Morning Report — Secret Service admits slew of mistakes at intense hearing

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Glaring security failures by the Secret Service allowed a 20-year-old Pennsylvania gunman armed with an AR 15-style rifle to elude law enforcement even after he was seen on campaign rally grounds and identified as suspicious. He gained access to an unprotected warehouse roof, fired eight sharpshooter shots, struck former President Trump in the ear, killed a rallygoer and wounded two others before a Secret Service sniper killed him.

The Secret Service expected local counter-snipers to protect the warehouse roof where the gunman took up his position on July 13. They did not.

“They should have been on the roof,” Secret Service Acting Director Ronald Rowe told angry senators during a hearing Tuesday.

Rowe, who has been in the acting position for a week following his predecessor’s resignation, acknowledged his agency may have failed to make that expectation clear to the local counter-snipers.

A cascade of mistakes and security gaps amounted to “a failure of imagination,” Rowe told senators.

The shooter’s weapon was not seen before he was on the roof. His access to the roof was not detected until minutes before he fired his weapon. He surveilled the rally with a drone beforehand and was not caught. Secret Service and local law enforcement communications were not in sync. And the gunman’s motive remains unclear.

“I have lost sleep over that for the last 17 days, just like you have,” Rowe said during a tense and emotional exchange with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who questioned why no one in the Secret Service had been fired. “People will be held accountable and I will do so with integrity and not rush to judgment and put people [out there to be] unfairly persecuted,” Rowe said.

The Hill: Embattled Secret Service faces tough questions.

Key new information:

▪ The Secret Service was unable at Trump’s rally site to deploy a “counter unmanned aerial system” ahead of time because of cellular connectivity issues, Rowe testified. Had they done so, they would have likely detected a drone flown by gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks ahead of the rally.

▪ Crooks conducted “early surveillance” of the site. “I feel as though we could have found him, could have maybe stopped him,” Rowe said while reflecting on the missed opportunity.

▪ Gaps identified in Secret Service security but not specified during the public hearing are being addressed immediately.

▪ Changes in Secret Service internal communications and with local police before and after events are being changed, including putting communications over a radio channel so all personnel have situational awareness rather than focusing on siloed communications using typed text messages.

▪ Rangefinders (devices that measure distances between users and a fixed distance) will be banned at future events secured by the Secret Service.

▪ The Secret Service and FBI do not have “definitive evidence” about how Crooks got his rifle to the roof of a building near Trump while he was on stage. Officials believe the weapon, legally owned by Crooks’s father, was with Crooks in a backpack, but the FBI believes it “would have been visible” if placed in the shooter’s bag while assembled. “The rifle would not have fit fully into this backpack, concealed and whole,” FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate said.

▪ Newly uncovered video shows Crooks retrieving a backpack from his car shortly before climbing up to the roof and firing eight shots. “It’s possible he broke the rifle down and took it out of the bag in those moments before and reassembled it there,” Abbate said. “That’s one of the theories that we’re looking at.”

▪ Secret Service personnel “will be held accountable” for the security failures, including possible penalties that include termination, Rowe assured senators.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:

▪ Ick. They did it. Triathletes swam in the polluted Seine during the Paris Olympics Wednesday.

▪ Meta is still collecting revenues for ads featuring illegal drugs on its platforms, months after its practices triggered a federal investigation.

▪ Tesla recalled 1.8 million vehicles Tuesday because of a hood latch problem that could cause accidents.

LEADING THE DAY

CAMPAIGN POLITICS

VICE PRESIDENT HARRIS CAMPAIGNED in Atlanta Tuesday, the Biden-turned-Harris campaign’s largest rally to date. Organizers said about 10,000 people attended; in between speeches from Democratic leaders, supporters were dancing and singing along, and the rappers Megan Thee Stallion and Quavo performed and addressed the crowd before Harris spoke. She was joined by Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff (D) and Raphael Warnock (D), Mayor Andre Dickens, Rep. Nikema Williams (D) and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Harris’s campaign sees a win in Georgia, a battleground state, as one of her pathways to clinching the 2024 election.

Harris called out Trump over hot-button issues including border security, vowing to get the bipartisan immigration legislation that was negotiated in the Senate signed into law if she is elected.

“The momentum in this race is shifting and there are signs that Donald Trump is feeling it — you may have noticed,” the vice president told the crowd. Harris also challenged Trump to debate after he backtracked from a September face-off initially scheduled with President Biden.

“If you got something to say,” she challenged Trump, “say it to my face.”

The rally marked the latest sign of the cultural momentum behind Harris barely a week into her presidential campaign.

Harris was the only candidate to earn enough delegates to qualify for the virtual roll call for the nomination, according to Democratic Party officials. It’s a process that will kick off Thursday. Harris plans campaign stops in battlegrounds states next week, including Tuesday in Philadelphia, accompanied by her as-yet-to-be-selected running mate. A week from today, the Democratic duo will join forces for a sweep through western Wisconsin; Detroit; Raleigh, N.C.; Savannah, Ga.; Phoenix; and Las Vegas, the campaign announced.

The Democratic trail: 👉 Harris returns to Houston today for a campaign event.

Among the veepstakes hopefuls? Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), the swing state senator and former astronaut who’s uncomfortable in the role of attack dog and has eschewed politics for most of his time in the Senate. His clean-cut reputation and focus on policy raise questions about whether he can play the traditional role of running mate.

And then there’s Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has seen his national profile skyrocket as one of Democrats’ most prominent critics of the GOP. Walz, who leads a blue-leaning state that Trump hopes to flip this fall, snagged national attention when he labeled the former president and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, “weird,” prompting other high-profile Democrats to seize on the same line of attack.

Harris’s quick pivot to her White House bid has prompted an about-face on multiple key issues that could affect outcomes in battleground states, handing Trump and Republicans lines of attack. The Hill’s Al Weaver and Brett Samuels report that in the first week of her White House bid, her campaign has moved to distance her from a series of positions she took when she was a primary candidate in 2019. Republicans say the policy pivots are her vulnerability. Harris’s allies argue the electorate will care more about her vision for the future than stances she took five years ago.

“They need to let Kamala go out there and win people over. Talk about the issues that matter to swing-state voters, the economy, childcare, abortion and fertility treatment rights,” said one Democratic strategist who has worked with Harris. “Let Kamala be Kamala and she’ll win people over like she always does.”

▪ The New York Times: In 2020, Harris ran to the left as progressive ideas dominated the Democratic primary. Now, Republicans are digging up her old stances.

▪ Reuters: Republicans call Harris a failed border czar. The facts tell a different story.

▪ The Hill: Harris faces a “double-edged sword” on the economy, as she seeks to capitalize on strong economic data while grappling with Biden’s unpopular record on inflation.

The GOP trail: 👉 Trump will hold a rally in Harrisburg, Pa., at 6 p.m., his first in Pennsylvania since the July 13 rally in Butler. On Wednesday, he will take questions in Chicago at a conference of the National Association of Black Journalists, an appearance that is not without controversy. On Saturday, Trump and Vance will appear in Atlanta.

PROJECT 2025’s director departed from the conservative transition planning effort that Trump’s campaign disavowed as distinct from the former president’s transition thinking after Biden and Democrats wielded its ideas as a campaign weapon. Harris’s team said the director’s departure doesn’t mean Project 2025 is going “anywhere.”

IN ARIZONA, Tuesday’s primaries confirmed a November match-up between MAGA firebrand Kari Lake and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D) for the Grand Canyon State’s Senate seat. Lake was largely seen as the presumptive GOP nominee in the Republican contest to replace retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). Gallego ran uncontested.

2024 Roundup:

▪ Harris’s presidential campaign and her allies are making a play for white male voters as the campaign seeks to broaden its coalition. The group “White Dudes for Harris,” not organized by her campaign, raised more than $4 million during a call Monday with more than 190,000 participants. CEO of X Elon Musk suspended — and then reinstated — the group’s account.

▪ Democrats think Harris is putting the states of Georgia, Arizona and Nevada in play. Harris appears to be at least closing the gap with Trump, according to the few surveys that have been released in the past week.

▪ Campaign spending: The Harris team on Tuesday announced the campaign’s first ad, titled “Fearless,” as part of a $50 million campaign across battleground states leading into the Democratic National Convention in August. The ad focuses on Harris’s tough-on-crime prosecutorial career. It also released a campaign video attacking Trump’s record on the border.

▪ Transition scuttlebutt: Who’s up for top Cabinet posts in a Trump administration, should the former president be elected? And why would former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) want to be White House chief of staff? Axios mined Trump World for clues.

▪ Conservative state lawmakers and activists are working across all branches of government to keep abortion rights off red-state ballots, which suggests a conflict with Trump’s view that state-based abortion law decisions are desirable.

▪ The campaign of independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is struggling amid Harris’s ascent as the likely nominee.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet for a pro forma session at 11 a.m. Friday. Members are out of Washington until after Labor Day.

The Senate will convene at 11 a.m.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will receive a briefing at 11 a.m. about implementing provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. He and Harris will have lunch at 12:45 p.m. at the White House. The president will be briefed at 2:30 p.m. about new administration efforts aimed at illegal drug interdiction at the border. Biden will meet at 3:45 p.m. with Penny Pritzker, the U.S. special representative for Ukraine’s economic recovery.

The vice president will have lunch with the president at the White House. She will travel to Houston for a campaign event at 6:15 p.m. CT. Harris will speak at 7:15 p.m. CT at Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc.’s 60th International Biennial Boule in Houston.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling in the Indo-Pacific through Aug. 3 and is in Singapore today.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will travel to Concord, N.H., to headline a campaign event. He will travel to Yarmouth, Maine, for another fundraiser.

The White House daily press briefing is scheduled at 1:30 p.m.

ZOOM IN

CONGRESS

THE SENATE OVERWHELMINGLY passed bills to expand online privacy and safety protections for children Tuesday, delivering a major win for activists who have advocated for action against tech companies. The legislation, approved 91-3, would force digital platforms to take “reasonable” steps to prevent harms to children and it would broaden existing federal privacy protections to include kids and teens 16 years old and younger. The bills — the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act, referred to as COPPA 2.0. — represent the most significant restrictions on tech platforms to clear a chamber of Congress in decades.

They now face an uncertain future in the House, where they’ve gained bipartisan support, but negotiations publicly unraveled amid infighting between House Republican leaders (The Washington Post).

The Hill: Here are the three senators who voted against the bills.

BUDGET WOES: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has remained in his post longer than his predecessor McCarthy, who was ousted in part due to frustration with how he handled spending issues. But he’s not closer to pleasing hardline conservatives on spending matters. Despite efforts from leadership to push through 12 regular appropriations bills, as hard-liners wished, several of the spending bills have been derailed and the House headed into an early recess. But unlike with McCarthy the hardliners seem resigned to the fact that their spending bill goals will not be met (The Hill).

“I believed that we were going to actually do something on the budget, on the spending bills. That’s what we were told last year,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.). “When Kevin became Speaker, that didn’t happen. And we were told it’s going to happen this year, and if it didn’t happen, we’re gonna stay through August. That’s not happening… Don’t say that stuff to me if you don’t mean it.”

ELSEWHERE

INTERNATIONAL

HAMAS POLITICAL LEADER Ismail Haniyeh was killed in the Iranian capital Tehran, Iranian state media reported Wednesday. Hamas issued a statement shortly after, saying Haniyeh was killed in what it said was an Israeli “raid” on his residence in Tehran. In response to the claim, the Israeli military said it “doesn’t respond to reports in the foreign media.” The White House did not immediately issue a response. The attack on Haniyeh builds on a years-long proxy war between Iran and Israel and comes at a delicate time for the region amid concerns that the Israel-Hamas war will spread beyond Gaza (NBC News and CNN).

ISRAEL LAUNCHED A STRIKE on Beirut, Lebanon, on Tuesday that targeted a senior Hezbollah commander as tensions along Israel’s northern border and fears of a wider war continue to escalate. Fuad Shukr, also known as Al-Hajj Mohsen, was targeted in the strike, though it remains unclear if he was killed. The attack follows a Saturday rocket strike into Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12, mostly teenagers and children. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said he didn’t have “any updates on any specific activity that we’re seeing” and did not say whether Israel had given the U.S. a heads-up about a potential retaliatory strike (ABC News).

In Georgia, Harris said Israel has “the right to defend itself against the terrorist organization, which is exactly what Hezbollah is. But all of that being said, we still must work on a diplomatic solution to end these attacks, and we will continue to do that work.”

CBS News: Ultra-right-wing Israeli nationalists stormed two military facilities late Monday, protesting the detention and questioning of nine Israel Defense Forces reservists suspected of raping and abusing a Palestinian prisoner.

PROTESTS SPREAD Tuesday in Venezuela’s capital, with hundreds of young people marching through the streets over a presidential election in which the incumbent, Nicolás Maduro, declared victory despite widespread accusations of fraud. The opposition, which considers the election body to be in the pocket of a dictatorial government, said the 73 percent of vote tallies to which it has access showed its candidate Edmundo González had more than twice as many votes as Maduro (The New York Times and Reuters).

▪ The Washington Post: At least 16 reported dead as Maduro meets Venezuelan protests with force.

▪ CNN: Venezuela is wracked with protests and election uncertainty. Here’s what to know.

OPINION

■ Trump buries Project 2025, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board.

■ What the polls tell us about Harris vs. Trump, by Kristen Soltis Anderson, contributing opinion writer and Republican pollster, The New York Times.

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🔭 A skyscraper-sized asteroid will whiz harmlessly past Earth on Saturday. With the right equipment and timing, it’s possible to spot it.

Called 2024 MK, the space rock will make its closest approach to Earth, passing by at about three-quarters the distance from Earth to the moon. It was first spotted two weeks ago by a South African observatory and is about 393 feet to 853 feet (120 meters to 260 meters) wide.

Smaller objects shoot past Earth all the time, according to asteroid expert Davide Farnocchia with NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. Asteroids the size of this latest one fly by about every 25 years or so. “We’re going to see a few of those during our lifetimes, but it’s not something that happens every other day,” he said.

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