As bullets flew through the air towards former President Donald Trump during his rally in Pennsylvania Saturday, panic ensued.
Secret Service agents rushed in to move the former president, but former White House advance man Ralph Wunder explains that the fact we even saw the agents means that something went wrong.
“I admire the guys enormously, worked hand-in-glove with them. They are some of the most sacrificing people, but there were also catastrophic failures in the protection of Trump because for a president and presidential candidate to get shot in the air obviously belies the fact that there were an enormous amount of failures,” explained Wunder, who served under former President Ronald Reagan.
Wunder said a main issue at Trump’s rally could be the lack of communication between local police and the Secret Service.
“Their radios are on a special frequency. So, the local cops couldn't have just gotten on, you know, the mic to the Secret Service to tell them; that's the first problem,” Wunder said.
Another problem could’ve been the number of people in attendance.
“If you're going into large events like that, you need to make sure that you're there. They're very difficult environments to protect, and you need to make sure that you've covered every inch of security,” Wunder explained.
Secret Service says the shooter fired multiple shots from an elevated position outside the rally, more than 130 yards away.
“One of the failures was for that guy to have gotten on the roof. Called out to people. I mean, there were actually people that saw him, called it to the attention of the local police department,” said Wunder.
Secret Service said their agents were able to kill the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.