The Highwire with Del Bigtree - DISSECTING THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF DONALD TRUMP

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

In the wake of the historic attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, Marine Corps combat veteran and global security expert, Byron Rodgers, addresses the multitude of presumable failures by the Secret Service in protecting the former Commander in Chief.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

For those of you who may have been living under Iraq, this past Saturday, there was an attempted assassination of President Donald J. Trump. We're going to show you a little bit of that right now. Take a look. Breaking news right now. We're getting word. There were loud noises during a rally in Pennsylvania. Gunshots fired at a Donald Trump rally. This is near Pittsburgh. There has been an incident at Donald Trump's Pennsylvania rally. It appears shots have apparently been fired. Former President Donald Trump shot in the ear during a rally in Pennsylvania. The president was hurt but expected to be okay. With the minutes of former President Donald Trump taking the stage, we heard a series of popping sounds.

That chart's a couple of months old. And if you want to really see something that said, take a look at what happened. Trump could be seen reaching for his face and neck, then quickly ducking behind the podium as his secret service detail rushed the stage. Those are secret service agents. I'm trying to pull Donald Trump off the stage. He's pumping his fists in the air. The crowd is chanting USA, USA. Tragically, one person attending the rally was killed,

and at least two others were hurt. Somebody over there was screaming. He's been shot. He's been shot. So I made my way over. I said, I'm an emergency department physician. Let me help you. The guy had spun around, was jammed between the benches.

He had a headshot here. There's lots of blood. Witnesses who were at the rally described the frightening moments when they realized what was happening. Somebody started yon, hit the ground, hit the ground. And when I looked over and then I saw the smoke from the gunfire. Before the shooting, saw a guy, a gray shirt, climbing up the metal roof on the building right beside us, trying to alert cops and police that there was a guy crawling on the roof. And then we saw a rifle sling over his shoulder.

I look up at the top of the AGR building and there was a gentleman going in prone position with a rifle. He then laid down, took four shots. I realized right away what was happening. I was scared for my life. It was intense. It was really surreal. Still so many questions about what happened this past weekend. So we're bringing in an expert from Sabre Defense.

It's basically like the secret service for the private sector. As the world becomes more turbulent, everything we do is mission critical. Protect, defend, serve. Sabre defense team, it's where experience matters. The Sabre defense team brings professionals to bear that can handle absolutely any mission. Our security professionals will seamlessly. integrate into your life and many times you will not even know that we are there. We're here so that you do not have to worry about safety and security and you can focus on what

it is that you're here to bring to the world. We just found out like not even, I don't know, a couple of hours ago that they knew that this gentleman was there on the grounds for at least three hours before he stepped into the position he was in when this incident happened. So what do we do now? How do we do? How, How did the Secret Service completely fail to act on what was an obvious threat? How did they miss a five-foot ladder? How did they not alert the local police that were right there who were within distance to do something about it?

This is the Secret Service of the United States of America with a budget bigger than most agencies in the United States have. And they're not only protecting, you know, candidates, but they're also protecting the presidents of the United States. So these are major questions that we have of all of our institutions that are supposed to be doing our job. Now we have the president going all over the world. We can't have a secret service who may or may not be just a little too comfortable, who may or may not be getting the support that they need, or the money they need, or the instruction they need, or the training they need. And there's a fine line between, you know,

wanting to support an agency from the inside and having that agency seemingly not step up to the plate in one of the most important times. I think we've got Byron ready. Byron, you good? Am I good? Radio check? How do I sound? You sound wonderful. It's so good to have you here.

Thanks so much. Thank you. It's an honor. Oh, sure. Thanks. Tell us real quick about you, what you do, the type of people you protect, etc. Absolutely. So High Net Worth Families has really been our specialty.

I've been doing this work since 2008 upon exiting the United States Marine Corps. Infantry, I was with 3-1 Lima Company. We went over to Iraq multiple times. And this is really all I've done my entire life. Hineworth individuals acting, singing talent. We've serviced every client demographic this industry has to offer. We've done events up to 250,000 people inside of a weekend. So this is kind of what I eat, sleep, and breathe.

We also have one of the top training companies in the work. world for this and so this is my world. So if that being said, if you were training someone on a scenario like we saw Saturday, what would you have trained them to do? Yeah, well, I think the first breakdown really came with the response from the information that should have been taken from the advanced work, right? So when you walk through one of these sites, you're going to identify different areas where there are risk factors and there were multiple areas that it sounds. It sounds like, like we're not addressed, right? So if you look at the grounds here, you have an extremely prominent risk factor where the gunman was, and the fact that that gunman still had a clear

line of sight to the stage would have been, you're setting yourself up for failure, right? So your counter-sniper teams, hopefully you have drone teams. You know, we've worked presidential candidates and political figures, and, you know, these things are kind of rudimentary tools that we use just even in the private sector to provide quality protection to those who we seek to serve so the first thing is conduct a thorough walkthrough which i'm sure they did the reasons why these risk factors in the terrain weren't addressed i don't know and what i want to say for sure is you know i have the utmost respect for anyone who signs on to do the job of professional protection and i know it's easy for us to you know to look after the fact but i want to let them

that we respect what it is they're doing. But the reality of this situation, unfortunately, is that there are just questions that need to be answered. And they came at a great cost that day. What kind of decision making is there? When you've got now we're learning a three-hour notification that there's a suspicious individual, somebody who, by all accounts and purposes,

carried in a five-foot ladder to set up next to a building to get up there. What kind of absolute breakdown would there have to be? And how many levels of security are there in that situation that broke down? Yeah, so when you identify a risk factor like that, I'm honestly not sure how, you know, the presidential candidate Donald Trump was able to get on the platform. When you identify a BOLO, you have a be on the lookout, a person that you're looking out for,

everyone on your team should be notified. There are certain words that you'll use if there is a risk that's identified, such as someone on the look out, such as someone on a rooftop presenting a rifle. The grounds should have been locked down prior to 24 hours prior to the event. So the fact that they did possibly identify him and then he made it onto the roof and reports say that they were aware that he was on the roof and they were seeking to deal with that. It's just kind of unfathomable. So the parts of, you know, the parts I think personally what broke down is that possibly the guys

on the ground were not able to do what it is they're there to do, which would have been addressed that threat. It sounds like they may have been in some way told to stand down and something happened because I know there are men and women on that team that are there to do their job and the fact that nothing got dealt with, like I said, it's very difficult for us to know exactly what happened and what, you know, that team was dealing with, but there had to have been some operational parameters that stopped them from acting. They just had to have been. The next question that I have is, you know, a lot of people haven't been addressing this. And thanks, thanks so much for your expertise on this. The stage, once that shot was fired, Donald Trump was struck by the bullet.

He ducked down himself. Was the length of time that his team made it up to that stage to protect him adequate? Or was that a little bit too long for what is supposed to happen? So I think, as we mentioned, the breakdown really took place prior to all of this, right? So putting things in the way, you know, running different, different, like a, you know, fire truck and hosting some, hoisting some flags, blocking the line of sight to the platform would have been awesome. Communication, the speed of communication so that the teams could deal with any credible threats in the area and that that individual could have been dealt with.

initially that is the ideal way that these things are dealt with drones patrolling the environment making sure that these things are dealt with long before our principles get on the stage and then ultimately understanding when you need to get them off the stage or not even let them on there in the first place these are the huge things that i think um we need answers for but as far as once the action started and the shots began to be fired um from what we can see those agents got up there as quickly as possible as humanly possible. There looked like there was some confusion and some different reactions, but overall,

I would say that you have a lot that's gotta get done. You have to conduct a medical assessment on your principal to understand whether or not they're ambulatory, whether or not you can actually move them. If there are injuries that are life-threatening and you get them to the vehicle and they die on the way to the vehicle, they die in the vehicle because things were not addressed.

So you're depending on the different layers of your team. You're depending on the cat team, the tactical guys in front of the stage with the long rifles to make sure there's no secondary attacks. You're depending on your sniper team to provide overwatch and cover. While you do these assessments, you make sure you understand where you can go safely and then you go there safely and in a controlled way so that you don't run into the attack of the enemy. Because, you know, and that's one of my major concerns with this. you know, if a 19-year-old, 20-some-year-old assailant can do this much damage to our, you know, to what we have in place to protect a presidential candidate, I wonder and I worry what could happen if a coordinated team of professionals or even veterans decided to do the same thing.

And we have credible threats all around, you know, presidential candidate Donald Trump right now. So what would you recommend? Like, if you could give a recommendation to the, to any candidate that's running right now, from the president who has Secret Service all the time to an RFK or a Donald Trump, what would you recommend in your professional expertise? I would recommend getting multiple teams,

and I would recommend running those two teams in tandem with each other, right? So there's something that happens when we've been doing this work for a long time. I've suffered from it, and I do everything I can to make sure that my teams don't suffer from it, but when you do a job, like this for a very long time and nothing happens sometimes you can start to think that nothing

happening is because you're that good in all actuality the the psychological stance should be when it happens right it's it's difficult to maintain that and i think the lack of action between understanding that there's a credible threat in the environment and acting upon that neutralizing that threat in any way right um you know the fact that there was no one on the roof and these different things that did not get dealt with, I think, you know, there's a chance that it may have to do with something like that. But like I said, hindsight is 2020. What I would do is I would implement a multiple team structure. And I would give both of these teams the responsibility of securing the principal. And I would let these two teams essentially almost compete. And so the

things that the other team does not pick up, the secondary or the private sector team will be for sure picking up and, you know, may the best team win. It's almost like, you know, it's the way we work the economy. It's business, right? And that's what I would, that's what I would do. And in this operation, too, you see that, you know, their joint, you know, joint agencies working together to make things happen. But on the private side, it's a little bit different, you know, because it is business. And our ability to survive does have everything to do with the quality of service that we give to you. There's no getting moved around, you know, if you fail on an assignment, you lose your job, you and your honor with that. And I'm not saying it's, you know, it's something to be considered and it's a way that the private sector is very different.

Everything depends on what we're doing. Well, speaking of that, actually, then you're choosing who's going to be protecting your protectee, right? So when do you stop and say, well, my protectee is six foot two? We have a really, really bad female, female, you know, agent, for lack of a better word. but she's only five, six. How do you make those decisions? And what should those decisions be? Right. Those decisions should be completely, extremely by the numbers. Who is the best human being for the job?

Who has the highest cutting score? Who has the highest ASVAB score if we're in the military? Who has the highest level of physical potency? Who show the best decision-making skills? When we place a principal with an agent, it all comes down to who has the best score, who is the best agent for that job. So I personally think that, you know, as us being, you know, leaders of the free world, when people look at our protection team, it is a representation of the best Americans in service

to the number one man in the, you know, in the government in many ways. That team should strike fear in the hearts of our enemies, and that team should be extremely competent. And that team, everyone on that team, should be able to pick that person. president up and move him if necessary and cover him. If the individuals on that team are not tall enough to do something like that, you know, I just the numbers don't lie, right? The math is not mathing, right? So those individuals should be able to cover that man, move that man, sometimes even against his will if necessary to maintain security. And those individuals should be

stress tested. We saw some, some, some, you know, questionable abilities to deal with the stress of the situation and manage the cortisol, you know, but that's what we do. That's what we train for. That's what we train every single day for. You know, at Saber, we say protection is more than just a job. It's a lifestyle because it's the things that you do when you're not on the job that provide you the capabilities to perform on the job. And I don't think anything other than the most potent professional and highest performers should be anywhere near any principal, but especially, you know, the principal who could become the next president of the United States again. So I have to ask you this question. I think I know what you'll answer will be.

The sloped roof, the sloped roof answer that we got from the director of the Secret Service. Yeah. Secret Service boss blames sloped roof for not putting sniper team on building used by would buy Trump assassin. Tell me about that. What do you think? You know, it's one of those things. We dealt with this in the Marine Corps and we're looking at a peacetime Marine Corps versus of combat-centric Marine Corps, right? And we would have these certain rules and safety procedures that were put in place now that we weren't dealing

with real true danger. And to me, the reality is this. The men and women who signed up to do that job that have invested their lives to become the tip of the spear that have invested everything they have, to be in those positions on that day, they've been dreaming about that day, they've been training for that day,

their entire lives do not. care about a sloped roof. Okay, driving your car home tonight has a higher risk profile than walking around on that sloped roof. And if I don't care what we got to do, whether you got to strap us in and we got to hang from zip tie and we got to and we got to repel down the side of the building, if it has to do with protecting our principal, we're going to do it. And, you know, these are the types of, I believe these are the types of rules and safety precautions that get put in place when you're dealing with, you know, when you're not dealing with real world threats enough to realize you just have to do what you have to do to get the mission to get the mission done.

And, you know, I just, I can't, I can't sign off on that. We need to do everything we can to protect this man and any and every other principle that signs on and trusts us with their life, sloped, roof or not. Do you think it was actually a procedure or do you think it was an excuse, be honest? You know, I know that there are these types of rules that are in place, but I honestly think, you know, it's probably a cop-out. You know, we're going to secure the building from inside the building. Maybe, you know, but I still have a million questions around why that area after I'm sure it was identified as a terrain feature that was a huge risk factor. You know, there's something called tactical positioning. And it's, if I'm in an elevator and someone is back here in my corner panel, I don't care who it is.

I don't care if it's your grandma, but I need to make sure that I'm positioning myself so that I'm not exposed, right? And it's a very, it's a very, it makes you thorough when it comes to protecting yourself and a venue and or the overall life cycle or pattern of life of your principal and client. From the moment, from the moment Donald Trump left wherever secure location he was, the drive to the venue, when he got out of the vehicle and walked to the green room or the stage, whatever they had set up, every single choke point, every single terrain feature that represented a tactical risk must have been addressed. And I know that the Secret Service is extremely thorough when it comes to this aspect of what they do. There's some of the best in the world.

But there seems like there was a disconnect here where this specific terrain feature was not addressed. And that's where I think all the questions need to be answered. Because it's simple to address it. You can block it in a million different ways. blocked a line of sight in many different ways, you know. And unfortunately, that wasn't done. And then understanding that law enforcement agencies were aware of this individual, you know,

he was a Bolo, they saw him with range finders. They, you know, knew that there was someone on the roof and that that information stopped somewhere in the chain and nothing was done about it. You know, it sounds like possibly maybe they didn't want to stop the venue. No one wanted to be responsible for stopping the venue. These are things that protectors have to deal with. We have protectors on stage, but you have to have show stop procedures in place. And you have to be willing to stand on the carpet saying, sir, madam, I stopped the show and we evacuated off the stage.

And these are the reasons why. And when you have a leader who has experience with those high threat or high risk type of operations, they're quicker to make those decisions. and other leaders, you know, sometimes, sometimes aren't, depending on their background and where they come from and their value structure. So I, you know, the fact that he made it to the stage with all of the information that we now have, the understanding that those pieces were on the board, is still a big question mark to me. And the fact that there weren't drones in the sky and the fact that, you know, law enforcement, you know, peeked their head up. They saw someone with a rifle and there wasn't a cat team, an SRT team. There wasn't, you know, SEB wasn't skirting the building and there wasn't a smokescreen or, you know, have the local fire department hoist an American flag in front of that building. You know, they'd love to come down and be a part of it.

You know, none of these things were done. You know, I really respect the agency. I really respect the gentleman that do this job. So, you know, I respect them. But there are just some questions that I think need to be answered at the leadership level. because I'm sure they would have done it if they were given the green light. I really appreciate you coming on with us today, Byron. Thanks from Sabre Defense Team. Thank you so much for being here.

It's an honor and privilege. Thank you so much, Tracy.