Morning Wire - Mike Waltz on Secret Service Response | RNC Extra

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Florida Congressman Mike Waltz sits down with us at the RNC to discuss the controversy surrounding the Secret Service’s response to the attempt on Trump’s life, as well as threats around the world. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Birch Gold: Text "WIRE" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation information kit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Former President Trump says that when he has a question about the military, the first person he calls is Florida Congressman Mike Walts. A former member of the Green Berets, Waltz now sits on both the foreign affairs and intelligence committees. In this episode, Waltz joins us in our booth at the RNC to discuss the controversy surrounding the Secret Service response to the Trump assassination attempt, as well as the threats America is facing on the global stage. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Tuesday, July 16th, and this is an extra edition of Morning Wire. Since 1974, Saudi Arabia has sold oil solely in U.S. dollars, which was paramount to the dollar's strength and stability. But not anymore. That's why you've got to get in touch with the experts over at Birch Gold today.

Right now, with qualifying purchases made by July 31st, you get a one-of-a-kind limited edition golden truth bomb. The only way to claim your eligibility, though, was by texting Wire to 98989.9-9-8. Text wire to 9-8-9-8 for a free, no-obligation info kit on gold, and to get your hands on. on that limited edition Golden Truth Bomb today. Joining us now is Florida Congressman, Mike Waltz, Congressman, great to have you here in our RNC studio. We saw you in person in Nashville.

Now we're here on the scene. So I wanted to start with the attempt on Donald Trump's life. There have been a lot of questions about the security response that fateful day where a heroic father's life was taken. The president was a fraction of an inch

from losing his life. He was. First, are the criticisms were hearing directed at Secret Service and local law enforcement. Are they merited? Well, first, let me just say a quick thing about the president because I have been in combat all over the world, Africa, the Middle East. I have been fired upon.

I've seen men fired upon. And your base instincts kick in. I've seen basin instincts kick in to run, hide, get behind cover. And I've seen the base instinct of Stand Strong, move to the sound of the the guns, and he clearly had the latter. And then the instinct, you know, despite all of it, of everything going on and almost losing his life to make sure the crowd knew he was okay and that the country knew he was okay, which I thought really spoke to his character. Look, I have mixed feelings about the entire response. Clearly, there were some key things

missed in the advance. I thought the reaction was absolutely appropriate, both the body bunker with the close-in detail and the counter-sniper. At the end of the day, my prediction, my prediction, addiction and what I'm hearing from agents who have been reaching out to me very frustrated and upset is that we're going to see this was a resources issue. What do I mean by that? Well, what they have been telling me the agents reaching out is basically Trump was given a standard package for former presidents. The problem was he's not a standard former president. He's not a Jimmy Carter or G.W. Bush painting in his, you know, in his barn between his multiple residences, between all of the rallies going on, and he didn't just have a standard amount of domestic threats.

He had foreign threats, particularly from the Iranians. All of that, to me, right out the gate, merited a much larger package. These agents are telling me they repeatedly asked headquarters for it and were repeatedly denied. Now, we've been told, actually, from the head of secret service, those claims are not true, but you're saying you have heard repeatedly that that is true. That's absolutely right. and these are not just kind of agents calling out of the blue. They're with ones who would have direct knowledge.

And here's where I suspect, I don't know yet. We're going to have our hearings in Congress and hopefully get this out. But I think the Secret Service is splitting hairs here. If you say, I gave them two more agents or I gave them one more sniper team, then you can credibly say, well, we gave the Trump campaign more resources. But if the request was for 20 or 30, then it was no. nowhere nearly sufficient. Obviously it wasn't, given that some kid could get that close and get that close to taking down the president of the United States. Clearly, there was a failure here. So that immediate pushback from

the Secret Service gives me a lot of pause. And then other than that, it's been silence. Right. I mean, the fact that the director hasn't come out, reassured the country, and answered what question she should also gives me pause. Speaking of the director, there's been a lot of reporting on her DEI focus, specifically wanting to get 30% of new enrollments to be female. Do you think there's a problem at the top with Secret Service? Well, I think there's a problem with this entire ideological agenda, whether it's pilots in the Air Force, forcing women into combat arms. Look, at the end of the day, it's about standards, not skin color, not gender, or anything else. What are the standards to do the job,

to be the best of the best? And if you hit them, great. And if you're a woman, you hit them great. But, you know, the thing, we're dealing with us in the military, I'm on the Armed Services Committee, actually the women who are hitting the standards to get through Ranger School, special forces, what have you, and then see women basically getting kind of pushed through. It undermines their achievement. They're the ones that are most upset. Absolutely. Stepping back and looking at the political environment this year, this election year, do you feel like we are at a heightened political environment in terms of risk to? various candidates specifically president trump of course but in general i mean is this a heightened situation in the country right now uh... yes i think it is but i think we also have to take a step back and and put it into perspective it has been what

decades since we've had an assassination attempt you go back to nineteen sixty eight when you lose a civil rights leader and an attorney general on the wake of losing a president we have had worse moments in our history and for sure in terms of political vitriol. I think what's so unique about this case, though, is it's really was the thrust of the campaign for the Democrats to demonize Trump, to put fear into people's hearts that he will be a dictator that will take away their rights.

I'm glad to see President Biden pulling back on that. We'll see if they stick to it. Yeah, for now. Looking outward a bit, you mentioned foreign threats to President Trump. Of course, there's foreign threats to the United States, generally speaking. what are the biggest threats that you think the American military and our intelligence agencies really need to be keyed in on at this particular moment? Well, I mean, first and foremost is China and everything else is a distant second. We have never faced an adversary that could economically, diplomatically, from an information space and now militarily, not only compete with us, but in some ways are exceeding us.

When you look at weapons like hypersonic missiles, first strike missiles that we truly struggle to defend against, their Navy is now larger than the U.S. Navy, their space forces launching more than ours. They're doing things in space that we struggle to do, like putting a rover on the backside of the moon. So we have to put everything we've got to deterring that threat. We can't take the approach that Biden has taken, which is start trickling things in after the invasion has occurred as he did. in Ukraine. You have to stop it on the front end. Look, we will have to deal with terrorism, North Korea, Iran, particularly if Iran, then you get in the question of rationality if the Ayatollahs have a nuke that is very different than the Russians or Chinese or irrationality, I should say. So the real question is how do we deal with all of that with 35 trillion in debt and growing?

Do you believe a Trump second term will actually result in a safer America on the front? I am utterly convinced of it. I truly am. If you just look at Iran, which I mentioned what's going on in Israel and what's going on in Gaza, President Trump knows that the heart of the issue is Iran that is behind Hezbollah, that's behind Hamas, that's behind the Houthis, and the heart of Iran's economy is energy. You flood the world with cheap, clean American oil and gas. Not only you take care of our inflation problem at home, you put Russia on its back foot and dry up its war machine. and Iran too. So he fully appreciates that we are blessed with a lot of oil and gas, that we are blessed with a strong economy and a great system. Our true strength is our economic strength. Now, President Trump has reached out to you a number of times. He cited you as his go-to guy for security questions. What kind of steps do you think he will take and would you advise him to

take in the first year? Well, first, I think we need accountability in the Pentagon. We need to clean house. That the fact that things cost way too much, take twice as long as they should, and deliver half as much as our troops deserve. It's just, it's completely unsustainable. And yet you see these weapon systems, the ships like the littoral combat ship,

that just completely blow up the budget, don't deliver, and there's never, no one's fired. There's just no accountability for it. It's kind of a shoulder shrug and give us another $800 billion. I see it on the, the Armed Services Committee. So I would say that's one, two, really taking a hard look at our industrial base, shipbuilding, for example. Do we have the steel, the aluminum, the workers, the shipyards? I've talked to them a lot about it. We've gone from 300 shipyards to 20 over the last

couple of decades. Who's taken all of that business? China. They could literally shut down global trade by shutting down those ships in that shipbuilding industry. So that will be point two. And then number three, I think bringing in new technologies in a way J.D. Vance will know quite well in working with the tech space and working with the startup and private equity space. We have to move away from these legacy, big, slow defense contractors that just aren't getting it done. You brought up J.D. Vance, and I wanted to ask you about that last, actually. We just recently heard the announcement that he is the official vice presidential pick. Do you agree that this is a good choice for President Trump?

I truly, this is going to sound like some kind of platitude. I truly thought the entire slate was fantastic. I mean, it really did kind of highlight the Republican bench and that next round of leaders. I think JD's a very strong pick. I think getting him on the road, getting him to some Big Ten football games in the Rust Belt. He embodies, I mean, I just introduced the Republican Party platform to the floor as the co-chair of the platform committee. And it was geared towards the forgotten man and woman. His story is that. I mean, he embodies that. But I also think he brings that tech experience, that business experience, private equity. And he's a bit of an outsider, which is, I mean, that's in line with President Trump. I also like the fact that he has been very strong. If you look at the legislation he's gotten behind on China and very strong on holding our allies like NATO accountable. So, I mean, the VP has to fully align with the president's vision. And I think J.D. does that.

I said that was the final question. Scratch that. This is the final question. No worries. So speaking of the Republican Party platform, there's been some criticism from some pro-life conservatives. I wanted to give you a chance to talk about it. Do you feel like it's a strong platform? Do you feel like you guys have presented something that's going to really make a difference in the coming years?

Look, I mean, I understand the concerns. But the end of the day, it's just indisputable that you have not had a president that has done more to protect the unborn, that has done more for the pro-life community than Donald Trump. I mean, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. If he hadn't stood by Neil Gorsuch, if he hadn't stood by Amy Coney-Barrant, despite everything thrown at him

and gotten three Supreme Court justice, fantastic picks, by the way, all three of them. So, look, at the end of the day, he feels very strongly, and I certainly support him, that what Roe did was return the issue to the voters and not legislate from the bench. And the voters in the states are working through the issue. Vote for your state legislators, vote for your governors.

And I think we're going to have the challenge through this campaign is showing the extreme position on the other side. When is abortion not okay is what we should be asking the left over and over again? When does life begin in your world? The day before birth, the month before, three months before, and reframe the argument. This is about life and what legal and constitutional protections they deserve. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. That was Congressman

Mike Waltz, and this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.