Acting Secret Service director confronted with scathing email allegedly sent by counter sniper
PITTSBURGH – Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn on Tuesday asked the Secret Service’s new acting director why the “public has lost trust” in the agency’s “mission to protect” after a July 13 assassination attempt against former President Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“This agency needs to change, and if not now, when? The next assassination in 30 days?” Blackburn read from an email, reportedly sent by a Secret Service counter sniper, during a Senate hearing involving testimony from Acting U.S. Secret Service (USSS) Director Ronald Rowe and FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate.
Blackburn also read the last portion of the email, obtained by Real Clear Politics reporter Susan Crabtree and reportedly sent within the agency by the counter sniper, stating that the “motto” of the USSS is “CYA,” an acronym for “cover your a–.”
The Tennessee senator continued: “The public has lost trust in the ability to execute the mission to protect, and I want to know how you feel about the fact that employees in your agency are worried about covering their behind and not worried about protecting a former president.”
TRUMP SHOOTING: TIMELINE OF ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT
The counter sniper who wrote the email apparently sent it to the entire Uniform Division as more information about the assassination attempt became public, according to Crabtree.
For example, Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley on Monday released text messages from Butler County, Pennsylvania, showing that snipers spotted shooter Thomas Crooks approximately 90 minutes prior to the moment he fired multiple rounds toward the former president, ultimately killing 50-year-old Corey Comperatore and injuring 74-year-old James Copenhaver and 57-year-old David Dutch.
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Rowe, who took on the position of director after Kimberly Cheatle resigned last week, told Blackburn that he was “hurt” by the email.
“I’m hurt because my people are hurting right now,” Rowe told Blackburn. “We need them.”
TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: TEXTS REVEAL OFFICERS WERE AWARE OF THOMAS CROOKS 90 MINUTES BEFORE SHOOTING
The acting director said “emotions are raw” within the agency right now and that he wants to “hear more” from the agent who wrote the email, describing himself as a Marine as well as a 20-year veteran with the USSS. Rowe added that he is committed to reviewing things and being a “change agent.”
When reached for comment, the Secret Service referred Fox News Digital to Rowe’s testimony.
Rowe was also grilled by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who asked how it was possible that Trump was allowed on stage 17 minutes after reports of a suspicious person.
“No information regarding a weapon on the roof was ever passed to our personnel,” Rowe said.
“How is that even possible?” Lee asked.
That information was “in local law enforcement channels but did not cross over and make it to Secret Service awareness,” Rowe responded. “I think that they were in the midst of dealing with a very critical situation, and they articulated that over the radio, as I understand it. However, it was never relayed over to us.”
TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: FBI SAYS GUNMAN CLIMBED HVAC, TRAVERSED ROOFTOPS TO SHOOTING PERCH
The USSS letter comes after the FBI on Monday morning told reporters in a conference call that Crooks accessed the roof of a building near former President Trump’s rally in Butler using HVAC equipment and piping.
Crooks then traversed multiple rooftops before he found his shooting position on top of a building owned by American Glass Research, located near the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds about 150 yards from where the former president spoke at his rally.
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On the day of the rally, Crooks parked his vehicle and flew a drone between about 3:50 p.m. and 4 p.m. about 200 yards from where the former president would be speaking on July 13. FBI Director Christopher Wray testified during a July 17 congressional hearing that Crooks had been at the rally site for about 70 minutes the morning of the assassination attempt.
It is still unclear how Crooks evaded security even after being noticed by law enforcement approximately 90 minutes before shots rang out, but the FBI said more than 300 agents and staff are working “round the clock” to gather facts and put together a clearer timeline of Crooks’ actions.
MSNBC analyst goes into hiding after racist accusation against Vance and his family
MSNBC political analyst Molly Jong-Fast argued that Sen. JD Vance’s recently unearthed comments criticizing “childless” Democrats reveals his “racist” vision for America.
During an appearance on “Morning Joe” on Tuesday, Jong-Fast was asked to respond to Vance’s “politically damaging” comments in light of a recent Pew survey that found a sharp uptick in U.S. adults who aren’t interested in having children.
“What’s interesting is that this is this natalism that comes from an authoritarian playbook, right? That there need to be more ‘White children,’ right? That’s the idea,” Jong-Fast reacted.
“This is about great replacement theory racism, right? This is what this is. So don’t misunderstand it for him wanting more children. He wants a certain kind of racist thing,” she claimed.
TRUMP: PEOPLE WHO LIKE FAMILY WILL SUPPORT JD VANCE
Vance is married to U.S. lawyer Usha Vance, a daughter of Indian immigrants, with whom he shares three biracial children.
The MSNBC analyst’s comments were met with sharp criticism on social media.
“White nepobaby goes on MSNBC and says a veteran married to an Indian lady with mixed race children only wants White children in the country. This is what rot fuels the progressive brain,” conservative radio host Erick Erickson posted to X.
“Politics flips on a dime. The Harris campaign is not responsible for Molly Jong Fast’s abominable idiocy, but when someone in her promotional [orbit] says a man with biracial children wants only White American kids, that kind of reverse racism and ugliness may be sticky,” NY Post columnist and Commentary editor John Podhoretz also tweeted.
The MSNBC analyst locked down her X account after her comments went viral on the social media platform.
MSNBC did not return a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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The Ohio senator and Trump running mate has come under fire after he made disparaging remarks about the Democratic Party in a 2021 interview that recently resurfaced.
In the interview Vance said, “We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
Vance has defended his remarks and accused the left of taking them out of context.
“If you look at the full context of what I said, it’s very clear the Democrats have tried to take this thing out of context and blow it out of proportion, which is what they always do because they don’t have an agenda to run on themselves,” Vance told Fox News host Trey Gowdy.
“If you look at what the American people are most concerned about, it’s not an out-of-context quip I made three years ago. It’s the fact that Kamala Harris, the border czar, opened the American southern border. It’s the fact that the Democratic Party has become explicitly anti-family in some of their policies,” he added.
He went on to clarify that he was not attacking all adults without children but the “increasingly anti-parent and anti-child attitude of the left.”
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Joy Behar takes issue with new Dem talking point spreading through media like wildfire
“The View” co-host Joy Behar said she didn’t think Democrats needed to be calling former President Trump and vice presidential candidate JD Vance “weird” and suggested the Democratic Party shouldn’t use “name calling.”
“I don’t agree with that, I don’t think we should use the word weird. Call him what he is, a convicted felon,” she said, referring to Donald Trump specifically. “It opens the door for the other side to say, ‘well you think we’re weird, look at you.'”
Democrats, including Vice President Harris, JB Pritzker, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Rep. Eric Swalwell have used the word to describe the GOP ticket in recent days. Swalwell said on CNN that the GOP ticket’s policies were both “creepy” and “weird.”
“It’s too much weird, and name calling, take the high road, get off the weird thing, just call him what he is,” Behar, a huge critic of the former president, said.
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Co-host Sara Haines appeared to go all-in on the notion that Trump, Vance and the GOP are “weird.”
“Trump is kind of the weirdest of them all. Commenting on his daughter’s looks and her sexual, it’s weird. Having a 24-karat gold apartment and your name in gold, it’s weird. And burying your ex-wife on your golf course, it’s weird. So that’s why that is effective, there is so much weird on the other side, that pretty much sums it up,” Haines said.
Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked for Trump in 2020, took no issue with the line of attack, and said the “weird” attack was not “below the belt.”
“I think what they’re saying is this is not your grandfather’s Republican Party, this is one that is going outside of the mainstream, much further,” Griffin said.
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Co-host Sunny Hostin said the “weird” attack was “innocuous,” and also said it was “benign.”
“These guys are just weird,” Gov Tim. Walz, Minn., said during a campaign event for Harris on Saturday.
“The fascists depend on us going back, but we’re not afraid of weird people,” Walz also said during the event. “We’re a little bit creeped out, but we’re not afraid.”
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Harris used “weird” to describe Trump at a recent fundraiser.
“You may have noticed Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record. And some of what he and his running mate are saying, it’s just plain weird. I mean, that’s the box you put that in, right?” Harris said.
Potential VP pick downplays horrors of socialism at event for White Dem men, gets ripped
Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz was blasted on social media after telling a group of Democrats that socialism is what some people would call “neighborliness.”
“Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values,” the Minnesota Democrat said on a “White Dudes for Harris” call on Monday night. “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.”
The comment was widely criticized by conservatives on Twitter, including Manhattan Institute senior fellow Ilya Shapiro, who responded on X with “weird,” a reference to recent Democratic attacks against GOP presidential candidate JD Vance and former President Trump.
“Neighborliness killed members of my family,” journalist Karol Markowicz posted on X.
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“One person’s gulag is another person’s vacation home,” conservative commentator Ryan James Girdusky posted on X.
“Oozing of desperation from the man who let Minneapolis burn for days,” former Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Mike Murphy posted on X.
“Send this guy to campaign in South Florida,” National Review’s Jim Geraghty posted on X.
KAMALA HARRIS’ TREATMENT OF STAFF UNDER SCRUTINY AS REPORTS OF POOR OFFICE CULTURE RESURFACE
“Socialism = ‘neighborliness’ for the freakish Left… Shows how far we’ve fallen that the Governor of one of our states feels free to say this,” American Majority CEO Ned Ryun posted on X.
“Taking people’s stuff at gunpoint doesn’t make you a good neighbor,” Nate Madden, an adviser to Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, posted on X.
Fox News Digital reached out to Walz’s office for comment but did not receive a response.
Walz is widely believed to be on VP Kamala Harris’ short list for vice president and it was reported Tuesday that she is expected to make her decision by next week.
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“Whether he makes it or not, there’s no doubt MN Gov. @Tim_Walz is running the most aggressive campaign for VP in the field,” former Obama adviser David Axelrod said this week.
Trump on White House leadership: Run by ‘fascists, Marxists, communists’
Former President Trump said Tuesday that he thinks decisions in the White House are being made by a group of “fascists, communists” and “Marxists.”
“I’m the opposite of a threat to democracy — they’re a threat to democracy,” Trump said of Democrats on “The Ingraham Angle.” “I mean, look at what they just did.”
Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that Democrats participated in a “coup” by replacing Biden at the top of the 2024 ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris months after millions of primary voters cast their ballots.
“They took the presidency away. His wife didn’t want it to happen. They took the presidency away like he was a child,” he told Ingraham.
Ingraham asked Trump who’s running the country while Harris hits the campaign trail and President Biden faces concerns about his mental acuity.
“A group of people that are fascists, communists, Marxists,” Trump said in part, adding that they “circle” the Oval Office and Department of Justice.
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“You’re saying Biden isn’t making any of the big decisions?” Ingraham asked.
“I don’t think so, no. I don’t think he knows he’s alive,” Trump responded.
Trump likely faces Harris in November as she seeks to officially become the Democratic presidential nominee at the August Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Ingraham noted Harris, in her X bio, states her pronouns as she/her.
“What are your pronouns?” she asked Trump.
“I have no… I don’t want pronouns,” he said. “I don’t want pronouns… Nobody even knows what that means. Ask her to describe exactly what that means.”
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“Nobody knows because they’re going crazy, alright? We have to bring our country back to sanity. So, I say this about the Republican Party: It’s a party now based on common sense. OK? We’re conservative… we’re everything, but we’re based on common sense,” he continued.
The 2024 GOP nominee said the country needs to be brought back to “sanity” because the Democratic Party is going “crazy.”
Trump said Republicans want low taxes, good education and the American Dream for younger generations.
“We want the American Dream for our children. I want the American Dream. I want my children to say, ‘Man, this is great.’ You don’t even hear about the American Dream anymore. You heard about it four years ago, but you don’t hear about it anymore. I want the American Dream as a goal for our children,” Trump said.
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“You don’t hear that anymore with all of this nonsense going on. We are a party based on common sense.”
Simone Biles turns heads after sharing nickname for USA gymnastics team
The United States women’s gymnastics team took home gold in the team final Tuesday, and a celebration ensued immediately when the group saw Simone Biles’ 14.666 score on her floor routine, which secured the precious medal in Paris.
With gold in hand, Team USA has adopted a nickname like all the great teams of the past. This one, however, is unlike the rest. Biles revealed it after competition Tuesday at the Paris Olympics.
During the London 2012 Games, the gold medal-winning group was named the Fierce Five. Then, there was the Final Five in 2016 in Rio, followed by the Fighting Four in Tokyo.
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Gold medalist Aly Raisman, a member of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic squads, asked Team USA what its name was this year during a post-competition press conference.
Biles initially said, “I’m not going to say it,” which added even more intrigue.
Then, after being told to abbreviate it, Biles started saying, “F-A,” before stopping.
USA WINS GOLD IN WOMEN’S TEAM GYMNASTICS FINAL AT PARIS OLYMPICS
Jordan Chiles and Suni Lee consulted with Biles, who eventually spilled the name.
“F around and find out,” Biles said as the crowd laughed.
The term applies to this group, whose tenacity is unquestioned.
For Biles, her 14.666 floor routine wasn’t even her best apparatus. She finished with a 14.900 in the vault. Jade Carey, the vault specialist for the United States, posted a 14.800, while Chiles posted a 14.400 in the event.
The rest of the competition saw electric performances, like Lee in the uneven bars and balance beam and Biles and Chiles posting a 14.400 and 14.366, respectively, on the uneven bars.
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As a team, the U.S. finished with a score of 171.296, a full five points over Italy, which won silver at 165.494. Brazil came in third at 164.497.
World’s top spirits maker sees sales decline for the first time in years
The world’s top spirits maker Diageo posted its first decline in annual sales in four years on Tuesday, with the loss led by sliding sales in Latin America and North America.
The London-based parent company of more than 200 brands — including Johnnie Walker whisky, George Clooney and Randy Gerber’s Casamigos tequila, Guinness stout beers, Crown Royal Canadian Whiskey and Smirnoff vodka — had sales decline by 0.6% overall, while sales in the Latin America and Caribbean region fell by 21.1%.
Diageo’s operating profit fell by 4.8% for the fiscal year to $6 billion amid the declines in the North American and Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) markets.
“The main driver was materially weaker performance in LAC, our Latin America and Caribbean region, which makes up 8% of Diageo’s organic net sales,” the company wrote in its preliminary annual results report.
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“Organic net sales in our largest region, North America or NAM, also declined, reflecting a cautious consumer environment compounded by the impact of lapping inventory replenishment in the prior year,” Diageo explained.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DEO | DIAGEO PLC | 125.44 | -6.16 | -4.68% |
Diageo said that it has “dramatically reduced” inventory to more appropriate levels in Mexico, its second-largest market in the Latin America and Caribbean region.
However, the company noted that “this market continues to face persistent challenges with a highly competitive environment and consumer downtrading in tequila and scotch.”
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The company said it “grew or held total market share in over 75% of total net sales in measured markets, including in the U.S.,” according to its internal estimates based on data from several market analytics providers.
Diageo CEO Debra Crew went on to say that, “While fiscal 24 was a challenging year for both our industry and Diageo with continued macroeconomic and geopolitical volatility, we focused on taking the actions needed to ensure Diageo is well-positioned for growth as the consumer environment improves.”
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Crew said the company is taking action to “manage the inventory issues in LAC” while also strengthening the company’s consumer insights and redeploying resources towards the “best growth opportunities.”
Diageo
Diageo’s stock declined by 4.7% during Tuesday’s trading session. It’s down over 12.9% year to date and more than 28.7% in the past year.