Texas lawmakers want answers after third assassination attempt against President Trump, criticize heated political rhetoric
Republican U.S. Representative Pat Fallon of Frisco is among the Texas lawmakers who say the third assassination attempt against President Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner raises questions about security at the Washington Hilton Hotel.
Fallon was one of the members of Congress who sat on a task force following the first two assassination attempts on President Trump in 2024.
Following the latest incident, Fallon told CBS News Texas that he had a number of questions for Sean Curran, the Director of the U.S. Secret Service, who was set to brief some members of Congress. "One of the questions I will ask the director is who was the agent in charge of that venue," said Fallon ahead of the meeting.
"Who signed off on the site and security plans? The buck's got to stop with somebody. There's got to be accountability set. The outer perimeter is always going to be the most dangerous, so what was the outer perimeter, and were these guests going through magnetometers?"
Questions following the first assassination attempt in 2024
After President Trump was shot in the ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, two years ago, Fallon said there was a fundamental flaw about the Secret Service's operation there. "Nobody knew exactly which Secret Service agent was in charge. Was it the special agent in charge of the president's detail, or was it the special agent in charge of the field office, which would have been Pittsburgh?"
Fallon said, "They couldn't answer that question because it was just fundamentally flawed doctrine that the Secret Service had. They need to fix those things going forward, or unfortunately, we're going to have another incident like this that could end in tragedy."
Some reporters who attended the dinner said they didn't have to go through metal detectors, didn't have their tickets checked against a master list, and didn't have their IDs checked.
Fallon said, "That could be true, but it might not be. So, that's one of the things I'm going to ask the director is, were there magnetometers? Did everybody go through them? Did they go through, like, at the White House, more than one, or was it just one? These are questions that absolutely need to be answered."
Fallon discusses what surprised him about third assassination attempt
Aside from the surprise of the third assassination attempt against the president, Fallon said there were two other items that caught his attention about the accused shooter. "One, the security footage of him just sprinting past the first perimeter," said Fallon. "Where if you had those tranches and you made people go down right, left, like a little maze, that wouldn't have been able to happen unless he was a super athlete, if he was Batman, or something like Evil Batman."
Fallon also brought up that the attacker was not shot and killed immediately. "When you sprint through an outer perimeter with the president in attendance, and you have a rifle and other firearms, I'm shocked they didn't just put 16 rounds into this son of a [expletive]."
Fort Worth Rep. Marc Veasey comments
Democratic U.S. Representative Marc Veasey of Fort Worth, told CBS News Texas that if reports are true that some reporters who attended the White House Correspondents' Dinner didn't go through metal detectors or have their IDs and tickets checked, that needs to be looked into. "I think that's crazy," said Veasey.
"I'll give the Secret Service and the security details credit on stopping him from trying to run through the metal detectors the way that he did and for them acting as quickly as they did. They certainly deserve applause for that. But if people weren't having their IDs checked, if people weren't going through metal detectors, and they were able to walk into that room with the President, cabinet members, Senators, House members, and other guests, then that is absolutely not good, and there needs to be an investigation into that to see why those security lapses took place."
Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz comments
Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas agreed with Veasey in an interview with CBS News Texas.
"I am grateful the Secret Service stopped this attempted assassin," said Cruz. "This is the third attempted assassination of Donald Trump in the last two years, and it is horrific. I think the questions you're raising are reasonable questions. Anytime you have an event, it is reasonable to ask, how could it have been better secured?"
"If you look back to the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the shooter was on top of a roof with a sniper rifle, and shot President Trump, hit him in the ear, there were clear and massive security failures there. That was completely unacceptable. In this case, the questions you're asking, I think a lot of people are asking what could be done to make that more secure."
Lawmakers criticize heated political rhetoric
Both Cruz and Veasey said the political rhetoric needs to be toned down.
"If you look at what's happening right now in our country with social media, if you look at what's happening in our country when it comes to how we dialogue with each other about politics, I think that it's just getting worse and worse," said Veasey.
"All of us need to figure out a way how to do better. We, on the left, there should never be any rhetoric like, 'why isn't anybody doing anything about it?' That was something that I repeatedly heard, and I never used that phrasing myself. But that should be phrasing that should never be used. The way you do something about it is that you win the next midterm. That's how you do something about it."
Veasey also criticized some of President Trump's past Truth Social posts, including those after former FBI Director Robert Mueller died and actor Rob Reiner was killed. "You can't be the leader of the United States and make comments like that and not think that behavior doesn't breed behavior," he said.
Cruz blasted Democrats, describing "the rhetoric from Democrats demonizing President Trump, calling for violence."
"Just this week, Hakeem Jeffries, the lead Democrat in the House, did a press conference calling for maximum warfare against Trump every day, all the time," said Cruz.
"That is reckless and dangerous. We saw a deranged leftist on Saturday hear that message. He wrote a manifesto that made clear he was an angry leftist, and his objective was to murder President Trump, to murder Vice President Vance, and to murder as many members of the Trump cabinet as possible. For the Democrats that keep using this extreme rhetoric, they need to stop. Political violence is always, always wrong. It is unacceptable."
The accused gunman is charged with shooting a Secret Service agent and for attempting to assassinate President Trump. He is in custody and has not entered a plea on the charges just yet.