Months after shooting, Trump's Secret Service addresses security before WHCD: Full press conference

[0:00] of a threat environment right now it's it's it's no secret you know there are things happening [0:04] around the globe that are always going to impact you know how we move and that's how we evaluate [0:09] you know what our security plan is going to be you know we we do base that off of what's happening [0:14] but we're always going to look at the threat environment and where we're going [0:19] and just what's happening at the moment that that that does fold into the security plan [0:23] okay thanks for doing this it's fascinating when something like this happens where somebody you [0:32] know tried to get into the dinner last time and now there's a redo do you find that that like [0:38] inspires copycats so there are people out there who feel like they want to finish the job can you mind [0:43] fine please go yeah so um no i think there's this this mindset that oh it's a redo we're doing the [0:50] site every site is independent so i'm not we're not looking at this going in like oh we're redoing [0:56] the dinner yes of course it is a second run for the correspondence dinner it is another site for us [1:02] like the thousands we've done and the dozens we've done since that time taking it as an independent [1:08] site could it influence others that goes back to advanced threat interdiction like what is putting [1:12] people over the edge we learn every single time in graduations we like to say you know difference [1:19] between professionals and amateurs are amateurs examine their their successes professionals examine [1:25] everything we do so we examine every single site and we change things and get better every single [1:31] time we're not looking at this as a redo of a dinner we're looking at this as a presidential site [1:37] with cabinet members and other protectees there just like every site we do everywhere we go and if [1:43] i could just add to that i think it's important to note that the president has been back to hilton since [1:48] we have done massive major events since i know some other people have tried to take credit for those [1:54] events but we have successfully um done major events since then ufc uh 250 on the south lawn game three [2:02] at madison square garden uh the july 4th fireworks celebration on the mall that was an nsse we pivoted [2:09] to overseas trips major overseas trips for the president and then we pivoted to the the president [2:14] attending the fifa with along with foreign heads of state um and to include a hundred thousand people at [2:20] met life stadium so it's it's been major events we we have almost every week this is what the men and [2:25] women of the secret service are doing and they're just incredible at what they do and i just it's my [2:31] sense please tell me if i'm wrong as a trump or somebody who's been following him around for years it feels [2:39] like these days to go to a trump event or speech it takes six seven eight hours just to get in and wait [2:47] the security apparatus seems so big now anything that he does is that is that is that [2:53] correct that feeling just that it's been built up so much now i i don't know i think just some of [2:58] the events are just larger um you know i i think uh you know not to compare contrast other presidents [3:04] you know just every president is going to have different types of events uh president the current [3:09] president happens to like large events you know so it will take longer to get a hundred thousand [3:13] people into an event rather than a dinner at say uh look even like small rushmore speech or the north [3:21] dakota teddy roosevelt librarian and these sort of smaller speeches whereas before it might have [3:26] taken an hour to show up in advance it's eight hours now is that because of the assassination attempts [3:32] finally no i i i haven't seen what you what you're discussing um i i just you know i'm out at these [3:37] events i monitor the lines i'm at the magnetometer lines i haven't seen uh what you're saying but [3:41] you know if you want afterwards we can have a discussion on that but i i just haven't seen that [3:45] skanga cbs news thank you so much all of you for doing this i'm happy for anyone um to address [3:52] these questions i do have a question on the correspondence dinner but just first since the [3:57] conflict with iran began can you be more specific about the sort of qualitative change you've seen in [4:02] threats directed at the president senior officials and other public events and can you speak to how that [4:08] might have factored into the decision not to use the new air force one that was donated by qatar [4:13] in at least one instance are there destinations threat conditions or mission profiles in which [4:20] that aircraft um i i think look we're never going to get into methods or means and how we do business [4:28] uh i i don't want to tip our hand to the enemy of how we do it so i i i don't think again if we want [4:34] to have a conversation offline i'll be happy to do that but um we are always evaluating what's going on [4:40] both in and around us and we'll make decisions based on that i don't want to get into [4:46] what we used and what we didn't use it's just it it's not relevant dave go ahead i would just say [4:58] i don't think it's any secret that it's been in the media that iran has publicly said they want to [5:04] kill president trump that that is broadly so just take that as media professionals and know there's [5:09] also other information that's that we can't discuss so that takes into account everything we do all the [5:15] time and just on the dinner understanding that what's happening on friday is a totally separate [5:21] event what was the most consequential finding in the after action review of the april dinner and how did [5:27] that sort of inform preparations moving forward i'm also um curious understanding that many within the [5:34] secret service viewed that as a success that the threat was stopped before he ever reached the door [5:41] was the fundamental problem that the outer perimeter was too close to the protectees or that an armed [5:46] person was able to reach even the edge of it without being detected no um i'll say it again i think people [5:54] don't understand the distance we have to start and and end our perimeter somewhere if we're up to me [6:00] i'd love to end it at the bridge but that's going to inconvenience a lot of people so we we have to [6:05] take into account what the environment is we we do blast analysis i won't get into that but we we do we look [6:15] at the site in very many different ways we're not going to advertise how we do it but when you talk about [6:21] that one site it's almost two sites so how we set up that perimeter and where we ended it is where we [6:28] felt comfortable with with our special teams as to where we needed to put it again i'll repeat myself [6:33] we're talking almost 120 yards from magnetometers to podium that's over a football field if you look at [6:40] some of the other government buildings around town i won't name them some of their magnetometers are [6:45] actually inside the building we don't do that we have standoff distance and that's where our team which [6:52] we have on the ground uh felt comfortable doing it and that's where where it happened we do expect [6:57] things to happen at the magnetometers unfortunately but that's why they are there and that's where it [7:01] happened and that's where it ended um so it it did work the system worked we can't shut down an entire [7:09] community when we have an event it's our job to um to understand that site and to mitigate the the [7:15] threat and to also allow the best we can business to also uh run and as a very last question can you [7:23] be fencing around permanent what benefit that would have for the secret service and who would determine [7:32] whether to keep the doors open or closed so to speak we're still in talks about it uh if we're up to [7:38] me i would put 30 foot fences up everywhere so but yeah i like fences we've got about three more minutes [7:44] guys hi thank you hi guys thanks for doing this appreciate it it's fascinating to listen to owen jensen [7:51] with ewt and global catholic network i realize you can't reveal operational details but how concerned [7:58] are you about drones being used to attack protect these of yours very um so look there i just in uas in [8:09] general no one in federal government or law enforcement is doing more to proactively get [8:15] after the drone threat than the secret service nobody in government um look the threat's real we [8:21] look at ukraine we look at just basic intelligence it's a matter of time before it comes to the united [8:27] states it's happening on the border we know that so it's absolutely top priority top of mind and it comes [8:35] down to what we're doing to to detect and mitigate detection is the key i can tell you that secret [8:43] service is leading the way in technology that has been recently deployed and no other government agency [8:53] has deployed in the united states of america obviously there's a lot of hoops to jump through [8:58] faa involvement there's uh pl 124 and in a process to get equipment deployed but in terms of detection [9:09] capability and mitigation capabilities we're leading the way we're not there yet but we are leading the [9:16] way just to follow up i as others here do we work at the white house on the north lawn in those tents [9:23] there i'm not going to lie sometimes you think one of these things coming in at any moment and how [9:29] safe is the white house from a drone attack i'll tell you it's right now it is it's very safe from [9:35] from attack the technology we're deploying um and not just the white house at all protected sites [9:43] is um it's cutting edge right now for us and all of government so it's coming detection is the key [9:51] but you've got to be able to mitigate and the mitigation technology is what the overall defense [9:57] industry is really working hard hard to keep up with new threats the threat continues to get tougher [10:04] and tougher you know you're talking fiber optic uh control drones now dark drones so um it's a constant [10:12] chase to keep up with it but we're doing tremendous job to to stay ahead of the threat especially at the [10:18] white house and i'll tell you we're also we're also moving these assets around with the president [10:22] um some of which first time used on american soil ever um so we will we will use anything and [10:29] everything um and that's that's what i keep telling my my my agents and officers like there's nothing that [10:36] we aren't willing to do um i want them to to feel empowered uh when we do these advances um to use what [10:43] we have at our disposal going up on the drone issue one of the issues that happened with crooks is one [10:51] of those detective systems went down there was an officer who had to call the help service of the [10:57] company as their efforts to make sure that when there are those systems there are backup systems but [11:03] also that your officers are trained to the point where those calls aren't even required to do system [11:09] resets but that you know you're working with assets that they know backwards yeah so directors may [11:16] make airspace security division a priority so we are light years ahead of where we were two years ago [11:23] in terms of detection only equipment all the issues that you've identified we're putting significant [11:30] dollars behind robust they're full teams that go out now the training i was at our training center [11:37] yesterday training every day very good technology going everywhere he goes that particular issue i'm [11:45] confident it's not going to happen again with this director why was it an issue why was it an issue i [11:52] don't think um there's there's a variety of reasons and some of it was just deploying the right resources at [11:58] the right levels right um former at that time a former president wasn't getting the the resources that [12:06] they they potentially should have been getting i just own it for the secret service um that's not happening [12:12] anymore well i can also tell you having been there and knowing and hearing it firsthand uh communication [12:18] it's critical um we've you know certainly improved that um that is critical to me is something that i [12:26] you know felt and knew firsthand that we we need to be better and do better not just us but with with [12:32] our partners communicating with us uh so anytime you see we have a major site we always have a unified [12:39] command post we have all our partners sitting together communicating um we're all talking we're [12:45] all in the same room ensuring that we what one person hears everybody hears one more thing please [12:55] i'm sorry to do this but for the benefit of the camera is it possible to have you tell us about uh [13:01] who the likely perpetrators are now based on this uh research that you've done the mental health piece [13:08] and the fact that they're showing signs just so we can get that out to our audiences sure absolutely [13:15] our work over the last 25 years uh in the national threat assessment center of researching attacks [13:20] targeting government officials facilities schools workplaces basically all the places that we would [13:27] be concerned about as an agency has shown that there is no one specific profile but we do see common [13:34] themes in the backgrounds of those attackers that includes um contextual things that are stressors [13:42] history of possible mental health issues maybe paranoia delusions hallucination depression suicidality [13:48] behavior changes as well as um uh common motives meaning that the by far in all of our research we see [13:58] that the most common motive why someone carries out an attack is typically related to a grievance and that [14:04] grievance could be focused on a person or an idea or an ideology that becomes a fixation and negatively [14:12] negatively impacts every aspect of their life to the point where they want to take revenge whether [14:17] they feel they're being persecuted or they feel that they've been wronged and that is engaging in [14:23] violence is the way that they um use to solve their issues and how are you about these different no longer [14:32] than handwritten note but different i can i can tell you that when i first started with the agency um i won't [14:39] say how long ago that was but um at one point we created an internet threat desk and it probably had [14:45] like seven people on it uh but now the advent of technology we do that for for us as an agency our model is how do we [14:52] identify individuals so that we can assess and appropriately intervene and the way that we identify them is [15:00] typically they either self-identify um you know they bring themselves to attention we notice it online [15:06] or they show up at the white house we call them gate callers and they self-identify but the majority of [15:13] the information that comes to us is through federal state local law enforcement other government agencies [15:19] the va as well as a bulk of the internet concerning behavior and threats that we get comes from concerned [15:29] citizens they see it yes they often see that online whether it's a comment on an article a social [15:36] media post um they'll either notify local police they'll notify the fbi or in some cases notify us [15:42] directly decide which odds you've got to go they'll get investigated if i could just take a moment just [15:56] to thank everybody here um this is a rare opportunity for us uh as i explained earlier i'm a pretty private [16:01] person and quiet but um to to be in a room of uh true true professionals it's great to get our story [16:08] out there um and for for you to to report that i think it's great uh part it's a good partnership um [16:14] just ask for for to to be fair because we um we often don't don't uh toot our own horn um probably should [16:21] sometimes but i appreciate everybody giving their time to us today it's really great thank you thank you [16:27] yeah don't be a stranger