Gunman Targeted White House Back in 2011
PEREIRA: Welcome back to NEW DAY. More trouble for the Secret Service as details emerge about a 2011 shooting at the White House. "The Washington Post" reports that it took Secret Service four days to realize that seven bullets had hit the upstairs residence of the White House while the president's daughter, Sasha, and his mother-in-law were inside. These revelations, of course, come on the heels of several security incidents at the White House, including one where an intruder raced inside bearing a knife. We want to bring in Ronald Kessler. He is an investigative reporter and author of "The First Family Detail" where he actually published some of the very details of this incident before "The Washington Post." Mr. Kessler, thanks so much for joining us this morning.</s>RONALD KESSLER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, AUTHOR, "THE FIRST FAMILY DETAIL": Hey, my pleasure.</s>PEREIRA: So, in your book you detail so many of the events of this 2011 incident. I think many of us are wondering how on earth it could have taken the Secret Service four days to realize that seven shots hit, some of them even entered, the White House.</s>KESSLER: And "The Washington Post" claims it has a scoop, but as you say it was in my book and it goes back to a really rotten management culture that is based on arrogance. That is what connects all of these scandals. The management promotes agents who don't point out deficiencies, and so the way to get ahead is to cover up. It's just safer. And, therefore, the, for example, the uniformed officers who led this (inaudible), into the White House, even though they were not on the guest list, felt it was just safer to let them in as opposed to possibly upsetting the White House. In the case of the gunshots, the uniformed officer who reported the gunshots felt it was safer to not keep insisting that she had heard them, even though a supervisor overruled her. In the case of the White House intrusion recently, it was safer for the uniformed officers to not take out that intruder who was carrying a knife and went into the White House, even though he could have had an explosive or he could have unleashed weapons of mass destruction. And so the agents who perpetuate the myth that the Secret Service is invincible are the ones who get ahead, and that is understood. Those who don't do that, who point out problems are literally punished. And that is -- goes back to really the safety of the president, who keeps insisting that there is no problem in the Secret Service. Michelle Obama, according to "The Washington Post," was angry at the Secret Service over the fact that they did not detect the gunshots.</s>PEREIRA: Right, right, right.</s>KESSLER: And yet the president does nothing.</s>PEREIRA: I want to talk to you about that in a second, because we understand the first lady and the president understandably were quite livid about this situation. I want to talk about this. You talk about it being an issue of culture. I want to also understand if this is a question, too, of our men and women in the Secret Service who are charged with protecting the president of the United States and the president's family, are they given enough tools and resources to adequately do their job? For example, in the incident in 2011 and even in this latest incident, one has to wonder if the tools for surveillance were readily available to them.</s>KESSLER: Absolutely not. You know, the Secret Service is absolutely crumbling. As part of this culture, they have the attitude we make do with less. They're actually proud of not spending money. In the case of the gunshots, for example, the Secret Service should have devices to detect gunshots. You know, the D.C. police have that but the Secret Service doesn't. On and on they cut corners, they're not keeping up to date with the latest surveillance devices, they will let people into events without magnetometer screening or metal detection screening under pressure from White House staffs.</s>PEREIRA: Are you at all convinced that the president, and the first lady, and his mother-in-law, and their children that they're safe inside the White House?</s>KESSLER: They are not safe. Absolutely not. The agents I talked to say it's a miracle that there has not been an assassination so far and, you know, it seems obvious to all of us that the Secret Service needs a major overhaul. What they need is a new director from the outside who is not part of this culture. Somehow, President Obama really recklessly keeps disregarding all the warning signs, keeps defending the Secret Service, and then yesterday you had Tony Blinken, the deputy national security advisor again defending the Secret Service.</s>PEREIRA: Yes.</s>KESSLER: And the result is going to be an assassination. I'm afraid that's the only way we're going to have a change.</s>PEREIRA: You think that's the only thing that's going to change. Listen, we know that Tony Blinken spoke with CNN yesterday, and he tried to put things in perspective, saying the task that the Secret Service is given is incredible, and the burden that they bear in incredible, and that the director, this newish director, is looking into the incident. But you believe that these changes are not enough, that more fundamental changes need to come?</s>KESSLER: Yes, you know, the director always says I'm reviewing this, there are going to be hearings, nothing will happen. That's not the way you change any organization. You change an organization by bringing in a new CEO who's not beholden to the interests, who's not part of the culture, who will shake things up as Bob Mueller did when he became FBI director, made the FBI more prevention (inaudible). So this is a colossal lack of management, judgment, on the part of President Obama because he is the one who is at risk here. He's the only one who can do anything about it.</s>PEREIRA: And he is certainly the one that has the ultimate power there to change things there, for his family and, obviously, for the White House and his administration. Ronald Kessler, thank you so much for joining us this morning to give us your perspective.</s>KESSLER: Sure.</s>PEREIRA: You can check out his book, it is called "The First Family Detail." There it is on your screen right now. Certainly following a whole lot of news this morning. Let's get to it.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It could take two weeks to restore full service to Chicago's fire damaged air traffic control center.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There appears to be a fire that was set by a contract employee. There is no terrorist act.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My lungs were tired of all the coughing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He started coughing and I noticed he was getting blue around his mouth.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The similarities of symptoms of the enterovirus, and flu symptoms, and cold symptoms are going to look the same.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Severe wheezing, some of them need supplemental oxygen.</s>CUOMO: Good morning, welcome back to NEW DAY. We start with President Obama's new admission about ISIS.</s>CUOMO (voice-over): The president says intelligence agencies underestimated the extremists, and overestimated Iraq's will and ability to fight them in this candid "60 Minutes" interview he gave yesterday. No one is more surprised to hear this than intelligence officials who disagree. We'll get into it.</s>PEREIRA (voice-over): Meanwhile, U.S. led air strikes continue to pound ISIS targets in northern Syria and in Iraq. Air strikes that three out of four Americans support according to a new CNN/ORC poll.</s>PEREIRA (on camera): However, the president's approval rating is still low. Michelle Kosinski is live from the White House this morning with all of this, and so much more. Good morning, Michelle..</s>MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi guys, right. So we have air strikes continuing and then we have President Obama going on CBS' "60 Minutes" and openly acknowledging now, that yes, the U.S. absolutely underestimated ISIS in the past, while overestimating the ability and will of the locals to fight it.</s>OBAMA: They were able reconstitute themselves, and take advantage of that chaos, and attract foreign fighters who believed in their jihadist nonsense and traveled everywhere from Europe, to the United States, to Australia, to other parts of the Muslim world, converging on Syria. So this became ground zero for jihadists around the world.</s>KOSINSKI: And so the president says the U.S. continues to be the one to lead this effort, because America has the unique capacity to do so. So how do Americans feel like that? Well, this new CNN/ORC poll just released this morning shows that 73 percent approve of the air strikes. But about that same number also feels that it is likely the U.S. will end up having to send in ground troops and fewer, only 61 percent, feel confident that the U.S. will succeed in its goal of degrading and defeating ISIS.