Hawley: Briefing with Secret Service Director ‘Did Not Go Well’ — ‘She Was Not Well-Prepared’

During an appearance on FNC’s “Your World,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) called on Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle to publicly appear before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in the wake of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

The Missouri Republican called out Cheatle, who he said was “not well-prepared” to answer questions during a “behind-the-scenes” briefing.

Partial transcript as follows:

CAVUTO: How did it go?

HAWLEY: Badly.

I mean, let’s be honest, the Secret Service is out there and the FBI now doing these secret calls, these behind-the-scenes briefings, where, by the way, they don’t really answer questions. They limited — strictly limited the number of questions. The Secret Service director herself did not actually brief. She was present on the call, but didn’t do hardly any briefing.

When she did try to answer a question or two, it did not go well. She was not well-prepared. This needs to be done in public, bottom line. We need public hearings. We need a full and thorough investigation.

Neil, what we know about this is that there were 62 minutes, 62, between the time that the Secret Service identified the shooter as a person of interest, somebody acting suspiciously, and the time he started firing shots at the president.

I mean, what in the world is going on? We have got to find out.

CAVUTO: I misspoke. Of course, that briefing was yesterday. There are going to be many more to come. You want to hold the authorities accountable and find out what was behind their thinking.

But, to your point, Senator, she has indicated she’s not stepping down. She intends to stay there. And unless the president and/or Alejandro Mayorkas, her boss at Homeland Security, pushes her out, she’s there, right?

HAWLEY: Yes.

Nobody — here’s the pattern, Neil. Nobody in this administration is ever responsible, ever takes any responsibility for anything. Look at Afghanistan, 13 service members dead, hundreds, if not thousands of civilians left behind to the enemy. And what did Joe Biden do? Nothing. Who was fired? Nobody.

Now we have got a former president nearly assassinated. We have a good American shot to death at this rally, others in critical condition, and no one will take any responsibility. I mean, these people ought to be gone. Absolutely, the director ought to be gone. The whole top echelon ought to be gone.

But I tell you what. We’re going to get to the bottom of this and figure out what these people were doing. How did they allow this to happen? Why did they allow a good American to be killed? Why did they allow Trump to go on stage knowing they had a potential shooter? It’s outrageous.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor