How hearing for former Secret Service Director Cheatle became intense debate on gun violence

The congressional hearing this week with now-former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle over her agency's failure in preventing the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump also sparked an intense, mostly one-sided public debate by lawmakers, including one who called the shooting a "double failure."

While several Democrats on the panel that grilled Cheatle on Monday linked the Trump shooting to the epidemic of mass shootings across the nation involving young gunmen armed with AR-15-style rifles, Republicans mostly steered clear of overall gun violence. GOP members focused instead on repeatedly asking Cheatle how a 20-year-old could get his hands on an AR-15 and brazenly attempt to assassinate the Republican presidential nominee while he was under the protection of Secret Service agents and local law enforcement.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, used the nationally televised hearing to call out colleagues on both sides of the aisle for failing to pass tough legislation to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of people like the gunman who opened fire on Trump, saying, "We can't let ourselves off the hook."

"Dear colleagues, what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a double failure. The failure by the Secret Service to properly protect former President Trump, and the failure of Congress to properly protect our people from criminal gun violence," Raskin said.

Raskin said Trump and three rallygoers shot during the outdoor July 13 campaign event -- including firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was killed -- are "now members of a club no one wants to belong to: the thousands of people who have fallen victim to mass shootings."

During his opening statement at the hearing, Raskin displayed a large chart with some of the high-profile mass shootings in the nation's history, including the 2022 attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left two teachers and 19 students dead; the racially motivated shooting in 2022 at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket where 10 Black people were gunned down; and the 2017 massacre at a Las Vegas country music concert, where 58 people were killed and more than 850 others wounded.

"Millions and millions of Americans don't feel safe with all the AR-15s out there," Raskin said. "We thought at least the president of the United States or former president of the United States would be safe. But now that's not even clear."

Raskin said 655 mass shootings, which he defined as four or more people being shot or killed in a single event, occurred in the United States in 2023 that left 712 people dead and 2,700 others injured. He said at least nine mass shootings have occurred in the U.S. since the attempt on Trump's life, including one just a few hours later in Birmingham, Alabama, where four people were killed and 10 wounded at a nightclub.

Republican members of the committee, however, focused on Cheatle and her leadership of the Secret Service as the primary reason for the attack on Trump. Cheatle announced Tuesday that she was resigning, saying in a statement, "I take full responsibility for the security lapse."

At one point during Monday's hearing, Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas, said he used an AR-15 that he owns to recreate the Trump shooting and that he hit his target from 130 yards "15 out of 16 times," calling them "kill shots."

"That's a 94% success rate," Fallon said. "And that shooter was a better shot than me."

Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., responded to Fallon's reenactment as an example of why AR-15s should be banned.

"I don't know why that doesn't convince him [Fallon] that we should get rid of AR-15s, but clearly we need to do something about the prevalence of AR-15s and weapons of war on our streets," Goldman said.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., said there have been two mass shootings in the past month in her state, including one at a splash pad park in Rochester Hills, Michigan, in which nine people were shot, including two children, and another at a block party in Detroit that left two people dead and 19 others injured.

"We've heard this over and over again," Tlaib said. "But the unfortunate thing is that my residents don't get a committee hearing."

Rep. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, recounted being at a funeral in December 2023 for a woman fatally shot while holding her 7-month-old baby when gunfire erupted in the church.

"As someone who has known gun violence firsthand, no one should have to experience the pain of losing a loved one to weapons of war," Brown said.

At the end of the hearing, Raskin said the only thing Democrats and Republican committee members could agree on was calling for Cheatle to step down.