Republicans in Congress are beginning to put pressure on the Secret Service after a shooter wounded Donald Trump and killed an attendee at the former president’s campaign rally Saturday night.
The calls for investigations have already started — notably from House Speaker Mike Johnson immediately following the incident.
“We need to know: How could an individual be at that elevation, that was seen by, apparently, bystanders on the ground, how could that not be noticed by Secret Service?” he said Sunday morning on NBC. “Lots more questions than answers this morning.”
The security failures are facing intense scrutiny, though it’s unclear at this point what was done or could have been done to prevent the shooting. The Secret Service said Saturday night that a shooter was able to fire multiple shots toward the event stage from “an elevated position outside of the rally” before being killed by Secret Service agents. Rally attendees told the press on the scene that before the shooting began, they had attempted to warn law enforcement that they believed they saw a gunman crawling on a rooftop.
President Joe Biden confirmed in remarks on Sunday that there would be an investigation, which he said is being led by the FBI and still in its early stages.
“I’ve directed an independent review of the national security at yesterday’s rally to assess exactly what happened, and we’ll share the results of that independent review with the American people,” he said.
He also said that security will be heightened at the Republican National Convention, which is set to begin Monday.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have started a public discussion about cooling the political rhetoric but also are attempting to figure out what happened Saturday and where security failed. Though those conversations are just now beginning, the partisan potential is becoming clear.
“I spoke to Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas last night and asked him some pointed questions with regard to Homeland Security and what happened there. I’ve already announced that Congress will do a full investigation,” Johnson said.
The safety of the former president and the security at the event would fall, obviously, under Secret Service, but also under Homeland Security, which is supervised by the already embattled Mayorkas, who has been a target of the right due to his handling of border security. Republican House members took steps to impeach the secretary earlier this year.
Rep. Mark Green, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, released a statement Sunday saying he sent Mayorkas a letter demanding information about the security plan for the event, among other documents.
“The Committee is grateful for the swift response of Secret Service agents to protect President Trump from further harm and quickly neutralize the shooter, though tragically one rally attendee was killed, and two others have been critically injured,” his statement reads.
But he continues on to say that “the seriousness of this security failure and chilling moment in our nation’s history cannot be understated.”
Sen. Josh Hawley called to have both Mayorkas and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle testify before Congress.
“Although we still do not have all the facts, the little we do know suggests a staggering security failure,” Hawley said in a statement. He called for a “full, public, and comprehensive committee investigation into this assassination attempt.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, former chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, agreed.
“It was a failure. There will absolutely have to be congressional oversight hearings,” he said on CNN.
Rep. Mike Turner told CNN that Congress has an “extreme role” in determining what went wrong.
“Both the resources that were utilized, and the protocols that are utilized, we have oversight scrutiny and responsibility for,” he said on Sunday. “We got to see yesterday the most unbelievable commitment of the Secret Service to protect former President Donald Trump’s life, and how they put their own lives at risk. But at the same time, we also saw the failure of the overall broader net that is supposed to provide protection for the president.”
Many have also applauded the police and Secret Service response following the shooting.
Rep. Dan Meuser, who was at the rally, said Sunday on “Meet the Press” that “the Secret Service was on it immediately. They deserve all kinds of credit. They surrounded the president.”
Sen. Tom Cotton said Sunday that the need for an investigation is evident but that Trump, who he said he has spoken to since the shooting, has expressed gratitude for the law enforcement response.
“None of that, as President Trump said, is to take away from the skill and the bravery of the agents around him and the law enforcement officers on the site who neutralized the shooter right away before he could kill or wound anyone else,” Cotton said on “Face the Nation.”
Regardless, Republican members are calling for a change in rhetoric surrounding the president, who has faced criticism for encouraging those who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection and for fueling false narratives about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
“There’s no figure in American history, at least in the modern era, maybe since Lincoln, who’s been so vilified and really persecuted by media, and Hollywood elites and political figures, even the legal system,” Speaker Johnson said of Trump. “When the message goes out constantly that the election of Donald Trump would be a threat to democracy and that the republic would end, it heats up the environment. We cannot do that. It’s simply not true.”
Sen. Johnson blamed the left’s political causes for dividing the nation.
“I would argue that’s what identity politics is about, that’s what critical race theory is about, so there are people who are purposefully trying to divide us for political advantage. Resist it. Don’t let them get away with it,” he said.
Though in the broader discussion of political violence, many lawmakers have pointed out or been asked about past events, like the 2017 shooting at a Republican Congressional baseball practice that injured GOP Whip Steve Scalise and the beating of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022.
Sen. Lindsey Graham likewise urged Americans to cool down. “He’s a human being,” he said of Trump.
“We probably need to do some soul-searching as a nation,” he said.
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Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.