♪ ♪ GRAHAM: Well, good evening everyone, and welcome to P&P Live.

I'm Brad Graham, the co-owner of Politics and Prose, along with my wife, Lissa Muscatine.

We have an exciting event for you this evening, featuring Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig, in conversation with Presidential historian Michael Beschloss about Carol's very revealing new blockbuster, Zero Fail.

Carol's an investigative reporter who's been with the Washington Post for 20 years.

She won a Pulitzer several years ago for reporting about lapses in the Secret Service.

Uh, in the past year alone, she and her Post colleague, Phil Rucker, published A Very Stable Genius, a superbly, uh, researched and altogether devastating look inside the first 30 months of the Trump administration.

In Zero Fail, she tells a richly detailed story of an agency whose lapses, scandals, and failures starkly contradict its popular image as a revered, elite, professional organization.

The Secret Service she describes is one that, over the past 50 years, has been badly undermined by poor leadership, too many missions, not enough funding, and outdated technology.

So, in conversation with Carol, will be Michael Beschloss, one of the most prominent Presidential historians today with a gift for both storytelling and insight.

His most recent book, Presidents of War, examined how US Presidents, despite a Constitution intended to make it difficult for them to lead America into combat, nonetheless got embroiled in wars.

Carol and Michael, welcome to P&P Live.

BESCHLOSS: Thank you so much, Brad.

Uh, I'll, I'll talk first, uh.

I just wanted to say, first of all to everyone who's joining us, thank you so much, uh.

I love the book.

You will, if you have not read it yet.

LEONNIG: I am so excited that you're the person interviewing me.

And I'm also shivering because you know everything about every Presidency.

And, and I'm just going to try, try to be as smart as you today.

BESCHLOSS: You, you are extremely kind.

But having now read the book, I'd say one and a half times, I'm learning all sorts of things I had no idea of.

When did you first get to be so interested in the Secret Service and think the, that you would write a book?

LEONNIG: Well, I sure didn't think I would write a book, because I hadn't, at that point, ever, um.

Some people might say I was a little bit of a late bloomer.

But, uh, I fell into this beat totally by accident, uh.

Nobody in Washington seriously covers the Secret Service, and no one was doing that in 2012.

When I, again, was sort of drawn into this story because a colleague of mine broke a great story.

And our editors wanted to know more.

That great story was that nearly a dozen Secret Service agents had been flown home from Cartagena, preparing for a Secret Service, uh, forgive me...

Preparing for a Presidential trip to Colombia.

And President Obama was on his way, on Air Force One, when they were heading back in the other direction on a plane because they had brought prostitutes back to their room.

They kind of turned this trip into a boys gone wild bachelor weekend.

And, um...

I was asked to just dig into figuring out what happened.

But what I learned about this humiliating episode, as I met more and more agents, it was probably interesting, kinda, kind of racy.

BESCHLOSS: Sure.

LEONNIG: But what I learned from talking to more and more of them was there was something much scarier.

There was a much bigger story inside the Secret Service.

And that was, many agents on the President's detail and around the White House believed that they were being run ragged and believed that the President would be killed on their watch because they weren't, you know, up to snuff.

Not their dedication, but the quality of the tools that they had to do the job, the number of people they had to do it, and the sort of the strategic mission.

They really felt that they were holding things together with Duct Tape.

And that's when I started to see, there's something bigger here.

BESCHLOSS: Well, and especially because, as it comes through so clearly and you write all through the book, if you had to look at institutions that protect our democracy, Secret Service is virtually at the apex.

We saw that on the 6th of January which, as you note, could have been an assassination and, and hostage crisis, my words, not yours, at the time of the attack on the Capitol and the Congress.

So, you know, you would think that, for all of us who love democracy and want to protect democracy, one of the first things that we would do is make sure that the Secret Service is handsomely funded and extremely well-run, so that there is, just as you say right here, zero fail.

And as you rightly write about in the book, this goes back so much to November 22, 1963 and what happened then.

Tell a little bit about that and how it really has shaped the experience of those in the Secret Service in a, in a very big way ever since then.

LEONNIG: You know, I never imagined that I would interview agents who had been at the shoulder of John F. Kennedy on the day that he was killed.

But that's where this story took me ultimately.

And it's a really important moment, not just in our history, as you know so well and have written about.

But it's a really important moment for the Secret Service, because in the modern history of this agency, all of America is, is traumatized by President Kennedy's assassination in Dealey Plaza.

If you think it was bad for America, you have no idea how, how much of a gut punch it was for the Secret Service.

It was their responsibility, and they failed.

And the truth be told, they really didn't have preparation for what happened.

They should have envisioned the possibility.

They had been warned that there were threats against the President, including threats from white supremacist groups, of shooting the President from a building on high.

But it wasn't ultimately something that they had prepared and trained for.

And that moment remakes the Service.

They rebuild and reinvigorate.

And Director Rowley, who coincidentally, by the way, lived not very far from Politics and Prose, up near Blessed Sacrament, Director Rowley would lose his job today if, if you had a President assassinated on your watch.

But he actually dug in and decided, “I'm going to hire more people.

I'm going to reinvigorate our technology.

I'm going to increase our, our...” At that time, computerize.

That was a big deal.

“I'm going to computerize our files on people who are trying to make threats against the President.

I'm going to create a new kind of routine training for agents.” So that in a split second, they don't tap the brake and look over their shoulder to hear the gunfire.

But in a split second, they make hair-trigger decisions that literally protect the President's life.

BESCHLOSS: Mm-hmm.

LEONNIG: And, and that training was, was vindicated time and time again in the next 30 years, perhaps most notably when John Hinckley tried to kill, uh, President Reagan.

BESCHLOSS: Yeah and, and one, one of the things that you bring out that leads to that is this, this awkward, really difficult relationship between the President and particularly his political managers on one side, and the Secret Service agents who are there to protect him and possibly give their lives.

And just to use the Kennedy example, you bring it out so well, uh, he was assassinated.

This was the fall of 1963.

He was already running for re-election.

He went to Tampa the week before he went to Dallas.

He went throughout Texas.

And what was the, what was the instruction that he gave to the agents that were supposed to be on the running boards of his car?

LEONNIG: You know, President Kennedy, like so many Presidents before him and after, especially after actually, wanted to be a man of the people, or be seen as a man of the people.

And so he didn't want any Praetorian Guard looking like they had to protect him from the American voter.

He used to wade right into, you know, throngs of people at a convention center or at a baseball stadium.

You know, this was so abhorrent to his agents.

“No, no, no, no, don't go there.” They wanted to make sure that they were at his side and shielding him.

But he would just take off and leave.

He did that, as well, when he was on the road.

And he would take off and leave to go into a hotel room with a woman that wasn't his wife.

But on the day in Dallas, he had said, and then actually said in Tampa, as well, “Could you get off the running boards of the limousine?” He had an open-top convertible, where he liked to be seen by all the crowds.

He liked to have his White House staff telegraph to the community newspaper the route that he was going to travel so people could gather around and see him, um.

And he wanted the agents to go back to what's called the follow-up car and stay off the back of the limousine.

Again, so that it didn't look like he needed protection.

The problem is, that made a big difference and may have cost him his life because agents who had been on the running boards would have been able to get to him after the first shot.

And instead, as we all have seen in, in countless films and in the Zapruder film, Clint Hill is, you know, two shots too late as he dashes for those running boards and dashes... BESCHLOSS: And, and Clint Hill was Jackie's agent and in the car behind, right?

LEONNIG: That's right.

BESCHLOSS: Yep.

LEONNIG: Not even his agent.

She was, he was Jackie's agent.

But he heard the shot, and he didn't flinch and didn't wait.

Ran for the car, jumped on the back of that limousine, basically to find the President's brain parts on the back of the car and Jackie Kennedy reaching to scoop them up so that she could put him back together again.

BESCHLOSS: And why did the Secret Service driver not speed up once he heard the first shot, Bill Greer?

LEONNIG: You know, also just a tragic moment of, you know, if you're not trained for something, what do you do?

He tapped the brakes upon the first shot, uh, the limousine.

Now no, no agent would ever tap a brake.

He hears a shot and thinks something's wrong, tries to slow down.

That gives Lee Harvey Oswald more time to shoot two, two more times.

And ultimately, the third one is, is the fatal blow to his skull, um, par... You know, Jackie Kennedy later confides to a good friend, uh, how devastated she was by re... By Greer's moves and that she knows that it cost her husband his life.

What a terrible hair shirt for all of them to wear, um.

This incident led to alcoholism and suicides on the President's detail.

Just a terrible, terrible weight upon them.

And no, no one individual person's fault, but a lack of training and a lack of, uh, a failure of imagination.

BESCHLOSS: Right, and, and, and so late in American history, where they have been earlier assassination attempts, as you point out.

Truman was, uh, almost killed in 1950 by Puerto Rican nationalists.

So, you know, it's not something that was exactly totally out of the blue.

And the other point you make, I won't pause too much on Kennedy, but what were the agents doing the night before when they, they should have been home sleeping?

LEONNIG: So they ended up at sort of a beatnik cellar where the waitresses don't wear very many clothes.

These are guys who are exhausted.

But they also want to go out at night and kind of relax after the kind of grueling work they do, scanning crowds like a periscope looking for guns in hands and looking for danger all, all day long, um.

Sometimes, they literally walk 26 miles in a day, or jog 26 miles in a day, um.

So they go to The Cellar, this place in Fort Worth, before the flight to Dallas the next morning.

And while there, many of the agents end up drinking, um.

It's hard to tell how much to excess.

BESCHLOSS: And, and with very little food.

LEONNIG: Almost no food.

BESCHLOSS: There may be peanuts or something.

LEONNIG: All the food was gone by the time they arrived, um.

There were some weird, um, mixer drinks with hard-grain alcohol served at this particular establishment.

And they, agents, some of them end up going back to their hotel rooms at two, three, 5:00 in the morning.

As the Warren Commission, which investigated a, the assassination later found, you know, this is not the ideal to having hair-trigger reflexes, to be out at 5:00 in the morning drinking alcohol, as we all know.

But Director Rowley is not going to let these agents take that responsibility on, um.

He defends them and says, “This, this death was not their, was not to be blamed on them drinking and being out late.

That there were, there were things that were beyond their control.

It would have happened anyway.” And, and he may be right about that.

But their reflexes certainly were not ideal.

BESCHLOSS: So almost a perfect storm.

A lot of things happened that should not have happened.

And so my, my next question is, Carol, is this is not so much in the book.

But it flows naturally from it.

I wish I had brought it along.

But October of 1964, by then Lyndon Johnson had been President for almost a year.

He was campaigning with Robert Kennedy in Brooklyn.

And there are pictures of this, and I should have brought one along.

But they're there in an open Cadillac with no cover.

They're standing up so that I would say, three-quarters of their bodies are completely exposed to enormous crowds in Brooklyn.

You know, high buildings, tall buildings on either side, surging crowds in the middle of a campaign.

Johnson was running for the Presidency.

RFK, of course, was running for the Senate.

How could that have happened 11 months after Dallas?

Tell me the psychology that would... Is that just Johnson brow-beating them and saying the same thing as Kennedy?

"I, I want to be exposed to the people in a campaign."

Or in comp.. What was going on here, what do you think?

LEONNIG: You know, when I, when I went through the archives and listened to Lyndon B. Johnson's conversations with Director Rowley, remember, the, the director that lost a President, is now, you know, hard-bitten determined to fix this agency and make sure it never happens again, but he had, his worst battle is with Johnson.

BESCHLOSS: That that's what I'm getting to it's.

I mean, we all love the Secret Service.

We all want them to do their job.

But Presidents also have to let them do their jobs.

LEONNIG: Absolutely.

BESCHLOSS: As you point out all through.

LEONNIG: No, you're absolutely right.

Johnson was the worst.

And when I say worst, I mean literally a President has just died.

And he is insisting that Rowley reduce the size of his Presidential detail because he thinks taxpayers will be ticked off.

And he doesn't like this.

He literally one time threatened to shoot out the tires of the follow-up car because he said the guys were getting so close that it, it just didn't look good.

And at, at one time on his farm, his ranch, forgive me, it, it was annoying his ability to, to, to hunt.

And so, you know, if, if you're an agent and the President's threatening to shoot out your tires, I guess it makes you think twice.

But, uh, just amazing how much he resisted the protection that obviously was so necessary.

BESCHLOSS: Yeah, and, and he had been in that motorcade in Dallas.

And it is even possible that his life was saved by this brave agent, Rufus Youngblood, who you know, was faster than some of the people in the President's car.

Pushed him on the floor of the backseat and, you know, was on top of him all the way to Parkland Hospital, the way it is supposed to happen.

Uh, you write about Nixon.

And forgive me for marching through this chronologically.

But this book, above and beyond the revelations that all of us have been hearing about and seeing you talk about during the last 24 hours, it's absolutely wonderful history.

All sorts of things that we did know, didn't know before.

And each President sort of shows a facet of the Secret Service that can cause problems.

And in Nixon's case, and you write about it so interestingly.

And you've used the White House tapes and original documents, uh... What Richard Nixon did, uh, in suggesting protection to Ted Kennedy, tell that story.

What was going on?

LEONNIG: You know, um, President Nixon, to me, is such a fascinating study when it comes to the Secret Service.

Many people have written much better histories about him, including my wonderful colleague and, and role model, Bob Woodward.

But on the Secret Service, I can tell you that he viewed it much as Donald Trump later came to view it.

And that is a political tool, a tool at his disposal, uh, to be wielded to improve his ability to reclaim and, and, and claim, um, the power of re-election.

BESCHLOSS: Right.

LEONNIG: He decides, um, never, uh, never losing an opportunity... Never, um, never one to lose the chance to seize crisis and turn it into an opportunity, when George Wallace is shot, and he's a candidate, um, and paralyzed... BESCHLOSS: Which is exact, exactly this week, 1972.

Laurel, Maryland... LEONNIG: You are good.

BESCHLOSS: The, the Laurel Shopping Center is still there.

It's a little more upscale than it was in those days, but.

LEONNIG: A little more, no more hot, no more hot shops.

BESCHLOSS: No, no.

LEONNIG: Um... George Wallace is shot while he's campaigning in Laurel, uh, in a rope line.

Arthur Bremer, who's been trying, by the way, to kill President Nixon without success... BESCHLOSS: Right, and, and, and writing about it.

You quote from that.

LEONNIG: Yes.

He actually succeeds finally in shooting somebody famous, which is George Wallace.

And, and Wallace is paralyzed.

That night, upon the President, Nixon, learning what's happened in Laurel on the campaign trail, immediately not thinks, “Oh gosh, poor Wallace.” Thinks, “I can get candidate, I can get Presidential detail agents following Ted Kennedy.” Ted Kennedy is not running for campaign, is not campaigning for President at this point.

But he is a political personage.

He is somebody who's... BESCHLOSS: And, and Nixon was obsessed with him, you know, maybe being drafted or something.

Really worried about him.

LEONNIG: Yes, saw him as a future rival, a likely Democratic problem.

Also hated the Kennedy's.

BESCHLOSS: Hated the Kennedy's and, you know... LEONNIG:: Yeah, had an obsession.

BESCHLOSS: That they got away with things that he never did.

LEONNIG: They probably did.

And so he, um, decides this is what he's going to do.

And then, of course, he calls to Wallace's hotel room, um, forgive me, hospital room, to, to wish him well, wish his wife well.

But mostly, he's plotting.

How can he get, uh, Ted Kennedy under detail watch so that he can have his own favorite agents eavesdropping on Kennedy.

And he believes that he's going to catch him in having an illicit affair... BESCHLOSS: Doesn't it say on the tapes, uh, “Catch him with some girls?” Or something like this?

LEONNIG: Yes, yes.

There are rumors of him having a girlfriend... BESCHLOSS: Girls is not my term.

I'm quoting from Carol's book.

LEONNIG: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Another way in which, uh, Nixon uses the Secret Service as his political tool is, is the image-making.

He, he tries to, on a trip to California, to pit the Secret Service agents against anti-war protestors so that he can maneuver it such that there are wonderful photographs of these savage protestors coming at his limousine, coming at his motorcade.

BESCHLOSS: The, the eve of the mid-term election of '70, I think, yeah.

LEONNIG: Yes.

And he's interestingly casting himself as the law-and-order President that's going to protect you from these, these marauding bands, these, these scary, potential criminals.

What the photos don't show is that President Nixon is literally egging them on, standing on top of his limousine, um, cursing at them and, and, and making signs... BESCHLOSS: Taunting, taunting.

LEONNIG: Taunting.

And, um, and he gets the images he wants, and he's delighted in the Secret Service.

BESCHLOSS: And used them in, in a campaign commercial on the eve of the, of the election.

LEONNIG: That's right.

That's right.

BESCHLOSS: And see, the and, and the book is so beautifully constructed because these are not only fascinating stories in and of themselves.

But each one shows you an, an important facet of what the quandary really is with the Secret Service and why it is so important to pay attention to history and, you know, cases in which we came very close or, as in 1963, a President did lose his life, uh.

I want to be respectful of time, because I know in about 15 minutes, we want to come to questions from the audience and comments, uh.

Nixon was followed by Gerald Ford, who we look back on as a fairly innocuous and unprovocative Presidents, you know, President compared to many of the others.

Yet in 1975, there are two serious assassination attempts against Ford, only a few weeks a, uh, from each other, both in California.

What was going on here?

Does that show us anything?

LEONNIG: That was a pretty tumultuous time in the country, um.

And it was also a time when the Manson clan was, um, trying to get a little bit of attention.

One of the assassination attempts is by a Manson follower.

I remember also this period being so interesting because agents really adored Gerald Ford.

He was the Everyman to them and his details... BESCHLOSS: A athlete and... LEONNIG: Yeah, a nice guy.

BESCHLOSS: Used to watch football together.

LEONNIG: Yeah, they watched football... On the eve of, of him going into the White House, he invited them all back to his house in, uh, Northern Virginia, across the river.

Just a normal guy living in a ram, in a rancher, you know, brick ranch house, um.

BESCHLOSS: So, so in, in, in some way, they found him a relief from Nixon, who might have faintly struck them as slightly weird and odd.

LEONNIG: There were a lot of agents that had troubles with Nixon.

Not his detail.

His detail liked him.

But the, but a lot of agents, and, and Dick, uh, Keiser, I hope I'm pronouncing that name properly, was his detail leader.

And he said, “What's going on?

This is the nicest guy in the world, and two people have already tried to kill him.” Um, you know, but luckily, again, back to vindicating, you know, Director Rowley's instructions and training on split-section, hair-trigger decision-making, what's called the attack on the principle, though... That attack on the principle training comes in such, in hand, in handy because agents foil both of those women, actually, who have guns and are trying to shoot, um, Ford as he's leaving a hotel, in one instance.

And as he's trying to enter the state capitol in another, both in California.

And then, of course, um, we get to Ronald Reagan.

BESCHLOSS: Okay, can I, can I stop you for a second before we get to Reagan?

The other question I have, before we go on to Reagan, is, you're absolutely right.

Thank God that Ford was spared both in Sacramento and also in San Francisco, in front of the Saint Francis Hotel.

The second time, he was saved by just someone in the crowd who jarred the arm of the would-be assassin, right?

LEONNIG: Yes, a marine.

BESCHLOSS: So my question is, you know, this is 12 years after Dallas.

Why are two assassins getting so close to the President that they almost shot him?

What, what was happening there?

LEONNIG: Well, one thing that they hadn't, um, devised yet, but they would, um, and this, you raise a really good question, ‘cause it brings up a bigger theme about the Service generally, um.

They hadn't really devised a strategy for how they were going to set a perimeter of where the President was going to go through and how close he was going to get to the public.

They still hadn't really figured that out.

BESCHLOSS: But isn't that a little late, after all this?

I mean, I'm sorry to ask rude questions, uh, you're the investigative, uh, journalists.

LEONNIG: It is, it is a little late.

And indeed, indeed there is a congressional investigation where that exact question is posed.

Because after Kennedy's assassination, there's a conclusion that we should at least keep people back 50 feet away from the President.

But in these instances, people are closer than 50 feet.

And a question is raised by an investigator in Congress, “Why the heck weren't you following those rules before?” But again, just as you mentioned with Johnson and with Nixon, the, the man wants to be near the voter.

And it's just a, a constant tug, all the way to... BESCHLOSS: Absolutely crucial theme of your book.

LEONNIG: Yes, but also another crucial theme is, the Secret Service often its methods are borne of blood.

Once they have a tragedy, they react to it and create a whole new strategy of how they're going to protect, protect us against that.

BESCHLOSS: Yes, so basically, in some cases, they're making sure that no President is in danger in the same way that it happened the last time, thus encouraging some terrible person to find a new way to do it, right?

LEONNIG: Correct.

Kind of reminds me a little about how I'm never allowed to carry any, um, uh, devi... Any containers that have more than three ounces, because of the bomber who had the ignitable material.

BESCHLOSS: Right.

LEONNIG: Um... You know, for the rest of our lives, we won't be able to carry more than three ounces on an airplane.

Is that gonna be the next form of the attack on an airplane?

I kind of doubt it.

BESCHLOSS: Right, uh, years afterwards.

So walking through this and, if you do the way, you know, read the book as Carol does it, she basically is building a case.

This is why these flaws were built into the system.

And this is why, as late as 1975, 12 years after Dallas, Gerald Ford is almost shot twice within, within a few weeks.

So, uh, now we're under Ronald Reagan, 1981, uh.

End of March, 1981.

He goes to give a speech, Washington Hilton.

He comes outside.

Now, this is six years after the Gerald Ford assassination attempts.

So I'm sure that the agents do not let, uh, the President, President Reagan do something like get near a rope line or get into a car with a crowd around and with people being able to bring weapons into the vicinity of the President.

That was not allowed to happen, was it?

LEONNIG: You know, it's starting to dawn on me, you might need to be, apply for the job of director, Michael.

You've identified all the... BESCHLOSS: I, I, I've just studied your book carefully.

I mean it, it's just, you make the case just step by step.

So what was going on?

LEONNIG: So here's what, what, here's what they did right, and here's what they did wrong.

BESCHLOSS: Yep.

LEONNIG: They were vindicated in all of that split-second training.

The attack on the principle, I mean, there's no more heroic image... BESCHLOSS: Jerry Parr is a hero, as you point out.

But let me just stop you for a second.

I'll ask you the same question that I asked with Gerald Ford, uh.

It, it doesn't comfort me very much that, at the last second, the heroic Jerry Parr was able to shove the President into the car and, and get him to the hospital, not back to the White House, and therefore save his life.

LEONNIG: Well, we were going to get there.

Here's the thing they, here's the thing they did wrong.

Because it's Washington, because it's the Washington Hilton, down on Florida Avenue, the Secret Service is like, “Oh, it's our backyard.” You know, Reagan hadn't wanted to wear the bulletproof vest.

He's a fairly new President.

He didn't like how heavy it was.

He didn't wear it.

They were like, “We're in Washington.

It's around the corner.

It's like our backyard.” Um, they didn't do a special screening of the people that were around the Hilton.

And so where cameramen are, from CBS and ABC, um, and NBC, trying to film the new President coming out of the Hilton and a speech with the Union.

In the mix of that group, totally unscreened, is John Hinckley, who's arrived on a bus the day before with a plan for how he is going to win the hand of Jodie Foster, the actress.

And that is by killing a President and becoming famous.

He is 11 feet away from the President's limousine.

Huge mistake, huge mistake to not have screened someone 11 feet away.

I mean, it's a classic Gerry Ford all over again, the streets outside San Francisco and outside the hotel.

But what they did right, Tim, Tim McCarthy throws up his chest when he hears the bullets.

I mean, he doesn't look around the corner.

He do, he doesn't tap the brake... BESCHLOSS: He took a bullet for the President.

LEONNIG: He throws up his chest to take the incoming bullets.

And Jerry Parr also, no brake.

Hears a shot, takes his hand, shoves Reagan's jaw and shoulders into the backseat of a car.

Hitting him pretty badly, and so badly that when he lands on the top of Reagan, Reagan thinks that his rib has been broken because he's struggling... BESCHLOSS: “You SOB, you broke my rib.” LEONNIG: “You SOB.” And I mean, and you know, even Roy Shaddick, Ray Shaddick, another agent behind him, shoves Parr's feet, almost breaking them, inside the limo to slam the door.

The agent who's driving the limo is saying to himself, “I hope we don't run over Timmy.” Because Tim McCarthy has fallen on the driveway, and, and they are going to speed over his body if they need to.

BESCHLOSS: Right.

So, uh, a near tragedy and, you know, Americans that day, you know, we had never been through an assassination where the, attempt where the President lived.

So the miracle was that he did live.

And it was, as you point out, it was a lot closer than people thought at the time.

Okay, that's '81, uh.

Bill Clinton, the 1990s.

A plane flew into the White House and smashed against the wall of the South Front, right?

The South Port, uh, near the South Portico.

Bullets were fired at the White House in the 1990s.

I'm going to ask the question again.

This is just a decade after Ronald Reagan is nearly killed.

How are these things still happening?

LEONNIG: I know it's going to sound crazy to say.

When that plane was, um, it sounds funny, hijacked.

It was basically like a stolen, uh, Piper Cub plane.

But when that plane was stolen, um, from, I believe, Germantown, Maryland, don't hold me to that, historians.

Somewhere in Northern Maryland, um... BESCHLOSS: I think it was Germantown.

LEONNIG: Nobody in the Secret Service envisioned a plane being used to attack the White House.

Which is funny now, not so funny, when you think nobody envisioned a plane being used to come at the World Trade Center or at the Pentagon as a terror attack.

But, but that, the person who was flying that small, little, single-engine plane, um, was also mentally not well and wanting fame and thinking, this is the way to get it.

The Secret Service started to plan for how they were going to deal with that, which was more careful monitoring of FAA radar.

And unfortunately, um, that more careful monitoring didn't include going very far beyond sort of the Washington Mall.

So they weren't going to get a lot of early warning, which becomes important on 9/11.

BESCHLOSS: Right, uh, exactly where I was going.

Just for a moment, on 9/11, how do you feel the Secret Service did that day?

LEONNIG: I, I, I don't want to be flip, but I would give them a, like a, a seven, uh, or a six.

BESCHLOSS: That's about the sense I get from the book.

LEONNIG: Unbelievable heroism, just, just like with Reagan.

Unbelievable heroism that, um, that sort of, you know, is spine-tingling in terms of what some people were willing to give that day to protect the President, to protect the White House, to protect the Secret Service.

And then just sort of bizarre mistakes, um.

Cheney, for example, is in the White House that day, working, uh.

Usually, he's in the Executive Office Building, but he happens to be in the White House at 9:00, when the second tower is hit.

The Secret Service receives a message from the FAA that day and... That there are two more planes, likely hijacked, heading towards downtown Washington, 20 to 30 minutes out.

The FAA says, you know, “They're not talking to us, and they're heading towards you.” Um, somehow, that message that is given to a Secret Service senior agent is not passed along to the rest of the Secret Service leadership and to the people who are in charge of the White House's security.

There's a 20-minute lag.

So Cheney is not moved, uh, as has been reported before, for much later than is appropriate.

And he's, you know, going to be the President if the President is killed, uh.

It's a pretty important continuity of government, protective step.

Another failure of imagination, though, is as his agent, as brave as he is, breaking down the door essentially into Cheney's office, grabbing him by the, by his belt loop, and saying, “Mr.

Vice President, we're leaving now.” Rushing him down the stairs towards the bunker.

The failure of imagination is nobody had given the Vice Presidential detail agents all the classified information and tools that they needed to get the Vice President into the secure bunker.

So the Presidential Emergency Operation Command Center, which is where he should have been running things is, he has to wait outside for a little while until they can find somebody with the right keys.

It's not the ideal situation for a terrorist attack.

BESCHLOSS: Yeah, and, and that's the frustrating thing, because, you know, under the ideal of the way the American system works, you learn from these mistakes.

You strengthen your organization to make sure they don't happen again.

But just as we've been talking about for the last few minutes, what your book shows is that a lot of these mistakes were made again and again.

I mean, by 2001, it was not beyond the realm of possibility that there might be this kind of terrorist attack.

And at least, you know, I knew a little of this before.

But your book showed me how astoundingly we were much less prepared than we probably should, should have been.

And I want to keep on saying, I love the ser, the Secret Service.

I know that Carol does.

It's essential to the Presidency.

It's essential to our democracy to protect the President.

And here is a case where, you know, your critic is your friend, uh...

The only way the Secret Service, and any organization, gets better is if all of us see where it falls short and demand that that not happen again and that it's a different organization in the future.

Are you up to talk about Donald Trump and Joe Biden for about four minutes and... LEONNIG: Of course.

BESCHLOSS: Okay, okay good.

Uh... Donald Trump, the way you have prepared the reader through this history, it's like a crack in the marble that's getting wider and wider.

Remember, we were talking about 1963, when John Kennedy is telling the agents, you know, “I don't want you, or ivy league charlatan's standing on the running boards, getting your faces in the pictures and interfering with people who want to see me.” And that goes to, you know, the bizarre extreme of Donald Trump, as you have revealed in ways that we didn't know anything about before, uh, subverting the Secret Service, abusing it for political reasons.

People in the Secret Service wearing MAGA hats this some, you know... Nixon may have done some bad things.

That would have been inconceivable in 1972.

How did we get to the point where that kind of stuff was possible in 2020?

LEONNIG: A couple of reasons.

I mean, I'm not the best diag...

Diagnostic, um, expert about every element of this.

But law enforcement agencies generally trend conservative, right?

And President Trump, um, was speaking a law-and-order sort of speech all the time.

He was an, he was anti-immigrant.

He was talking about getting har... Getting tough on criminals.

And some of his policy prescriptions were ones that were very appealing to sort of the Republican center of a normal, you know, police department, including the Secret Service.

But President Trump was like a President like, like no other, because of the way he manipulated this agency and manipulated, ultimately, every agency.

Every agency under him was, was just something to be used and deployed for his benefit, for his gain.

You know, a, a conversation with a foreign leader wasn't a way to secure and better protect America's security abroad.

It was a way for him to get dirt on Joe Biden so that he could use it in a campaign ad.

So everything was kind of kerplooey in, with this particular President.

But with the Secret Service, what I found a little bit disturbing was how much they bought into his snake oil, how much every detail, every Presidential detail gets close to the President and starts to mirror... BESCHLOSS: And it's natural, yeah.

LEONNIG: It's a totally natural thing.

But Nixon detail leaders... BESCHLOSS: Yep.

LEONNIG: You know, they, they liked him.

People who worked for Agnew were shocked when he was indicted, um, you know, thought he was the nicest guy.

He and his wife invited them for... BESCHLOSS: What, wasn't the head of his detail Clint Hill, who had been on the car in Dallas?

LEONNIG: That's right.

BESCHLOSS: At least for the first term, yeah.

LEONNIG: That's absolutely right, uh.

And many, many agents talk with great, great affection for Agnew.

It's kind of funny to think about now, um, a person charged and convicted, uh.

But back to Trump.

They all wore, many of them, I should say, wore red ties in solidarity with the President when it, it was election night.

They were rooting for him.

Okay, they also... BESCHLOSS: And, and, and I, I just want to interject, this is bizarre.

And this did not happen before in American history.

This was a moment that things had really changed, right?

LEONNIG: I think, you know, as I say, I think a lot of details, Presidential details get close to the President... BESCHLOSS: But, but not wearing hats, and not wearing ties.

That's getting into almost fascist territory, from my point of view.

I don't want to put words in your mouth.

LEONNIG: I wouldn't, I think what I would say is that they, um, they were bending with Trump.

Trump's view, which was every bureaucrat that's not with me and pulling for me is the deep state... And everybody else is a good guy.

And loyalty to me is more important than your service and your oath to the Constitution... BESCHLOSS: And, and as you make the point all through the book, the whole point of the Secret Service is loyal to the country, loyal to the, the Presidency, loyal to the democracy.

Not to Dick Nixon or LBJ or some personality.

LEONNIG: I know it must be really hard to make that line, but so many honorable people have drawn that line in this job before.

You know, the people elect them.

We protect them.

BESCHLOSS: Right.

LEONNIG: You're supposed to be apolitical, nonpartisan, as alleged, as the director recently, uh, reiterated in response to my book.

But you know, the other thing that was really worrisome was that on January 6th, agents were reaching out to me to say, “Look at this.” And they sent me screenshot of social media postings of members of the Presidential detail essentially empathizing with or cheering on the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

BESCHLOSS: Participating in a possible coup d'état against Congress that could have led to the a, the assassination of Mike Pence, could have led to the suspension of Joe Biden's inauguration.

And so our Secret Service, whom we pay, were at least to some extent, part of that?

LEONNIG: Some, some portion of them were.

And some portion of them, I mean, I eyeballed every one of these sites where these comments were made, and, and some of them were talking about the same talking points that President Trump was making.

These people, uh, these Democrats have denied President Trump his rightful second term.

The liberals are engaged in a coup, um.

The patriots, quote-unquote patriots, who stormed on the Capitol, are trying to stop a stolen election.

This is while, you know, Tim Giebles, the detail leader for Vice President Pence, is trying to protect him from being hung.

BESCHLOSS: Absolutely, on a gallows outside.

LEONNIG: Right.

So it's really disconcerting.

Another thing, so disconcerting to so many agents, uh, alums and current agents, was President Trump basically effectively denying President-Elect Biden a full detail that President-Elect receive.

BESCHLOSS: Okay, you're anticipating my last question, which is, and then I'll go to the questions from the audience.

If you're Joe Biden and it's the second week of November of 2020, and on that Saturday he has been declared by the networks and many or most people feel that he is indeed President-Elect.

And you've got the incumbent President withholding protection.

And there were, I mean, you've really brought this out, but there were at least rumors floating around that maybe the Secret Service agents were loyal to Trump and not to Biden.

And if you want to take that to its extreme, maybe don't want to protect Biden, don't like him, don't think he was really elected President.

So my question is, would Joe Biden have been rational in November of 2020 to have been nervous that Secret Service agents may not plot against him but maybe won't work as hard to protect him as they should?

Would that have been a rational fear if he felt that way?

LEONNIG: I think it would have been entirely rational.

You had a director who had allowed, um, a top executive in the Secret Service to work as a political, um, arm of the President.

You had a director who had allowed the Secret Service to be used to clear the entire, uh, park of peaceable protestors by force.

BESCHLOSS: In, in June of 2020.

LEONNIG: In June of 2020.

You had a director who had allowed the Secret Service, without any complaint, to be infected with Covid, uh, while, but while dispatched by the President, out into the public eye.

BESCHLOSS: Outside of Walter Reed Medical Center.

LEONNIG: Outside of Walter Reed, but for campaign rallies in Tulsa... BESCHLOSS: Also.

LEONNIG: Or, or in Arizona or in Florida, where, where Covid was spiking.

And where the CDC, our own federal government, was saying we shouldn't be going out into public spaces with strangers because your chances of getting this, this horrible and potentially lethal infection skyrocket.

But anyway, so if, back to the political for Biden, I think it was entirely rational, um, and being denied that protection, you, you said it best...

When everyone presumes that Biden is the President-Elect, the target on his back is enormous.

If somebody doesn't like Biden in our incredibly divided country, he's in trouble now and needs that fuller protection.

And to be denied it because your President doesn't really want this, this peaceful transfer of power and this transition to happen, it really raises questions about your objectivity as a public servant protecting democracy.

An oath to the Constitution, not an oath to the President.

BESCHLOSS: Perfectly said.

And I think everyone who's watching us and listening to us gets a sense of how crucial and important this book is, because what Carol is saying is that, you know, this is an institution that's essential to protecting our democracy.

And maybe to this moment, there are still problems that should keep us up at night.

So what Carol is doing, in my view, is what a patriot does, which is, you know, to show her country where one of our crucial democratic institutions is flawed and perhaps not as perfect in protecting us as it should be.

And we should demand that Congress and the Executive Branch do everything it possibly can so that these risks are not there.

Am I stating it relatively correctly?

LEONNIG: Well, I mean, yes.

I mean, you said I'm so great, so yes.

BESCHLOSS: Well, that, that part goes without saying, right?

But, but I mean, I just, you will read this book and it's not only exciting, and you'll learn a lot.

But it will make you nervous by the end.

And that's what the Founders wanted us to do about democracy.

They wanted us to always be vigilant.

And after reading the book, you will feel as if you need to be.

And I feel that's a public service.

How about a few questions from the audience?

“Did Carol talk to any Secret Service agents that were or are on former President Obama or President Trump's detail?” LEONNIG: Yes.

Uh, and actually, I'd like to say something that question gives me an opportunity to tell you all, um.

I am blown away by the quality and the dedication of some of the agents that I met, uh.

The risks they took to speak to me, uh, you know, break my heart, because some of them lost their jobs for telling me the truth.

And there is a very active campaign by the Secret Service to ferret out leaks and to fire people who talk to the press without authorization.

BESCHLOSS: Mm-hmm.

LEONNIG: They use it as a way to not share the weaknesses and vulnerabilities they have.

These people... BESCHLOSS: Which, which is true of government agencies that are not perfect, time immemorial, right?

LEONNIG: Yes, except being able to fire them just because they spoke is pretty horrible.

And, um, I would say that, you know, while I am really critical of the agency, I'm doing it on behalf of those agents who said, “Please ring the alarm bell.

Please ring it for us, because we're worried.

We're scared.” Um, they never say they're scared.

“We're worried about what will happen, and we need not to be shortchanged.

We need technology upgraded.

And we need real, really strong leadership.” BESCHLOSS: And, and also, as you write about, when President Biden was coming in, he was so mistrustful, so worried about the fact that there might be disloyalty in these ranks.

You know, lingering Trump people who, who feel that he was not really, that Biden was not really elected.

That I found this fascinating.

We've known a little bit about this, but you really tell the story.

He basically brought some of his old agents, who were on his detail as Vice President under Barack Obama, and they're now on the Presidential detail, right?

LEONNIG: Yes.

By the way, I should, in fairness, say that the White House denies that they made a formal request to change out the agents.

You know, that pushback is something I understand.

When you become President, you, you want to defend the agency that protects you, um.

But when he, his transition team had registered their, their grave concern that some of these personnel needed to change, or the, or the incoming President was not going to feel comfortable.

And they did choose supervisors who had worked with and, and protected Vice President Biden when he was Vice President and also protected his wife, uh.

One of the supervisors used to head up Jill Biden's detail.

So they have familiar faces, people they trust and know.

BESCHLOSS: They do.

But I, what I would say, as a critic, is we should not be in the position where a new President has to hire back people whom he knows because he's so worried about the others.

There's a real problem here.

And I really hope your book calls attention to it in a way that causes this agency to be reformed to make sure that that kind of political subversion never happens again.

One of our questioners is asking, uh, “What kind of protection is there for former Presidents?

And is it the right amount?” LEONNIG: Former Presidents have protection for life, as do their wives.

And it is nothing like the protection for a President.

They have, you know, someone who's following them through an airport, driving them places, making sure their home is secure.

There's quite a lot of expense in making sure their primary residence is secure.

But it is, you know, um, in comparison, probably on the order of one-one hundredth of what is spent to protect, uh, a current President.

There are, this President, uh, forgive me, our recent, former President Trump, expanded, uh, protection for his family, his grown children and also three of his senior aides for six months after he left office.

So six months after the inauguration, he and his family, um, and three of his top aides will all continue to have Secret Service protection.

BESCHLOSS: Do you, do you think that's fair?

Or was that an abuse?

LEONNIG: Abuse is a hard word.

I would say it's unprecedented.

A lot of people have their children protected after they leave the White House, especially if they are in high school or just starting college.

But just as a comparison, Sasha and Malia Obama both had their protection taken away before they graduated college.

BESCHLOSS: Wow.

LEONNIG: Um...

This instance, these are grown people in their 40s, um, who still have Secret Service details around them.

BESCHLOSS: Uh, yeah, it, it's amazing.

If you were able to, to recommend changes that are made in the Secret Service, or increases in funding, or change of the relationship between Presidents and political aides on the one hand and the agents and the people who manage them on the other.

What kind of things would you recommend?

LEONNIG: First off, I would say the Secret Service has to address and look very deeply at its mission.

Its mission is a Hydra-headed mess.

A President, that's your number-one job.

They're also protecting 40 other people.

They're also protecting Super Bowls, and Olympics, and the United Nations General Assembly, and cyber hacking, and financial crimes.

Pick a mission.

Get the tools for the mission.

Because as one very, very senior Homeland Security official told me, they don't have the tools to do the mission they have now, um.

Best person compared it to the television show 24.

You know, if the producers of 24 came on, they'd think this is a joke.

The service also needs a massive, massive, 21st century upgrade in all of its technology.

You know, you can't have, in March 2017, an untrained, unplanned jumper get on the grounds and stay on the White House for 15 minutes, uninterrupted, because the radios, alarms, and sensors don't work.

BESCHLOSS: Yeah, that you're right about it.

It's, it's amazing.

LEONNIG: It can't be the case.

It's the 18 acres that's supposed to be the most secure in the world.

Let's, let's give the Secret Service the tools they need to do that.

BESCHLOSS: Yeah, it's absolutely...

In any case, everyone can see why this is such an exciting and absolutely crucial and important book.

Thank you for writing the book, Carol.

You've done a great service for your country.

Not for the first time, as a faithful reader of yours for, for many years, uh.

You're doing it again and again.

And I've got children.

I'd like them to live, live in a democracy.

I think there's a greater chance of that, thanks to Carol Leonnig and this wonderful book.

Zero Fail is the latest example of that.

LEONNIG: Michael, how nice, thank you.

BESCHLOSS: My pleasure.

GRAHAM: Great, great moderating, Michael.

And, and Carol, let's, let's hope that your expert and disturbing critique of the Secret Service does as you intended and spurs action and reforms to, to enable the agency to, uh, to recover before, before it's too late.

From all of us here at Politics and Prose, stay well and well read.

WOMAN: Books by tonight's authors are available at Politics and Prose bookstore locations or online at politics-prose.com.

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