00:00L.C. Barry Donatio, along with former Navy SEAL, former FBI agent, author of Sheep No More,
00:05Jonathan Gilliam. Barry, I want to start with you. Obviously, you've worked the protective
00:09detail at a lot of these major events. I spent a lot of time inside that protective bubble.
00:14To me, this is an example of the security perimeter working. Doesn't mean it can't get
00:19better, but it shows me that this is what it was supposed to do. It worked.
00:23Yeah, thanks for having me on your show. I agree with you 100 percent. It worked this time. And
00:28is the outer perimeter of the event. And there has to be a front door to every event and every
00:33castle and every military base. Right outside that gate or right outside that entry point is the
00:40unknown. Anybody can have anything right outside there, just like airport security. But as you go
00:46through the checkpoint, this is what it's designed to do. Keep somebody like this out of the event.
00:51They did exactly what they were supposed to do. And look at the video. There's no less than six
00:56officers and agents there and even ones out of the camera shy. So there's no shortage of agents,
01:02no shortage of law enforcement, no shortage of expertise. And they got the job done perfectly,
01:08if you ask me. And that was a tough case because that guy's running full throttle through a checkpoint
01:13with a rifle firing around. And they got it done anyway. So, Jonathan, similar question to you,
01:19because there are multiple reports saying that guests were checking into the hotel,
01:22walking in with their luggage and bags just hours before the event. The security perimeter
01:27may have worked and stopped the shooter ultimately. But how is it possible that he was able to bring
01:33two guns right into his room? Well, listen, I respect Barry's experience, but I'm going to disagree
01:41with him on this. It was a success in the way that they stopped the individual, yes. But it's a
01:47failure
01:48the way these things continue to happen. And by and large, they continue to happen because
01:53the proper threat assessment that considers all possible attacks is not being done. From what I
02:02understand is that the perimeter was set for cars and vehicle-borne explosive devices. But in order to
02:09get into the hotel or down into that area, you just had to show a ticket. So we're very lucky
02:15that
02:15this wasn't a multi-pronged attack where one individual came running through like that with
02:20explosives. And then three other people came through after him with weapons. If that would
02:25have occurred, it would have been a completely different outcome. And then the other thing is
02:29when we watched this video right here, it took 30 seconds for them to move this president off that
02:35stage. But yet J.D. Vance was off within maybe five. So I don't understand why this is occurring
02:42and why it's such a delay to move a president. When you look at videos of how Ronald Reagan was
02:49moved off the stage, it was violent and fast. And that's the way that the Secret Service should be
02:56working now. I just I also have a real problem with some of the same females that were with him
03:03in
03:03Butler, Pennsylvania, which is another location where they took a lifetime to get him off the stage and
03:09did not check him from what I could see at any point there for any bullet wound. But some of
03:15those
03:15females don't even reach up to his shoulder and they're still with him. So whatever we've looked
03:22at in the past with Secret Service, this is where the problem I have. I don't see improvements. I see
03:27the same and the same standard is not it's not where the Secret Service used to be that I worked
03:35with
03:35in the past. Yeah. So, Barry, to Jonathan's point, since 2024, there have been three assassination
03:41attempts on the president. As we mentioned, Butler at Trump's golf course in West Palm back in February
03:47this year, an armed suspect attempted to enter Mar-a-Lago. Of course, the president wasn't there
03:50then. And now this. Do we think that we're getting enough change and up and modernization
03:57in the Secret Service? Because obviously there is a growing threat profile.
04:02Right. Of course, the Secret Service evolves literally by the week. It's always updating itself,
04:08reinventing itself, bringing itself up with technology. We have drone technology, cyber,
04:13even AI. And now this attack, which I would be at a round table telling him maybe it's time to
04:20literally have cages to prevent somebody to even be able to get in the event in case he tries to
04:25get
04:26through or a homicide bomber or something in that case, a controlled turnstile. Sure,
04:33it would be a logistical nightmare, but that's a suggestion. But the Secret Service, anytime there's
04:38an incident like this, they're going to reinvent themselves. They're going to look at what they
04:42could have done better, not to blame somebody, but to try to just be able to protect the president
04:47better. And I'm very confident that they'll look at this and they'll come up with something that
04:52will prevent this from getting even worse if it was like he brought up. It's possible it could
04:57have been worse. But the officers and agents on the stage, based on what I'm seeing, acted
05:02appropriately, did exactly what they were trained to do. J.D. Vance, Vice President Vance's agent was,
05:08I think, closer to him at the time, just by default. And that's why he was able to get to
05:13him quicker.
05:14It looks like the protective detail called for a shelter in place before they moved. And that was the
05:20hesitation. So they have an option. They can move him immediately or shelter in place to see what's
05:25going on. And that's where we saw their tactical team get in place to be able to repel fire just
05:30in
05:31case. So that's a little bit of a comfort blanket of having a bunch of guys with rifles being able
05:36to return fire also in case they need to. Yeah. And in that case, they want to get them apart
05:40from
05:40each other as quickly as possible. All right, Barry, Jonathan, great discussion this morning.
05:44Thanks for joining us. Thank you. You got it.
