Secret Service Failures and Trump's Miraculous Survival

0:00 We are literally going to have no future if we stay on the path that we're on. Literally, the survival of our country is at stake. Michael Snyder, it's an honor to be able to have you here on Charisma. I mean, you put together the most important news. And I'm not just saying that because that's literally the website, themostimportantnews.com. But your articles always do well with our audience. They resonate because you are speaking to, you're speaking from a place of bringing clarity to the confusion or rather the chaos. And so I just, I'm grateful that you're able to be here today to help us kind of understand the temperature of our political and cultural climate that we have today.

0:41 Obviously, we're just, as we're recording this just a few days ago, there was an attempt to assassinate former president and potentially future president, Donald J. Trump, in a campaign stop in Butler, Pennsylvania. And you've had some very interesting insight kind of breaking down the analysis of that. Can you help us understand some of the things that have recently come out? Yeah, well, thank you for having me on, John. And what a horrible, horrible tragedy when it first occurred. I can hardly believe that it had happened, but ultimately I think that this is the culmination of and ultimately I think the results of years and years of the demonization of Trump, where, you know, if you call someone Hitler enough times, I mean, you know, people are going to believe that people are going to internalize that.

1:35 And people are going to say, well, if I had a chance to take out Hitler, would I do it? You know, some people are actually going to fully internalize that and say, and make that their own values and their own way of seeing the world. And so, you know, Thomas Matthew Crooks, as far as being the shooter, we don't know a ton about him, a young guy, 20 years old, he was, you know, he, he recent high school graduate worked apparently as a food preparer in a nursing home, you know, so he kind of had a dead end, low paying job. He may have been depressed.

2:15 He was kind of an outsider, a loner, not a lot of connections with a broader community. So, you know, he's a, he's a guy who probably, you know, may have been depressed, desperate, angry at the world. We don't know. We don't know a lot about what he was thinking internally because he didn't have much out there on social media, apparently as far as we can determine. But it really, in my view, was a catastrophic security failure. And, you know, pretty much unlike anything we've really seen where, you know, this roof with a direct line of sight to the platform where Trump was speaking, you know, was left unguarded.

3:09 And there was a lot of speculation about, about that. And then, and then the head of secret service was asked about this. Well, why was, why was no one on that roof where the shooter ultimately shot Trump from? And she said, oh, there was a slope and there was safety concerns. And, you know, that, that's so absurd, so ridiculous. And then you look at another one of the roofs where sniper team was located and it was even more of a slope. You know, so, you know, that, that's so, so crazy that you're not going to put someone on a roof with the direct line of sight to the president because there's a slight slope.

3:50 I mean, that doesn't fly that is something else is going there. That's not a reasonable explanation. And, you know, the gateway pundit interviewed one woman who's, who goes to almost all the rallies because she's a vendor, she sells stuff. So she's at almost all the Trump rallies. And she said, normally what they do is they'll bring in machinery or trucks or some type of obstacles between Trump and kind of any, any areas, outline areas that have a line of sight to the president. So not only should there have been people stationed on, on all these rooftops, but you know, there, there should have been obstacles placed between the platform and that, you know, anywhere that had a direct line of sight, any raised positions, and in this case, that didn't happen.

4:40 She said, I kept waiting for them to bring it in, but they didn't do it this time. And I, I had a really bad feeling about that. And, and, uh, that report hasn't gotten a ton of attention, but I think that's a very, very important point. It was a, a failure in that respect. And then Thomas Matthew Crooks, he was, you know, he came to, he came and, and he was looking around and apparently the, there was a team inside one of the buildings and they, they spotted him apparently three different times. That one, I believe was the second time they spotted him. He actually had pulled out a rangefinder, which is, you know, that's kind of suspicious, someone pulling out a rangefinder.

5:23 You think that would get someone's attention, but they spotted him three different times before he ultimately went up on the roof and he goes up on the roof and he's up there for 26 minutes, almost a half an hour, but 26 minutes. Uh, uh, uh, he was on the roof, um, you know, with a rifle. And while he's up there, people in the crowd are pointing out, Hey, there's a guy up on the roof. There's a guy with a rifle. There's a, you know, a guy with a gun and the police didn't respond. The social, the secret service didn't respond. The, you know, if, if normally you would think if someone says, Hey, there's a guy with a gun up on a roof, you first of all, you're not going to let Trump go on stage first of all.

6:11 Secondly, if he's on stage, you're going to get them out of there. So that was very, very odd to me, uh, that, that he was up there. And apparently the secret service finally got him in there and one of the sniper teams had him in their scopes for approximately 42 seconds, apparently before he shot and apparently what we're hearing is that, uh, in terms of the rules of engagement, the secret services is supposed to allow a shooter to shoot first before they shoot back, which to me is insane because if someone has a gun pointed at the president or a, a presidential candidate, you've got to take that shot, you got to take that shot.

6:55 So they're already showing intent. Yeah. Yeah. If they have a gun and the gun is pointed at the guy you're trying to protect, that's it. You got to take the shot. You know, there's no excuse for them to pull out a gun and point it at the president or in this case, Trump who's running for president, you got to take that shot. So I don't know when the rules of engagement changed or, or what, but this is, this was coming, actually being reported by a real clear politics. Their white house correspondent, she said, these are now the rules of engagement. And so to me, that's absolutely insane, but very, very concerned about what's happened to the secret services, the agency that's supposed to be protecting our president, because you have the first shot ran out and I've watched this and see, John, people don't understand.

7:49 Most ordinary people watch this and they watch it and that, you know, there there's a shot fired, then a couple more shots and, and then the secret service rushes to the stage and they say, oh, they got hit there pretty fast. They got there within a few seconds. But in one of my articles, I shared a video of a secret service that was shared a video of when Reagan was shot, when Reagan was shot, the first shot fires out. And within less than a second, the one of the agents has pushed him into the vehicle. Another one of the agents is pushing that agent, you know, and Reagan to make sure they're flat on the seat of the vehicle. Of course, they're right next to the presidential limousine and that helps.

8:31 But I mean, the response was basically instantaneous. In this case, Trump was on the podium. The secret service agents were way too far away. You got to be in a position where if something happens, you can get your hands on Trump almost immediately. So first of all, they were how they were positioned was just wrong. They were way too far away. Secondly, once that first shot runs out, Trump is holding his ear. Boom, they should have been there. They should have been. They did. They hesitate. We don't know. But to me, it seemed like it was an eternity. In terms of the amount of time it took for them to get there. That's my perspective on it. You know, other people, ordinary people looking at it, especially those that don't have any type of security background or haven't studied this sort of thing, they say, well, they got there pretty quick.

9:18 But in reality, in the amount of time it took between the first shot, even when Trump was hit between that period of time and when they finally got there, if it had been a competent shooter, able to get off multiple shots, well, Trump should have been killed if it had been someone with good aim, a competent shooter. Thankfully, it was a young kid who didn't have much shooting experience, apparently. But, you know, it's only really by the grace of God. It was really a miracle that Trump shifted his head at the last moment. If Trump wouldn't have shifted his head at the last moment, you know, he wouldn't have made it. So and then, OK, Trump is hit.

10:00 Secret Service finally gets up there. And they kind of tackle him. And, you know, and apparently now there's a video that's come out of they removed his shoes and tossed them off the stage. That's why Trump said, oh, can I get my shoes? You know, after afterwards, he said, can I can I get my shoes? I want to get my shoes. He was talking about his shoes. Well, they had taken off his shoes and thrown them off the stage. I don't know why they did that. I haven't heard any explanation for why they would remove his shoes. Were they concerned about explosives? Were they? I don't know. I don't have an explanation for that, but they did. They took his shoes off and threw them off the stage, which was weird.

10:42 But then, of course, Trump gets back up. There's the famous photo. And it was really, you know, even a lot of Democrats, some on the left, are saying, well, that was really kind of an inspiring moment. It did take courage for him to get up and say, hey, you know, and pump his fist and say, fight, fight, fight. And we've all heard about that. There's the famous photographs that have been taken. But then beyond that, you know, the Secret Service was still kind of around him. If there had been another shooter out there, he would have been in great danger. So that was probably not the smartest thing to do. But then the one female Secret Service agent in front of him was was way too short, kind of leaving his torso and head exposed. So when head exposed, you know, a lot of people have been talking about that.

11:25 But then it kind of took them forever to get Trump finally off the stage, took him forever to get to his vehicle. And then, you know, the agents are kind of scrambling around and there's a lot of chaos. And a lot of people are just questioning a lot of, well, these agents really didn't seem to know what they were doing. And then they finally got Trump in his vehicle and then then then it was they then he finally left. But it was really a security failure and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino had said, hey, this was this was catastrophic. This was horrible, John. So I know I've rambled a bit. I tend to do that.

12:06 But that's basically kind of some of the things that from my perspective that I've seen. And I think we need to be asking some big questions about how we're protecting our national leaders. Yeah. And that's on it's on both sides. I mean, Democrats, Republicans and even independents. I know because one of the things that Trump and one of the people that Trump called right afterwards was R.F.K. Jr., who did not have a protective detail up until recently. And, you know, and obviously Trump has been seen at the Republican National Convention and he walked in with a with an all male, all big so secret service team surrounding him.

12:51 And he definitely looked much more much more secure at that point. But Trump has some we haven't heard him speak publicly yet, which we're looking forward to his speech coming up on Thursday night as kind of the culmination of the RNC. And he has already said that he is changing what he was planning on speaking about. And as you saw him walk into the arena on Monday night, his demeanor seems different than other times that he's walked in a big room where people were cheering for him. Moving forward now that there's, you know, a sense of. Severity or there's an extra weightiness on this.

13:33 How do you think the campaigns on both sides on all sides will be moving forward? And how do you think this is affecting Trump as a person? Yeah, well, I hope that this incident will cause Trump to reflect, hey, life is short. I could have been killed and that he's thinking about, well, what comes after? What if I had died? Where you know what, you know, and cause him to think about God and you know, and cause him to think about God, cause him to think about the things that really matter. And hopefully this will cause all of us to think about this because life is so short. But I think Trump's speech and we're hearing that it's going to be more stressed on unity rather than kind of an attack on Joe Biden's policies.

14:14 His speech on at the convention is supposedly going to be a lot about unity, bringing the country together. And we need that, unfortunately. I don't think that's going to happen. I think for the moment on both sides, there's a realization that things have gone too far that we need to take the temperature down, but it only lasted a couple of days until now, you know, there are people back comparing Trump to Hitler again, you know, saying all sorts of horrible things about him. And, you know, and there's been talk about, oh, we as Christians, we need to take the temperature down. And I agree.

14:54 And we, you know, as believers, we need to realize we are supposed to love. Jesus told us love our enemies. That includes people we perceive to be our enemies. That includes political opponents. That includes Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, you know, everyone on the radical left. We're supposed to love them. We're supposed to pray for those that persecute us. You know, so those that, you know, say, oh, the Democrats are evil. OK. Well, we're supposed to love them. We're supposed to pray for them. And we're supposed to treat them well. And I know that's not always easy to do, but that's what we're called to do. But, you know, even if every evangelical Christian changed their tone and took the temperature down, well, we're only a small portion of the population.

15:44 You know, the vast majority of the population, we're more divided today as a country than we've ever been before. And already the rhetoric is getting back to where it was before the shooting. And this, you know, in my latest book and in my articles, I've been warning this is going to be the most chaotic election season in our history. And we've seen so much, you know, with Joe Biden and the debate and all of that and calls for him to step down. Now, Trump has been shot. And, you know, and normally the presidential election season doesn't even get to the high gear until we get to Labor Day, which is still, you know, what, a month and a half away, you know, as we're or so as we're recording this.

16:32 So it's going to be very heated. It's going to be chaotic. It's going to be wild. And the tensions on both sides are just going to escalate because it's, you know, for both sides, there's so much emotion and both sides, you know, for the Trump supporters, they're looking at it. A second loss in a row would just be devastating, catastrophic. And then you get Biden, of course, Kamala Harris is ready to step in at any moment. It'll be absolutely crushing, devastating. You know, I think even more than the last time around. But on the other hand, and I think this is probably the more likely scenario, I think it's likely that Trump could win.

17:17 I'm not making any predictions in this video, but I'm saying that, you know, polls and this was the after the what just transpired, you know, even CNN just came out and said, hey, it looks like Trump has a real pathway to victory here. And so if that happens, John. And I want everyone out there to really reflect on this for a moment. Many on the left, they don't have a religion or they don't practice a faith like like we do for many on the left. Politics really is their religion. You know, it's the way it's the lens through which they see the world. It's how they interpret events.

18:00 It's where they get their values and and it's how they express their values and their way to change the world. And it's really their worldview for so many of them is centered on politics. So they may not have a specific deity, but it kind of takes the place of religion for many of them, you know, on the left, especially those that are heavily engaged in politics. And for many of those people, the absolute worst thing in their world that could ever happen is for Donald Trump to get back in the White House. That's to me, that's really bizarre that they would see it that way. I know for many of you that are watching, it's really, really bizarre.

18:42 But this is the way they really see the world as Trump is the personification of evil in their eyes. And the worst thing that could literally ever happen in their world is for Trump to get back into the White House. And now that's on the verge of happening. And if it actually happens, it is going to cause a national temper tantrum on the left beyond anything we've ever seen before. I believe that's why I've kept saying that the chaos we see after the election will be even worse than what we see before the election, because the result of the election, Trump He's back in the White House meltdown. But many on the left on social media long before this whole shooting thing happened, they've been openly discussing, hey, we need to be, you know, we need to be able to do this.

19:32 Planing for a revolution. We need to be talking about, they're literally talking about overthrowing, you know, the government, literally talking about a societal revolution, a violent revolution, taking up arms. This has happened. They're saying if Trump gets in, this is what we've got to do. So this kind of discussion and rhetoric long before this shooting of Trump here recently, but I believe, you know, a lot of people on the right, a lot of Christians think if Trump gets in, great news, golden age of peace and prosperity, everything's going to be wonderful.

20:14 No, no. I believe that when Trump wins, we're going to see complete and utter chaos. The left, we're going to see civil unrest that we've never seen in the United States before. That's what I believe. And so much of it is ultimately the result of all this calling Trump Hitler, calling him, you know, fascist, calling him all these things. There are millions and millions of people out there that believe this, John. Yeah. So what is it that we need to do? You know, because we can be, we can engage in culture or we can retreat.

20:56 And the Bible doesn't tell us to retreat. You know, the Bible, Jesus tells us to occupy until he comes. So we need to be good stewards of what he's entrusted us with. And if you're seeing that there will be chaos coming, what can we as Christians do about this? Well, number one, we need to be in prayer. We can be praying for the safety of all of our national leaders and the Bible instructions to pray for those in positions of power. We need to be doing that. And more so at this time, we need to pray for that country as a whole. We, you know, we are divided. There is chaos. I believe more chaos is coming, but we can pray about that.

21:37 We can pray for God to intervene. We can pray for God to, you know, help us because without God, we're in big trouble. So we need prayer for our nation, for our leaders, for us individually, for our towns, for our communities. And we just need to be getting closer to God than ever before during this time, especially considering everything that's coming. This political chaos is just one element of the perfect storm that we have now entered, which is going to encompass so many elements that I write about. In fact, my new book is entitled Chaos because it's just not political chaos, but global chaos, many different elements across the spectrum.

22:21 And we need to be praying and getting closer to God than ever before. And you mentioned we want to be engaged in society because the stakes are far higher than people realize. It's not just, you know, the next administration. It's not just, oh, we want to have an influence on the direction of our country, on our culture, whatever. But ultimately, John, I mean, I believe the stakes are far higher than that. You know, ultimately, you know, since Roe versus Wade was decided in 1973, more than 60 million children were murdered in America's abortion mills have been. And so we got Roe versus Wade was overturned.

23:02 Great. OK. But then in the 12 months following, the number of abortions in this country actually went up, you know. And in fact, in last year, 2023, the number of abortions surpassed the one million mark in terms of in the official health care industry. Abortions that are performed outside of that are not even counted in that number. But we're over the one million mark for the first time in more than a decade. So Roe versus Wade was overturned, but abortion went up. That's not repentance. That's the opposite of repentance. If we do not end abortion in America, if we do not stop killing children on an industrial scale, there is no future for our country.

23:46 I'm not talking about no future. There will not be a United States of America if we don't stop that. So as believers, we need to be saying that, hey, we've got to end abortion. We've got to stop this slaughter because if we don't do it, there's not going to be a country. Secondly, you know, we need to be engaged on the issue of of gay marriage. So much of the evangelical community seems to have given up saying, oh, it's done. It's over with. There's nothing we can do. But the gay marriage, the trans agenda, all of that, you know, that is what happens at a society at the very late stages that are just before judgment.

24:29 You know, you know, we talk about Sodom and Gomorrah talking about other societies throughout human history, Greece, Rome, other societies that fell into utter depravity. We're at that stage. And we need to be engaged on that on that issue. We need to be engaged on other issues. The dividing of the land of Israel, we cannot divide the land of Israel. There cannot be a Palestinian state or the consequences for us will be beyond what most people dare to imagine. And that's something I cover in my book. God has been specifically warning us very specifically about what will happen if we divide the land of Israel. And that's right.

25:12 Right now, the Biden administration, that's what they're trying to do. We need to be engaged on that, because if the land of Israel is divided and we are involved, there will be judgment. You know, other exceedingly important issues, whether it's the covid vaccine, whether it's the war in Ukraine, all these issues we need to care deeply about, because the literally the survival of our nation, the literals and not many people say, oh, I'm concerned about the future. Are we going to have a bad future? Are we going to have a good future? We're going to we are literally going to have no future if, you know, we stay on the path that we're on.

25:56 And so that's my perspective. And that's why I believe I am engaged. I'm through my writing, the things I do, I'm constantly trying to change minds, change hearts, influence where things are going, because literally the survival of our country is at stake, John, from my perspective. And then that's some powerful stuff there. And we do we do need to get engaged. And there's so many different areas that we can do that. And, Michael, I want to invite you to come back sometime so we can talk more. And there's so much more that we can cover. But thank you so much for giving us your insight on the events that have just happened and kind of the political and cultural temperature in the United States right now.

26:37 Thank you so much for being here today. Well, thank you, John. Thank you. Thank you for having me on.