SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Today marks one month since the attempt on former President Donald Trump's life at an outdoor rally in Butler, Pa. Investigations were launched. Congressional hearings were held. The Secret Service director stepped down. But have there been fundamental changes to how the Secret Service operates? Carol Leonnig is a national investigative reporter with The Washington Post and author of the book, "Zero Fail: The Rise And Fall Of The Secret Service." She joins us from Washington, D.C. Thanks so much for being with us.
CAROL LEONNIG: It's my pleasure, Scott.
SIMON: This country came within an actual millimeter of an assassination a month ago, didn't it?
LEONNIG: Absolutely. I mean, there are some sources of ours who said it was a matter of a portion of an inch. What I think was so stunning to me and to sources inside the agency was how incredibly obvious the security failure was. It was staring everyone in the face, a huge, huge billboard, almost, of a roof less than 150 yards from Donald Trump's stage. And from what we could tell, it hadn't been secured. There wasn't a police officer on top of it, as there is often for presidential trips, and there wasn't anyone stationed permanently outside it to ensure that no one climbed atop it with a rifle, as Thomas Matthew Crooks did.
SIMON: Is that a matter of just not enough resources?
LEONNIG: The sources that I have inside the agency say absolutely yes. My colleague Josh Dawsey and I did a story about a week after the assassination attempt that was all about a series of times when Trump's security detail, his agents that are his closest sort of body men and women - they'd asked for additional assets and been turned down over and over again - for counter-sniper teams that sort of eye the horizon for somebody that is a risk or a shooter, the magnetometer teams that ensure no one has a gun anywhere close.
But, Scott, resources are at the center of this. Secret Service agents and officers have been complaining about going to the cupboard, as they refer to it, and the cupboard is bare. Phones that don't work, radios that they can't rely on. Officers and agents are using their personal phones and messaging apps to reach each other for office purposes. All of my sources say that it's been a painful campaign period of doing a lot less with a lot less.
SIMON: Are outdoor rallies safe enough anymore?
LEONNIG: They're absolutely safe if properly secured.
SIMON: And they did not because?
LEONNIG: That's unclear at this moment why they didn't. Line of sight and the risk of a gunman on high ground has been an obsession of the Secret Service since Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. It has kept agents up for more than 50 years.
SIMON: I wish I knew a nicer way to put this, but how safe are candidates this campaign season?
LEONNIG: Well, it depends a great deal on how honest and clear the Secret Service is with the candidates and how much the candidates are willing to modify their schedules and their events to meet the reality of what's in the cupboard. Donald Trump has been encouraged by the Secret Service leadership to have fewer outdoor rallies or none. And is that really fair to a candidate for president? I don't know. The president of the United States gets what he wants or what she wants. If she says, I'm doing this event, the Secret Service typically bows to that. But a presidential candidate - when the Secret Service says, we don't have the resources to do this, it's a different negotiation in which the Secret Service is more powerful.
SIMON: Forgive me, but does that raise First Amendment issues?
LEONNIG: I mean, the No. 1 protectee of the Secret Service is the president of the United States. And I don't think we would - any of us, reporters, members of the public, political leaders would change that. The president rightly gets the NFL treatment. The vice president may get the college ball treatment. And up until the assassination, Donald Trump was getting junior high school to high school treatment. And that is the way the Secret Service has always protected people, in that kind of pecking order.
SIMON: What changes would need to be made, and who would be responsible for doing it, in your view?
LEONNIG: You know, I've always said that it was sort of shocking that after the blue-ribbon panel that President Obama appointed had 50 recommendations 10 years ago, many of them have not been implemented - to beef up the Service's training, its staffing and reduce its mission, right? Its mission has creeped and expanded, especially since 9/11, yet its resources haven't been commensurate with that. It's just sort of shocking that no president and no Congress has made the Secret Service a priority and fixing this problem since those gaping holes were identified.
SIMON: Carol Leonnig at The Washington Post, thanks so much for being with us.
LEONNIG: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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