Alabama's Morning News with JT
Erin Real on what's next for the U.S. Secret Service after Kimberly Cheatle's resignation
A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's Extra Help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp. Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. So many unanswered questions still when it comes to the Secret Service, how they handled the situation with former President Donald Trump, Pennsylvania State Police Colonel Christopher Parris describing when two local officers encountered the shooter, Thomas Crookes, on the roof just before he opened fire. One boosted the other one up, hanging from the ledge of the roof. By the time that officer was boosted up on top of the roof, Crookes was on it almost in that final position that you saw he had the AR out. And we all know the timeline now is it's been specifically laid out by members of Congress. The Secret Service is saying they're still investigating. Don't want to really come with too much before we have all our ducks in a row, why they're dragging their feet on this. And since then, yeah, the director under pressure finally resigned. So what's next? Erin Rial joins us now correspondent on this one. I don't think she could have lasted much longer after seeing some of that testimony, Erin, from Congress. It's like, oh my gosh, the woman's still not answering questions. This is most, you know, incompetent and need to be held accountable person I've seen in a long time. So what's next? Indeed. And honestly, I have to say it makes you wonder if she was designed to fail because it was so preposterous in terms of what was coming out of this and so mockable, you really had to wonder, like, is this a setup and I'm not here to move conspiracy theories forward at all. But there's no question why conspiracy theories are given air to breathe when you have the powers that be being so evasive, a house oversight and accountability committee hearings, she was refusing to answer questions about the Secret Service actions that day that 20-year-old gunman Thomas Crooks, obviously getting several shots off of the former president, killing one person, critically injuring two others. Two others. Now we have Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Myorka. He's appointed the Secret Service Deputy Director Ronald Rowe. He's going to serve as acting director until the president selects a permanent director. And here's the question. You know, Cheetah's gone. She's gone. And I almost worry. I'm like, no, she needs to answer more questions. And the House Oversight Committee says that they're not going to stop pushing for more accountability. But part of it feels like this is too easy a solution. She needs to answer and if she's not going to answer, and I often think the person at the top of these big government organizations gets too much credit, good and bad, but it wasn't, she didn't act alone, you know, and she can't answer everything. They need to continue to look at why this didn't work, why this panned out the way it did. Right now, and when you look at the timeline, and I'm sure you watched some of it as well, the testimony that was given, she's just, I'll have to get back to you. She must have said it, you know, two dozen times, if not more. But it seems that everybody in Congress knew the timeline as to what took place and how long before the shots rang out that they knew about this guy as a quote unquote suspicious person. So, you know, that's almost what 57 minutes they were talking about having this guy in their sights and keeping an eye on him, and then they lose sight of him for a while. Next thing, you know, he's climbing up on a building. There's, you know, people attending the rally going, "Hey, we got somebody on the roof here, law enforcement, you know, locals saying, "Look, we were so tied up with traffic. We weren't, you know, deemed to be on top of this." The bottom line is the Secret Service is in charge of security for these events, whether it's, you know, using the state police to help local law enforcement to help or their own agents to do the job. It lays on the director, and she has since resigned, but you're right. They can't just go, "Okay, well, she's resigned. She can go away." Now, they got to bring her in and continue this investigation because, yeah, she's out of her job, but, you know, I'm wondering if there's going to be any other ramifications or, you know, accountability as far as punishment goes for her moving forward on this because let's just call it. I think there's going to be some civil lawsuits on this, and I understand that there is a window of opportunity for that. A lot of times you hear about the immunity of government not being able to be sued, but I've talked to a couple of attorneys about this as well, and they said, "Yeah, there is a scenario where, you know, the families, you know, that were involved in this could file a lawsuit. You know, can Congress, you know, bring something more serious than just accepting her resignation? You know, it'll be interesting to see. Your thoughts, I wanted to ask Aaron Rail, when Biden comes out and appoints the next one, I would imagine that will change if Trump becomes the president and is inaugurated in January, that's a short-lived position for somebody. For sure, listen, Trump has praised the Secret Service for their work that day, and I get that you become close with these people. You spend a lot of time with them. I'm sure, yes, he's entitled to appoint someone different, and he can, absolutely. And I fundamentally don't believe that either president wants to see the other, Trump or Biden, you don't want to see the other one hurt again in any of that. I don't believe that, you know, that whoever you appoint is going to oversee your security detail as well. So like, even if you do, which I'm not saying they do, they don't, but they're just incentivized to appoint the right person. Also, again, the person at the top gets too much credit, and beyond that, I think that Secret Service, in recent years, they've had scandals. They've had missteps. Like, don't they constantly show up at strip clubs while they're on, like, the clock? Like, they need to button it up. They need to pull it together, like, they're just, I think that it's like a bigger issue of like, what is this institution and what does it become? And then beyond that, they're protecting some of the most important people on the planet, and they need to, they have a thankless job, it's very, very hard, but it has to come correct or it can't come at all. Well, I think it's tightened up because of all of this right now. I mean, Trump has said time and time again, he was denied access or they just ignored his request for more agents, you know, the denial of getting access to more agents was turned down sometimes. But now I think Trump, you know, obviously the president, Joe Biden, has been getting great coverage, you know, as far as protection, Kamala Harris, and even RFK Jr., I think they've ramped it all up to the same level and every one of these people are going to be getting more serious, you know, protection from the Secret Service. One last question. Why Alejandro Mayorkas? Why would see the one to move the next person up as the acting and not Joe Biden? That's, it's a great question. So apparently Homeland Security overtook Secret Service, which by the way used to fall under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, which I always thought was so bizarre, but they moved it. It's now under Homeland Security Secretary, their purview. And Alejandro Mayorkas was able, given that that is his position, it's just a temporary director. I don't know when the new one will be named it very shortly. This is not the job. And I think as opposed to like reading too much into this one, it seems to be more just logistical. This is how this is how the processes work when you have this hierarchy in terms of the structure that these government agencies operate under. If I don't want to try a place in tomorrow, I'm sure it could. It's not, it's not that, that permanent. Well, he's, I think Joe's still probably trying to figure this whole thing out and exactly what happened here. All right, Aaron, thank you so much. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp. Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.