July 16, 2024 1:51 PM IST
“What concerns me is why was there a shooter within 150 yards of the president of the United States,” JD Vance said.
Ohio Senator JD Vance, Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, has called for a “full-scale investigation” into the attempted assassination of the former president. “We need to understand what happened because clearly mistakes were made,” Vance told Fox News.
‘What concerns me is why was there a shooter 150 yards from the President of the United States?’
“The Secret Service came running, laid out their bodies and reacted quickly. That’s not what concerns me. What concerns me is why there was a shooter 150 yards away from the president of the United States,” Vance said.
Vance recalled that he was playing mini-golf with his children on Saturday, July 13, when gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks tried to assassinate Trump. “My first reaction was to pray for him. I was terrified if President Trump had been assassinated, of course — terrible, terrible, terrible. But the repercussions on the country would have been a world-historic tragedy. Thank God he was okay,” Vance said.
“I don’t know much about security protocols, but I was a United States Marine. And 150 yards is nowhere near a sufficient security perimeter,” he added.
Following the assassination attempt, Vance took to X to share a statement: “Today is not just an isolated incident,” he wrote. “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs.”
“That rhetoric led directly to the attempted assassination of President Trump,” he added.
Meanwhile, after learning he was Trump’s nominee for vice president, Vance expressed his “gratitude” in a social media post. “I am overwhelmed with gratitude,” he wrote on X. “What an honor it is to run alongside President Donald J. Trump. He brought peace and prosperity once, and with your help, he will do so again. Onward to victory!”
