Tangle - The Secret Service director resigns.

Starting point is 00:00:00 From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th.

Starting point is 00:00:34 Got a mortgage? Chances are you're thinking about your payments right now. Need help? Ask your bank about relief measures that may be available to you. Learn more at Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

Starting point is 00:00:54 a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about Kimberly Cheadle's resignation from the Secret Service. She's the director of the Secret Service who announced she was stepping down yesterday.

Starting point is 00:01:54 That was after some congressional testimony that we're going to break down, share some views from the right and the left, as always, and then my take. Before we jump in, though, I want to give a quick heads up. We are opening applications for our College Ambassador Program. If you are a student who's interested in journalism, politics, media, or you know someone who is, applications are now open. There's a link to it in the episode description today. We are looking for engaged, enthusiastic college students who want to represent Tangle on their campuses. Our college ambassadors help boost the visibility of our work among their fellow students through a variety of on-campus activities and outreach efforts.

Starting point is 00:02:33 And we pay them. They're typically expected to commit four to six hours per week to the position during the semester. These applications are open from July 24th, that's today, all the way through August 5th, and the program will run from August to December. So if you or someone you know is interested, you can find the link to apply in our episode description, or you can email willkback, that's will, W-I-L-L, at readtangle.com with any questions. All right, with that out of the way, I'm going to pass it over to John for the main pod, and I'll be back for my take.

Starting point is 00:03:14 Thanks, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, President Biden will address the nation at 8 p.m. Eastern tonight about his decision to end his 2024 campaign for re-election. Number two, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address Congress today at the request of House Speaker Mike Johnson. Lawmakers have been told to expect upwards of 10,000 protesters on Capitol Hill today. Number three, Senator Bob Menendez, the Democrat from New Jersey, said he will resign next month after being convicted on corruption charges. from New Jersey, said he will resign next month after being convicted on corruption charges.

Starting point is 00:03:50 Number four, U.S. home prices hit a record high in June for the second straight month. The median price for an existing home rose to $426,900. And number five, the U.S. Department of Transportation is investigating Delta over recent flight disruptions as the airline struggles to resume normal service following the global IT outage at the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. The director of the Secret Service resigned today, one day after admitting the assassination attempt on Donald Trump was the agency's most significant operational failure in decades. The head of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheadle, has resigned 10 days after an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

Starting point is 00:04:37 Cheadle wrote in a letter to staff, quote, The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our national leaders and financial infrastructure. On July 13th, we fell short on that mission. On Tuesday, Kimberly Cheadle resigned her position as director of the U.S. Secret Service following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally on July 13th in Butler, Pennsylvania. In a statement, President Joe Biden thanked Cheadle for her decades of public service and said he would appoint her successor

Starting point is 00:05:08 to lead the Secret Service soon. On Monday, Cheadle responded to a subpoena to testify in front of the House Committee of Oversight and Reform, answering heated questions from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Cheadle revealed some new information about the incident, including that the roof where Trump's shooter opened fire had been identified as a potential vulnerability days before the rally, but said she was unable to answer many of the committee members' most pressing questions due to the ongoing investigation into the shooting.

Starting point is 00:05:45 from Kentucky and ranking member Jamie Raskin, Democrat from Maryland, co-signed a statement calling on Cheadle to resign, describing the assassination attempt as a stunning operational failure. On Tuesday, Cheadle informed U.S. Secret Service staff of her resignation in an internal email. In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director, Cheadle wrote. The Secret Service's solemn mission is to protect our nation's leaders and financial infrastructure. On July 13th, we fell short on that mission. As your director, I take full responsibility for the security lapse. Cheadle was named director of the Secret Service in September of 2022, following her position as senior director of global Security for PepsiCo. Prior to that role, she served in the U.S. Secret Service for 27 years.

Starting point is 00:06:31 In an interview three days after the shooting, Cheadle accepted responsibility for the security failure, but said she planned to continue on as director. Her decision to resign now follows bipartisan calls for her to step down amid anger over the attempted assassination and frustration about her lack of clarity during the hearing. Egregious security failures leading up to and at the Butler, Pennsylvania campaign rally resulted in the assassination attempt of President Trump, the murder of an innocent victim, and harm to others in the crowd, Representative Comer said

Starting point is 00:07:00 in a statement. We will continue our oversight of the Secret Service in support of the House Task Force to deliver transparency, accountability, and solutions to ensure this never happens again. Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced the formation of a House Task Force to investigate the shooting, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is heading a separate investigation. The House Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing today about the FBI investigation, with Agency director Christopher Wray testifying. Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the federal department that oversees the Secret Service, named U.S. Secret Service deputy director Ronald L. Lowe as the agency's

Starting point is 00:07:40 acting director. Lowe is a 24-year veteran of the Secret Service. Today, we'll cover Cheadle's resignation and the continuing fallout from the Trump assassination attempt with views from the left and the right, and then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Distracted? You're not alone. Whether renting, considering buying a home, or renewing a mortgage, many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with housing costs on their minds. For free tools and resources to help you manage your home finances and clear your head, visit Canada.ca slash ItPaysToKnow. A message from the Government of Canada. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain,

Starting point is 00:08:44 one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from First up, let's start with some agreement. Both sides welcome Cheadle's resignation, suggesting accountability for the assassination attempt needs to start at the top of the Secret Service. The left and the right applaud lawmakers from both parties for their tough questioning of Cheadle at the House hearing. They also agree that more changes are needed to address systemic

Starting point is 00:09:38 issues at the Secret Service. All right, let's move on to what the left is saying. The left commends the bipartisan effort to hold the Secret Service accountable for its failures. Some say Cheadle should have resigned immediately after the assassination attempt. Others say Cheadle's poor communication with the public exacerbated the fallout from the shooting. The Star Tribune editorial board said Cheadle was right to resign. Cheadle was right to resign. In fact, she should have done so sooner. But a secondary story related to the resignation is also notable. A rare breakout of bipartisan congressional consensus surrounding the issue on display at a House Oversight Committee hearing on

Starting point is 00:10:15 Monday, in which exasperated Democrats matched their Republican colleagues' anger at answers, or more often, non-answers, to representatives' questions, the board wrote. While the GOP lawmakers' rhetoric was hotter, Democrats, including cool-headed Jamie Raskin of Maryland, spoke for Congress and the country when he said that he didn't see any daylight between the members of the two parties today at the hearing in terms of our bafflement and outrage. There are scores more performances in the federal government that merit bafflement and, indeed, even outrage at this urgent and tender moment, and Congress and the country would be well served by bipartisan focus on them, ideally resulting in fixes. But for now, it's reassuring, and maybe even a little worthy of its own headline, to see that Washington can work after one of its entities failed to do so on that fateful day in Pennsylvania. In the Charlotte Observer, Isaac Bailey wrote, Congress did what was right.

Starting point is 00:11:09 Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheadle had to go. I'm surprised it took an hours-long grilling from Republicans and Democrats during an oversight hearing to make that clear to her. Truth be told, though, our problems haven't disappeared just because Cheadle stepped down on Tuesday, Bailey said. Though it is clear before the hearing that Republicans and Democrats calling for Cheadle's job were right, the hearing made that even more clear. She turned in her resignation Tuesday morning, something she should have done the morning after a young man came within millimeters of killing Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. During the hearing, we didn't get many good answers as to why this happened or how a 20-year-old seeming loner was able to get a direct shot at a former president. Cheadle dodged most of

Starting point is 00:11:49 the questions, citing security concerns about not wanting to reveal too many tactical details in public, knowing that even our enemies would be watching, Bailey wrote. On one level, her repeated non-answers made for a frustrating hearing. On another, it highlighted something just as important as the shooting. It feels as though much of the public moved on too quickly after we found out that the alleged shooter was nonpartisan and may not have had a grudge against either political party. In the New York Times, Gerald Posner and Mark S. Zaid argued the government has failed America since the Trump shooting. Until this week, there had not been a single news conference by the Secret Service or the

Starting point is 00:12:25 Department of Homeland Security, no release of files that might show the preparations for securing vulnerable locations from which an assassin might strike, not even a formal news release from the officials facing criticism for unmistakable miscues caught on video by those at the rally, Posner and Zaid said. The silence looked particularly bad given news reports initially denied by the government that top Secret Service officials over a two-year span rejected repeated requests for more agents and magnetometers at Mr. Trump's large public events. Cheadle, who resigned on Tuesday, told Congress the assets that were requested for that day were given. Still, suspicions were allowed to fester that Mr. Trump's protection service was deliberately lax, Posner and Zaid said. No one expects instant answers. That would provoke

Starting point is 00:13:10 as much skepticism as a long delay. But the public has become accustomed to officials holding regular news conferences in the aftermath of tragedies and disasters. The public will tolerate, we're not sure yet, or that's still under investigation, if other facts are revealed as the investigators uncover them. All right, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right praises members from both parties for holding Cheadle accountable. Some say the hearing was the final nail in the coffin for Cheadle's job. Others say more changes are needed at the Secret Service to restore trust in the agency. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called for a Secret Service house cleaning.

Starting point is 00:13:59 Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheadle resigned on Tuesday, recognizing the inevitable 11 days after her agency failed to protect Donald Trump from a potential assassin some 150 yards away. New leadership is needed to restore the agency's credibility and competence, but also welcome on Tuesday was the creation of a House task force to investigate the security failure, the board said. The task force will have subpoena power and include seven Republicans and six Democrats. The bipartisan makeup is encouraging, signaling that, even in our rancorous times, both parties recognize the need to discover what went wrong at the Secret Service and report those facts to the public. President Biden has also launched a government investigation, but the political

Starting point is 00:14:39 reality is that Americans might not trust a report from the executive branch on a failure by the executive branch, the board wrote. Americans have little trust a report from the executive branch on a failure by the executive branch, the board wrote. Americans have little trust in government these days, and the Secret Service's stunning failure to protect Mr. Trump adds to the reasons. The goal of the House probe should be to get to the truth, draw accurate conclusions, and report them without political favor to the American people. In hot air, Ed Morrissey said Cheadle was right to resign after her Capitol Hill humiliation. In an administration marked by a disgraceful retreat from Kabul that left 13 service members dead and 14,000 Americans left behind to the Taliban, a border crisis that still

Starting point is 00:15:17 rages, a bungled response to supply chain crises, and a derailment in East Palestine, Kimberly Cheadle becomes the first to suffer consequences for embarrassing incompetence, Morrissey wrote. By the end of the hearing, everyone began demanding her resignation, especially because Cheadle stonewalled the congressional committee throughout her testimony. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez couldn't believe that Cheadle wanted another 60 days to provide answers on the ability of the Secret Service to protect its assigned notables, for instance. By the time Cheadle finished to protect its assigned notables, for instance. By the time Cheadle finished her testimony, she had no political cover whatsoever. Mayorkas should have to answer for this, too.

Starting point is 00:15:52 He's already been impeached over the border crisis and his failures to protect the national security of the United States. DHS is looking like an asylum for incompetence on Mayorkas' watch, not a necessary bulwark against threats to the U.S. collectively or individually. His initial impulse to support Cheadle, despite the worst body protection failure of the agency since 1981, also needs immediate attention from Congress, but at least one person has been held accountable. In Fox News, Representative Pat Fallon, the Republican from Texas, wrote about how we fixed the U.S. Secret Service before it's too late. One would think that Cheadle had done her research to know every detail of the events of that day. However, the testimony suggested the total opposite.

Starting point is 00:16:34 Former Director Cheadle provided nonsensical, incoherent, and unsubstantive answers to basic questions from my colleagues and me on both sides of the aisle, Fallon said. I'm glad to see former director Cheadle tender her resignation on Tuesday. In truth, I would have liked to have seen her fired instead. Accountability starts from the top, and we must take a hard look at the failures that led to President Trump's near assassination at the hands of a 20-year-old untrained loner. Cheadle's comments and testimony make clear that this mission was on the pathway to failure during the planning process. The obvious lapses in basic security and planning principles are shocking, distressing, and extremely troublesome. This can only happen

Starting point is 00:17:14 if there is an alarming level of incompetence at the agency's highest levels, Fallon wrote. A change of culture at the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security as a whole is required. Former Director Cheadle's resignation is the first step on what seems like a long journey towards ensuring the safety of all high-profile protectees by the agency whose sole responsibility is to do so, the U.S. Secret Service. All right, let's head over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So it's a rare day when the left and the right agree, and, you know, both sides are obviously making strong points that I also find pretty compelling. If I wanted to offer a contrarian take on this story or the idea that Cheadle should obviously resign, it would look something like this.

Starting point is 00:18:19 There were probably a dozen or so people who I'd place above Cheadle on my blame pyramid for the assassination attempt. She's the leader of the agency, yes, but what about all the law enforcement officers on the ground who didn't respond to attendees alerting them to a shooter on the roof of a nearby building? What about the local police who failed to stop the shooter even after attempting to engage him? What about the security coordinators who also allowed minutes to go by without responding to those warnings? It seems odd to me that those people haven't been fired, resigned, or taken more scrutiny. In the wake of public failures like this, I often wonder whether cleaning house from the top down is actually better than allowing leaders to learn from their failures and shake up their organizations from the inside. As former Secret Service agent Bill Gage told me in an interview

Starting point is 00:19:01 with Tangle last week, glaring lapses can occur even under stalwart leadership. You could have George Patton as the head of the Secret Service or another famous war general, and if there's a faulty security plan, it doesn't matter who the director of the Secret Service is. Bad things could happen, he told me. I don't mean to diminish the director's position, but I'm just saying you can't pin all the blame on her, end quote. Again, if I wanted to offer you an alternative perspective, that's the strongest one I have. But the buck stops with leaders, for better or for worse. We hold presidents responsible for our economy, foreign wars, immigration issues, healthcare, and the cost of a gallon of gas, and the quality of our public

Starting point is 00:19:40 schools all at once. Do I think the president is the person most responsible for those things? No. But the leader at the top, whether it's a president or the head of an agency like the Secret Service, is responsible for recognizing organizational failures, articulating them to the public, and rolling up their sleeves to find a solution. The strongest reason to remove Cheadle isn't the attempted assassination itself. It's the recalcitrant lack of transparency she's demonstrated in response to it. She dodged question after question on Capitol Hill, has been unable or unwilling to communicate what caused the massive security failure, and is directly responsible for the circular blame game the Secret Service continues to play

Starting point is 00:20:19 with local police. If Cheeto had come out in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and communicated clearly about exactly what had happened, why security had failed, and what the agency needed to do to fix it, that would have been a sign of a functioning organization engaged in healthy self-criticism. To me, that she couldn't provide those answers sends a distressing signal that maybe the Secret Service doesn't have them yet. Cheheadle might share the blame for the security failure itself, but the opacity, obfuscation, and confusion that followed the shooting, all of that falls on Cheadle. In the end, Cheadle's resignation was a foregone conclusion.

Starting point is 00:20:56 Watching the hearing, it was clear she was going to have to resign, given the bipartisan fury over her answers and the similarly bipartisan calls for her to step down. Hopefully, this sends the kind of shockwave through the organization that demands a full accounting and more funding to ensure our current, former, and future presidents and their families are much safer going forward. We'll be right back after this quick break. We'll be right back after this quick break. A message from the Government of Canada. From Searchlight Pictures comes A Real Pain, one of the most moving and funny films of the year. Written and directed by Oscar-nominated Jesse Eisenberg and starring Eisenberg and Emmy Award winner Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain is a comedy about mismatched cousins who reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother.

Starting point is 00:22:09 The adventure takes a turn when the pair's old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. A Real Pain was one of the buzziest titles at Sundance Film Festival this year, garnering rave reviews and acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. See A Real Pain only in theaters November 15th. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Jared in Wenatchee, Washington. Apologies if I'm mispronouncing that. Jared said, I believe, as you've previously indicated, that a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan is a significant concern.

Starting point is 00:23:10 However, the issue of Trump and Biden's responses to such a scenario seems to be largely overlooked. Trump's recent comments suggest a reluctance to defend Taiwan, but his exact stance still seems unclear. How do you think each candidate would respond if Taiwan is attacked? So first, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room here. There is no longer a candidate Biden in the 2024 election. That's how fast the news moves. But there is a candidate Trump, so we can start with him. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek last week, former President Donald Trump said, quote, I know the people very well, respect them greatly. They, meaning Taiwan, did take about 100% of our chip business, I think Taiwan should pay us for

Starting point is 00:23:46 defense. He went further, saying, you know, we're no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn't give us anything. The comments sparked pushback in Taiwan. We've increased our spending and readiness, and I think we pay enough, John Koh, who is an influential lawmaker, told Fox News. The United States is welcome to offer offer advice and we will take any proposals seriously, but I can't agree with those comments, he added. Others, including U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, have noted that Taiwan does pay for its own defense. As a quick my take on those comments from Trump,

Starting point is 00:24:20 I think they're exactly what we've come to expect from him. It's an exaggerated claim. Taiwan did not take 100% of our chip business. Levied against an ally as well as an outright lie, Taiwan does indeed pay for U.S. weapons, paired with a directionally smart posture. Pressure Taiwan to give us more and hold firm on an America-first position. It's also a Rorschach test on Trump's intentions. Is he trying to ramp up pressure for other U.S. allies to do more and take the load off our international responsibilities? Or is he signaling to China that the U.S. is wavering in its commitment to Taiwan?

Starting point is 00:24:54 It's impossible to say, but I'm betting on the former. Trump has long centered China as the greatest security and economic threat to the U.S. and genuinely brought Biden and much of Congress with him. I don't think he is intending to signal to President Xi that he will be free to attack Taiwan under his administration. I think he's sending Taiwan a signal that a future President Trump will push for more in exchange for the implicit security we offer. That being said, it might be true that the odds of China attacking Taiwan go up if Trump gets re-elected, given that his

Starting point is 00:25:25 stance is murkier than the Biden administration's. Wall Street seems to agree. As for what a President Kamala Harris would do if Taiwan is attacked, we know much less about that. This Friday, we're going to do that deep dive on the new presumptive Democratic nominee covering her foreign policy positions and more, which will hopefully give you a little better idea of how to think about that question. All right, that is it for our reader questions today. I'm going to send it back to John for the rest of the pod, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks, Isaac. Here's your Under the Radar story for today, folks. One day after Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheadle testified before Congress,

Starting point is 00:26:07 Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Parris also testified. His testimony, which received much less coverage, revealed stunning new details around the security failures at the Trump campaign rally on July 13th. According to Parris, two local law enforcement officers left a building with a vantage point of Crooks to look for a suspicious person who ended up being Crooks. Paris also testified that a municipal officer came face-to-face with Crooks during the several minutes he was on the roof, adding that only a few seconds had passed between Crooks turning his rifle on one of the officers, which caused him to drop from the roof, and Crooks firing on Trump.

Starting point is 00:26:42 Finally, Paris said that a text thread between Butler County Emergency Services unit officers that contained observations about Crooks was not shared with Secret Service agents. The officers who spotted Crooks using a rangefinder eventually called state police, which was then relayed to the Secret Service. CNN has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The year Kimberly Cheadle joined the Secret Service was 1995. The number of direct attacks on U.S. presidents

Starting point is 00:27:15 since the Secret Service began protecting presidents in 1901 is eight. The number of Secret Service directors who lost their jobs as the result of an assassination attempt on a president before Cheadle's resignation on Tuesday is zero. The year of the attempted assassination on President Ronald Reagan was 1981, the last time a sitting president was shot. The year Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated was 1968, the last time a major presidential candidate or president-elect was directly assaulted prior to the Trump assassination attempt. The approximate length of Tuesday's House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was four hours and 34 minutes. And the number of days Cheadle said it would take to complete

Starting point is 00:27:58 the Secret Service's internal investigation into the assassination attempt on July 13th is 60 days. investigation into the assassination attempt on July 13th is 60 days. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day story. Charles Young was the first African American to become a colonel in the Army, and now he has a road in Ohio named in his honor. Young was born in 1864 to enslaved parents in Kentucky, attended West Point, and became the third Black graduate. After a long career in the National Park Service, he was promoted to colonel, then posthumously promoted to Brigadier General in 2021. On Monday, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill to honor Young, designating 85 miles of roadway as the General Charles Young Memorial Historic Corridor. Local 12 has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that's it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to

Starting point is 00:28:55 support our work, head over to readtangle.com and sign up for a membership. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is Jon Lowe signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Law. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website.

Tangle - The Secret Service director resigns.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.