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The Justice Department released high-resolution video showing the moment an armed man stormed
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past security at the White House correspondence dinner.
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The incident is raising serious questions about the security posture surrounding the
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president at high-profile public events.
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We're joined now by Juliet Kayem of the Homeland Security Project at Harvard's Kennedy School.
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She previously served as Assistant DHS Secretary in the Obama Administration, July 8th.
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It's great to see you.
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So look, there are lots of questions, as you know, about the shot that struck the U.S. Secret Service
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The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Janine Piro says there's no evidence of
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But the video, this single video, is not definitive.
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What does this footage show us and what does it not show us?
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So it shows us, it shows the suspect going through a security metal detector essentially.
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It also shows some speeding up.
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It shows him trying to reach a gun.
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And then the frame by frame shows some dust, sort of a dust up, literally up above, which
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would suggest that there had been a gun fired, because afterwards you then see the secret
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service pick up their guns.
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So the prosecutors will say this shows that he had deadly intent and that the secret service
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But I will be honest with you, the frame by frame is not dispositive in any way.
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What the government released was on different speeds, it sort of slowed down and sped up.
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So a good defense attorney is going to wonder why that is happening.
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What you also don't see is you don't see any movement, like a sort of a muzzle from his
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So it's a long way of saying lawyers are going to debate this in court.
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It's certainly not definitive.
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The more important thing is why is, I don't quite understand why the government is sort
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of going for broke on this issue.
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Friendly fire is known to happen.
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It's not like a moral outrage.
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It happens when bad people come with guns, two areas with police presence.
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And so I don't quite know why the administration is so stuck on this issue.
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Even if they're were friendly fire, they're still intent to kill the president by the assassin.
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Well, on that point, the secret service director, Sean Kern, in defending his agents, says
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the site was set up perfectly.
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The video, this is about a half hour into the dinner.
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The video shows the agents, some of them removing the magnetometers.
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And the suspect appears to exploit that exact moment.
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He's got that running start as he sort of barrels through.
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Is that what a perfect setup looks like?
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I would never say perfect ever.
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And I would certainly not say it after there was an attempt at assassination attack only
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because the truth is the director of current, if you said to him, you have to do this again
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He wouldn't in no way do it the same way.
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We all know that there were vulnerabilities.
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So in the secret services defense, in other words, where do I look for the highlights of
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They had a secure zone.
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That secure zone was never breached.
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And the president was truly not under any direct threat.
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They got him out of there in time.
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So if you look at from the perspective of the security zone, nothing bad ever happened.
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Of course, the shooting and all the badness outside the secure zone, of course, impacts
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And so I think the question for director Curran is sort of both what we call the mixed
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environment, the public and private at a hotel like this.
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Do you really want to have those for president Trump or any president?
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And also, at some stage, the secure zone may need to be extended further because of the
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nature of gun violence and political violence in this country.
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Well, say more about that because this is now the third attempted attack on president
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So from a protection standpoint, does that fundamentally change the model?
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It probably does in one way, which is you're just going to be more conscious and do a lot
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more planning for the president's non-home sort of when he gets out of the house, out
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And the reason why I say that is because I look at these three assassination attempts.
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One happens in a open air political rally.
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The second happens at a private golf course.
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And the third in the basement of a hotel.
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So anytime he's going to get out, there's going to be vulnerabilities.
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Now, the White House has been saying that means he needs more protection or a ballroom
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That's not how it works in between a White House that no one's invited to.
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And the fact we have a democracy where you want your president to engage with people and
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not just the people around him, but you want presidents to engage the public.
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There's a lot more that we can do security-wise in particular, maybe extending that security
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But almost every planner I've talked to since last week and just don't have it in the
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In the convention center in DC, secure the area around the convention center.
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You won't have residents and you won't have a public.
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It's not rocket science, actually.
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You mentioned the president talking up his ballroom, his desired ballroom.
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Do you think the administration is treating this primarily as a security failure to fix
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or as a political moment to message around?
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I mean, I was thinking about the past week.
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I take presidential assassinations seriously as we all should.
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And I sort of think about the line of the story since last Saturday, which is, you know,
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it's very scary for a democracy to have people and people with whatever motives.
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But in this case, you know, left wing motives to go after a president.
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So you have a discussion of a ballroom.
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You have going after Komi, the FBI director.
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And then you have going after a late night host for what he said about the president.
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None of those are related to the president's safety and security.
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And I think the White House might make all of us take security more seriously if they
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did not politicize it within hours of an assassination attempt against the president of the United
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Julia, thanks as always.