Ex-envoy Friedman: Attempted assassination of Trump and Oct. 7 both inexcusable security failures
In that respect, says former ambassador, Saturday’s shooting ‘is our October 7’; lauds Trump for getting up, ‘face dripping blood, to make sure everybody knew he was okay’
David Friedman, the United States ambassador to Israel under former president Donald Trump, said on Monday that the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday was “our October 7,” in terms of the “inexplicable” security and intelligence failures involved.
Speaking to Channel 12, Friedman was asked how Trump’s would-be assassin, a 20-year-old whose motives remain unknown, was able to shoot at the ex-president: “What happened to the Secret Service, that lapse in security?”
Friedman replied, “Well, look, you had your October 7 — which at this point no one’s been able to explain how that could have happened, right? And this is our October 7.”
Israel’s failure to prevent Hamas’s invasion and massacre in southern Israel last year, despite intelligence indicating the Gaza-ruling terror group’s plans, is widely regarded as the worst security catastrophe in the country’s history.
Speaking about the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, Friedman said, “It doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever how somebody could crawl up on a roof in plain sight, have a clear sight at the president of the United States, or former president, giving a speech.”
The shooter— identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania— managed to fire several shots before being killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper. Trump was hit in the ear, and a supporter of his was killed by the would-be assassin’s shots.
“Snipers on the roof, from what I’m told, were delayed in taking shots. I mean the whole thing is inexplicable,” Friedman said.
“But unfortunately, we’re getting used to that in this world — some really colossal failures of security and of intelligence that lead to these kinds of horrific results,” he added.
Officials say Crooks came to law enforcement’s attention when spectators at the Trump rally noticed him acting strangely outside the event, pacing near the magnetometers.
Crooks made it to a nearby roof with an AR-style rifle. A local law enforcement officer climbed to the roof and found Crooks, who pointed the rifle at the officer, Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe told The Associated Press. The officer retreated down the ladder, and the gunman quickly fired toward Trump.
Friedman, who noted that he did not see the shooting when it occurred — because, he was “embarrassed to say,” he was fast asleep in Israel (where it was the very early hours of Sunday morning) — said he was “incredibly concerned” when he saw what had happened, telling Channel 12, “This is a dear friend of mine.”
But, he added, “When I saw how he jumped up, how he forced the Secret Service to let him up, even while his face was dripping blood, to make sure that everybody knew he was okay, to stand up, that’s the Donald Trump I knew.”
“With all the trauma around, I couldn’t help but smile, because that’s really the guy I knew… His instincts really came through in that event. A lot of people, I would assume, under those circumstances, would want to stay low, they’d want to stay out of the public sight. All he wanted to do was get up, stand up, raise his fist triumphantly that he had survived and he was fine. And that’s who he is.”
Asked how Trump was recuperating, Friedman said, “He’s really OK, he’s even better than OK. He sees, probably, some real divine providence in the fact that he could have lost his life had the bullet been one millimeter in a different direction.”
Friedman added that he personally is “kind of optimistic about where this will take us — both [Trump] personally and as a country, that it’ll maybe bring us back to a place of greater civility within our discourse.”
The attempt on the former president’s life came two days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The event is proceeding as planned, though Trump has said that he rewrote his address following the shooting.
At the convention on Monday, Trump announced that Senator JD Vance would be his running mate, seeking the vice presidency.
Speaking to Friedman on Monday, Channel 12 presenter Yonit Levi said: “It’s not a huge secret that Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his advisers very much want Trump to be reelected.”
Under the Trump administration, the United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and brokered the Abraham Accords, peace agreements between Israel and several regional nations.
But, Levi said, “Israelis have heard from President Trump all kinds of things these last months,” citing Trump’s statement in March that Israel had to “finish up” the war, as well as comments shortly after the outbreak of the war in which he said the Hezbollah terror group is “very smart.”
“You’ll get the same president Trump as we had from 2017 to 2021,” Friedman responded, marked by “strong support for Israel.”
On Trump’s “very smart” comment, Friedman said, “Saying that Hezbollah is a formidable enemy or that they’re smart is not that they’re good or that they shouldn’t be defeated. You can be a challenging enemy, and still be worthy of annihilation, which is in fact what Hezbollah is, on both counts.”
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the Israel-Lebanon border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
Friedman told Levi that Trump supported “a quick, decisive victory by Israel,” adding, “Now, it hasn’t been quick, but it’s certainly moving now to being decisive, and I think he supports that completely.”
Trump, said Friedman, “thinks the war should end when Israel’s victorious — not before that” and backs a decisive Israeli victory against “these horrific terrorist foes.” Trump, he says, is “100 percent behind Israel.”
In his debate last month against US President Joe Biden, who is running against Trump in a bid for reelection, Trump rejected Biden’s assertion that Hamas was the only party to the war that wanted fighting to continue.
“Actually, Israel is the one [who wants to keep fighting], and you should let them go and let them finish the job,” Trump said.
“He doesn’t want to do it. He’s become like a Palestinian,” Trump said of Biden, “but they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian. He’s a weak one.”
Asked whether he’d support the establishment of a Palestinian state to secure peace in the region, Trump said, “I’d have to see.”
When Friedman was asked about his own role in a potential second Trump administration, Friedman said he thought about it “all the time,” but declined to reveal the content of those thoughts, adding: “It’s up to him. I’ll be honored to serve the United States in whatever way he thinks is best.”
