[Jake Tapper, Cnn Anchor:] Good thing for the president this guy was there on his day off. I'm Jake Tapper. This is THE LEAD. The national lead. Come right on in, the Secret Service grilled all day on Capitol Hill. And now we're learning new details about the man who got deep into the White House. And it took an off-duty agent to stop him. The world lead.
[Unidentified Male:] It will be even safer if we have millions of people on the streets. I don't think they can shoot that many people.
[Tapper:] The Chinese cannot shoot that many people, he says, but today could be the tipping point, a day off from work in Hong Kong and thousands, maybe a million waiting to have their voices heard by the communists in China who decided to crack down on their rights. Also in national news, he said he hated white people. He spoke in Arabic new information on what motivated a man to allegedly commit a beheading on U.S. soil. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. We begin with the national lead and one of the most distressing stories we have heard yet about the U.S. Secret Service amidst years' worth of avalanches of horrific stories about the beleaguered agency tasked with keeping our nation's leaders alive and safe amid a seemingly nonstop slew of threats. The head of that agency was grilled on Capitol Hill today about the most recent security failure in which a man known by law enforcement to have been disturbed somehow with a knife actually got deep into the White House.
[Rep. Elijah Cummings , Maryland:] I hate to even imagine what could have happened if Gonzalez had been carrying a gun, instead of a knife when he burst inside the White House.
[Rep. Stephen Lynch , Massachusetts:] This is the Secret Service against one individual with mental illness, and you lost.
[Rep. Darrell Issa , California:] How much would it cost to lock the front door of the White House?
[Tapper:] Just hours ago, we heard lawmaker after lawmaker say that the suspect got even deeper into the White House than the Secret Service first admitted, not only hopping the fence, not only running across the lawn, not only opening and walking through the front door of the White House, which was astoundingly unlocked, but this man pushed aside a Secret Service agent and walked past the stairs to the first family's residence, and then got into the famous White House East Room, a room that the president and you probably know well. It's where the president often speaks to the nation to tell us, for example, that Osama bin Laden has been killed. This news is at the very least chilling information about security breaches in the most important residence in the world at a time of peril and threats to the nation. It's a job that can zero room for error, the consequences far too tragic and too public to risk. The life of the leader of the free world rests in their hands. The United States Secret Service, of course, has innumerable quiet daily successes to its name, but after a series of high-profile fiascoes, the service meant to be, well, secret is now in the national spotlight and not for the first time.
[Issa:] The American people want to know, is the president safe?
[Tapper:] Today, Secret Service Director Julia Pierson answered for the latest shocking security failures.
[Julia Pierson, Director, Secret Service:] It's clear that our security plan was not properly executed.
[Tapper:] Most recently on September 19, when an Iraq war veteran with a knife in his pocket hopped a fence and ran unimpeded through the front door of the White House getting as far as the East Room, bypassing five rings of security.
[Lynch:] I wish to God you protected the White House like you are protecting your reputation here today.
[Tapper:] The safety of the president and his family has been the charge of the Secret Service since 1902. Before then, the Secret Service was tasked with catching counterfeiters for the Treasury. Now, after more than 100 years on the job, those protected without incident are numerous, but our memories hold only the most extreme, Reagan shot in the lung in 1981, Ford caught in a would-be shooter's crosshairs in 1975, and, most searingly, Kennedy killed in 1963. There are other incidents, though. During the Nixon administration, an angry Army private successfully landed a stolen helicopter on the South Lawn. The list of presidents targeted by assassination plots and attempts illustrates just how omnipresent the threat is, Taft, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and, of course, Obama. Pierson was asked about these bullet holes that went undiscovered by the Secret Service until four days after they were fired by a gun into the White House in 2011. And of course the Secret Service is embattled because of the 2012 incident when a dozen agents were punished after a night of debauchery in this Cartagena hotel, prostitutes and heavy drinking on the list of transgressions.
[Pierson:] We're humans and people make mistakes.
[Tapper:] But, of course, it's a job with little room for mistakes. Joining us now is the chairman of the committee that held today's hearing, Republican Congressman Darrell Issa. Congressman, thanks so much for being here. We appreciate it. So, look, this is a mess. We have the incident with this guy getting into the East Room, the Cartagena incident, the Salahis, not seeing the bullets that were fired. What's the problem?
[Issa:] This is an agency that has a very large budget, thousands of employees, plenty of time and money for training, but appears to have low morale, questionable training actually being done. And an example is, the officer that was supposed to lock the front door thought she had locked the front door, but in fact she was not trained in how to lock an old-fashion door that had little pegs at the top and the bottom. Since that time, for a couple thousand dollars, they put an electric lock on so that won't happen again. But this is a 150-year-old-plus building. This is an example where a couple thousand dollars of prevention would have stopped this to begin with.
[Tapper:] Is the problem, do you think, the leadership? The president said that he still has confidence in the director, Julia Pierson. You said you do not have confidence in her. Do you think she should resign?
[Issa:] Today, Mr. Cummings and I, I think, failed to see the energy level and the real commitment and sharp answers that we had hoped for from the director. Both my ranking member, Mr. Cummings and I, are going to be preparing a letter asking for an outside oversight panel, nonpartisan, to really look at the series of events that in a way would look to reform with or without the director at the Secret Service, because it's clear that just saying we can do better or it was just human error doesn't get it anymore.
[Tapper:] So you're not calling for her resignation, at least not at this point?
[Issa:] That's really a decision for the secretary and the president. The oversight role and the reform role for us is to make sure that the tools are available, the information is available both to Congress and to the president. But the president has not been well-served by the Secret Service, in my opinion, during his entire presidency. These mistakes, each and every one of them, should not happen in an agency with a $1.5 billion budget.
[Tapper:] Let's talk about their tactics for a second. I want to play this clip from your fellow Republican, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, advocating for the use of deadly force on intruders.
[Rep. Jason Chaffetz , Utah:] We want to see overwhelming force. If a would-be intruder can't be stopped by a dog or intercepted by a person, perhaps more lethal force is necessary. And I want those Secret Service agents and officers to know at least this member of Congress has their back. Don't let somebody get close to the president. Don't let somebody get close to his family. Don't let them get in the White House ever. And if they have to take action that is lethal, I will have their back.
[Tapper:] Now, look, obviously if the Secret Service had fired and killed this man, there would be an outcry and people saying that they used excessive force, et cetera. But given the world we're in, do you think that that should be the norm, that deadly force on intruders who hop the fence and run to the White House should be standard operating procedure?
[Issa:] If the procedures that were in place had been followed, the dog had been released, individuals had gotten to him in time, this wouldn't have been necessary. If the door had been locked, they would have trapped him at the door. Failing those points, the question of should you shoot somebody as they enter the White House, the director said they have the authority to do it. It's a judgment call. But I think the important issue here is, they do have the tools, famously, sniper tools, and so on, if there's a real attack on the White House. And I think that's what Subcommittee Chairman Chaffetz was talking about is, if there's an attack, you should be able to. But I think what should concern us here is, if it wasn't for off-duty in addition to the Secret Service agent who was at the door, they wouldn't even have tackled him until far later. And, ultimately, he got all the way to the East Room, dragging Secret Service agent behind him, one who had a gun and a baton and who thought she had locked the door. That series of mistakes and lack of capability should concern us.
[Tapper:] What's the most important fact you heard today, either from the public session or the closed-door session that we did not hear?
[Issa:] I think what the American people heard that really astounded them was that a quote "ceremonial door" with a bulletproof glass overshield was not designed to be quickly locked. And the agent at the door, the officer at the door was unable to properly lock it, which would have prevented this. That is perhaps the most egregious error. Somebody running to the fence from the fence, whether you could catch them in time is different than, you knew somebody was coming, you could have locked the door. Today, that's been corrected. And as we correct these kinds of errors, in 2011, those shots fired, there are technologies that would allow you to differentiate between a shot fired and a backfiring of a vehicle.
[Tapper:] Yes.
[Issa:] There's technology to show you where it was fired from and where it went to. Those technologies have to be employed around the White House. But, Jake, here's the concern that Mr. Chaffetz said and Mr. Cummings and I all share. The White House is the easiest-to-secure place that the president ever goes.
[Tapper:] Right.
[Issa:] The hard-to-secure place is somebody's home while he's doing a finance or a campaign event or while he's traveling, if you remember President Reagan being shot at the Hilton. These are tougher locations. So, we need a force that is well- trained, that is rehearsed and that is motivated. And that's part of what we want to review to look at, is the morale, training and discipline of this force to make sure it's at its best.
[Tapper:] Congressman Darrell Issa of California, thank you so much. Appreciate it, sir.
[Issa:] Thank you, Jake.
[Tapper:] In other national news, it's more than likely he will face the death penalty, the man accused of beheading a co-worker charged today with first-degree murder, as the district attorney reveals new details on the investigation, including the suspect's statement that he hated white people. That's coming up next.