, and to to cover
and then evacuate. And that is that they did it textbook according to training.
But this should have been prevented, and there's there's no question that that
that there is some mud there with respect to what failures happened. I think
the investigation is definitely I don't think this is going to be a hard investigation
to figure out what was the what was the agreed upon planning and then where
did that plan either not measure up or or was not followed. My boss,
Sean Davis doesn't hold back. He rarely does. In a piece this
week that he wrote the Federalist criticizing the Secret Service. But more but more
than that, what he sees as a starving of resources from the Biden administration
to approp fund the Secret Service to begin with. So it's not only a
matter of what happened that day, but what has happened, according to Sean
in recent months, as it involves a former president and for a long time,
the presumed GOP presidential candidate to take on Joe Biden in November's election.
This is what he writes. I want to get your take on that they
kept the rooftop open, watched the shooter, kept Trump on the stage,
and didn't do a damn thing until after he had been shot. We're supposed
to believe it was an innocent oopsie. He's not alone in some of these
concerns. What do you think about that? I think those are all very
fair questions at this point. And what I'm looking for, and I'll say
sarcastically awaiting a response to and I put this out on LinkedIn is that you
know, I'm looking for the internal memo where the DHS Secretary says to the
Secret Service director, you have our full support with all the resources that you
need to do the mission, the singular mission of protecting the people that you're
assigned to protect, including the former president, and don't worry about the budget,
focus on the mission, make it your priority, and get it done.
And I suspect that that memo does not exist. I suspect that that
there were calls for resources that were not provided. And if that's that's the
case, then then that is certainly one of the biggest failures that's gonna that's
going to come out of this. With respect to the rooftop, that's a
that's a harder call. It's a It is certainly a question, and it's
an easy thing to look at and say, why wasn't the rooftop protected?
But I don't, uh, my preference be to not have someone on that
rooftop, that there would be prevention to keep anyone from getting near the building,
that you wouldn't have an opportunity to get on the rooftop, because an
officer on the rooftop is very vulnerable. And I want that officer down on
the ground with partners to make sure that nobody comes close to that rooftop.
And I'll tell you there's technology that could have alerted law enforcement and the Secret
Service to the presence of explosives in his vehicle and a loaded AR fifteen magazine
way before he ever got out of his car or approached that building. And
so molecular residence would have done that, and we're going to have to incorporate
that into the mix. Relying on humans to do security has been the way
it's always been done, but there are just so many better ways to do
it now, and molecular residents would have helped. You've worked to protect secure
three presidents. Who were those presidents? And with that, had you known
or worked with Miss Cheatle at the Secret Service? Yes, Sir, I
was with President Bill Clinton his last year in office, and then I was
there. It was a five year assignment, so I was there when President
George W. Bush came in and I remained with him for four years.
In fact, my last day there was his inauguration, his second inauguration,
and that's the cover of the book, ironically, and then I went back
as a supervisor during the well right as President Obama came into office, and
Kim Cheatle, who I count among my friends, was in my chain of
command. She was my boss when I came back to d C the last
time as the speculation in charge of the Dignitary Protective Division, and she was
the assistant director at that point over protective operations. What do you say of
her assertions that she did not want an agent or agents up on the rooftop
it was sloped and I didn't have to worry about it, basically because you
know, the argument was that someone could get hurt up on that sloped rooftop.
There's been a lot of pushback against that statement. Yeah, I think
you can look at where our snipers were, and the fact that our snipers
were able to make a perfect shot on a roof that was more slanted tells
me that a less slanted roof would make a fine spot for a shooter.
I don't understand that statement. I'm not sure where that came from, and
I'm sorry she said that because she's going to have to own that going forward,
just like many other things. But yeah, a slanted rooftop might be
the perfect place for a shooter. So I don't see how that has anything
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next month while your subscription is active. I hope this is not misunderstood.
I don't want anybody to have to face what President Trump faced in Pennsylvania.
Clearly, I don't care if I disagree with them politically. It is a
sad state of affairs that that's where we're at in America. That said,
there's been a lot of conversation in the last forty eight hours or so about
the diversion perhaps of protective services to get over to an event relatively close featuring
the First Lady Jill Biden, and that those resources apparently were some of the
resources that were supposed to be deployed at former President Trump's rally were moved there.
Can you speak to that your experience on multiple events and what that does
for the Secret Service in terms of its resources. Sure, in my experience,
that wouldn't have happened. Certainly we see changes in protect ese schedules that
necessitate the moving of assets, but you don't remove assets from one protectee to
make up for another. And you know, you once you create an advanced
security plan, you really have to stick to that plan. And if you
determined ahead of time, in your best estimation, that we need, for
example, fifty agents to affect the security plan that everyone agreed upon, well
you don't remove some of them and somehow come up at the last minute and
say, actually we only need forty and we're going to divert ten over here
to this. That just didn't happen during my tenure. So I'm going to
be disappointed if that took place, and that would be that would be outside
of the experience that I enjoyed in the Secret Service. It's a tough question,
but it's a tough time and a lot of our readers and our listeners
are asking this question or at least concern raising the point also covering the Milwaukee
Republican National the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, and the question comes up quite
a bit. Obviously, secret Service around the perimeter in Milwaukee, you wouldn't
you wouldn't find this level of security, this level of law enforcement, in
the resources it appears employed here anywhere save you battle scene in World War Two.
It really is impressive. It really is thorough in terms of the background
checks, and obviously everything is on heightened alert at this point. But the
question comes up from what happened in Pennsylvania with all that occurred and what appears
to be lapses for some time and a lack of resources. Arguably, is
this more than just negligence? Is this willful negligence? I think what you're
seeing in Milwaukee is the result of almost if not a full year of planning
and coordination by the Secret Service as a result of the designation for that event,
which it always is as a national special security event. And so the
planning and the resources, the budget for that is immense, and the coordination
is immense, and the Secret Service obviously in charge of security for that,
the FBI in charge of the intelligence for that event, and so any thing
not designated as a national special security event is going to receive fewer resources and
a shorter amount of time to plan and prepare. I think for the event
in Butler, Pennsylvania, my suspicion is that they had probably one week at
the most to plan and prepare for that, And honestly, that's plenty of
time to do what was necessary in order to make that secure. And I
think the investigation is going to show us what the agreements were and whether or
not the agreements were upheld, you know, if the protocols were followed.
I really believe Secret Service methodology is super solid. The question in my mind
was the methodology followed. And so I love to tell the story and I've
been telling it for years that one of my favorite things about the Secret Service
was going out doing those advances, because it's really where you earn your money
and you set up the necessary infrastructure and architecture to prevent these things. And
the very first thing you do, no matter whether you show up to Butler,
Pennsylvania, or to Los Angeles or to you know, some you know
small town in Mississippi or overseas, is you contact the local police department and
start collaborating and it, honestly, it was so much fun. I enjoyed
that aspect of what we did. It was our bread and butter. And
so we're very very collaborative. We don't come in and dictate here's how we're
going to do this. We come in and say, look, here's the
job that needs to be done. Do you have any suggestions about how we
might do that? And what resources are you bringing to the table. With
respect to whether it was wilful, I just I can't. I can't strongly
enough say that there's nothing wilful here on behalf of the agents, those who
go out on the road and set these up. I just can't, even
in my wildest imagination and fathom that there was any kind of even negligence.
Really that that they are very dedicated and they are very serious about the job
that they're given to do. But every advance is different, and every architecture
and the infrastructure is going to be different. The collaboration and the coordination is
different. And I think what we're going to see in the aftermath is that
that either there was a lack of communication or there was a lack of coordination
and disappointing failures either way. And you know, at the end of the
day, the Secret Service it owns these events. And and like I said,
you you do everything that that you have to do to prevent as Plan
A, Plan B. We have the agents, the snipers, all of
these in place too to as a backup to to to to react to this
situation, and they performed heroically. But when you when the person you're assigned
to protect leaves with a gunshot wound, when people in that crowd are wounded
and one of them is killed, then it's hard to argue that that failure
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your podcasts. But I'm sure you can you can understand the concern and the
context here from from those who have grave worries about an administration that has and
there's a good deal of evidence to back up and corroborate these ideas that this
is an administration that has in many ways weaponized the Justice Department to target a
political enemy. Certainly, the rhetoric is there and the action speak volumes as
well with as many times now, you know, we can argue in this
country about, you know, whether the former president you know, did this
or did that. But the question remains. We've seen so much of the
political the political nature behind some of this stuff. But the concerns certainly are
not lost on those who have paid attention to what's happening over the last three
and a half years about well, I'll say it, say it for what
it is that this could have been an inside job at least that's the argument.
Yeah, you know, an inside job would would really have to be
well coordinated. You know. Again, I just I'm I'm to have a
hard time with that, with that theory. What I will say though,
is just like my the sarcastic comment about the memo that I'm looking for from
DHS where they pledge their support and they pledged their resources and and and and
all that I I I do think that that if the priority of the Secret
Service is not appreciated, and that that other priorities that I've been hearing about
have been rammed down the throat of the Secret Service, that's a problem.
And to me, my personal opinion is that you know, ever since we
moved from to DHS, the process of assimilating the Secret Service to the bottom
of the DHS priority list has been pretty clear to me, at least that
is what I felt serving there until twenty twenty. And you know, we're
we're lumped in with with other agencies whose missions are important, but we're fighting
for resources just like every other DHS entity. And you do feel like you're
not a priority, like your mission is not a priority, and and that's
that's a shame. And if, if you know, if we want to
connect the dots to show that the lack of priority on the Secret Service and
for the Secret Service to enable them to do their mission was was pushed from
the top down, then let's call it what it is that that's you know,
that's that's where I think that's coming from. I just don't think I'm
not going to see that from the from the bottom up, but certainly it's
that's what I felt from the top down. Very interesting. Ken Valentine,
a former US Secret Service special agent involved in protecting three sitting US presidents,
joining us on the Federalist Radio Hour his new book, Cheating Death. Three
time presidential Secret Service agent Lives to tell you how let's talk about that.
Not that we know of, but it would seem that, based on my
understanding and knowledge of history, the presidents you protected, you never had a
situation quite like they had in Pennsylvania. But I'm sure you had your share
of threats to challenging you, you bet, and you know, thankfully,
praise God that I've never had to jump in front of live bullets. I've
jumped in front of a lot of plastic bulls. It's out at training,
and you know, planned and rehearsed and practiced this time and time again.
But what you saw last Saturday was was these guys and girls do this in
real time with live fire, and they did it just the way we rehearsed.
But one of my favorite sayings, and I use it in the book
a Lot, is preparation meets opportunity. And so the preparation that we've all
undergone met with that opportunity and they did perform well. The example that I
used in the book, one of them was nine to eleven, and we
you know, the night of nine to eleven. A lot of people don't
realize we evacuated the President upon intelligence suggesting that there was an airplane headed for
the White House very late that night on nine to eleven, and there really
was an airplane headed for the White House. So we effected an evacuation with
the President and the First Lady which had never been done for and the preparation
met with the opportunity that night. It was it was a flawless evacuation.
It was it was safely and effectively done with President Bush and First Lady Laura
Bush. And so that's that's important to me. I think you always keep
your eye on the preparation because the opportunities are coming. Just amazing to think
of the preparations, amazing to think of all the training that is involved in
this, and clearly you can't talk about and I know secret we know that
by covering the convention in Milwaukee. There are certain things that Secret Service and
law enforcement agencies aren't going to talk about insecurity. But what are those things
now, as a retired member of the US Secret Service team, can you
tell us about we might not know? And there's a lot we don't know
about the Secret Service and protect and by design, but some things that you
can talk about that might surprise some folks. Sure, you know, day
in and day out, thankfully people don't have to think about the Secret Service.
And you know, one of the things that I spoke yesterday at the
International Conference of Police Chaplains and told them, you know, it's easy to
think that your job that maybe you don't matter. I would beg to differ.
But even a Secret Service agent, day in and day out, when
you do your job perfectly effectively, it was a great day, you might
tend to think that you're just breaking even. But you know, especially in
light of what happened the other day, when you can get your protectee back
safely, not bleeding, then you've cheated death and you actually win. And
you know, we need to push that narrative. I feel like on all
people that people matter. You're not just a clump of cells that doesn't matter.
And I think in society we're seeing suicide rates and just this assault on
one another that it's unprecedented. And so I you know, if we don't
do our job effectively, if we don't cheat death, it certainly awaits those
that we protect, and that's heavy upon Secret Service agents. That cheating death
was a term that we use to remind each other both of the importance of
the mission, but also kind of a tongue in cheek way to just poke
at each other and say, you know, keep the mission first, pay
attention to detail, and let's get the job done well. I think context
is important, as we mentioned before, and I think you just put your
finger on something that is extremely important. It's always been dangerous work trying to
protect a president. It just seems to me that it's become much more difficult
these days, just as heated and divided it is in this country, and
the folks of the Secret Service are dealing with that reality every day. It's
a fascinating look inside the world of a As I mentioned before, by design
a secret agency to guard the lives of dignitaries and President of the United States.
Ken Valentine, a former US Secret Service special agent involved in protecting three
sitting US presidents, is fascinating new book and very timely new book, Cheating
Death. Three time presidential Secret Service agent lives to tell you how. Ken,
thank you so much for taking the time and joining us today on the
Federalist Radio Hour. My pleasure, Matt, thank you. You bet you've
been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle,
Senior correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then,
stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the frame.