Transcript of 'NO STONE UNTURNED': Trump's return to Butler sparks surge in security

Well, for more on former President Trump's return to Butler, Pennsylvania, today, we're joined now by a member of the Bipartisan Trump Assassination Attempt Task Force, Ohio Republican Congressman Dave Joyce. Congressman, thank you for being here. Really appreciate your time.

Always a pleasure to be with you, Jackie.

Thank you. So you know well, sir, the failures that precipitated the assassination attempt on the former President at Butler, including communication failures between Secret Service and local law enforcement issues with drone technology, even problems with the advanced staff that created the conditions that allowed this to happen. Can you walk us through what your committee discovered in its investigation and how that's been remedied for today?

Well, certainly. One of the things that happen is when you have the Secret Service come to take over an event like that, local law enforcement, state and local law enforcement, is there to help, but they're under the guidance of the Secret Service. In this case, there's so many failures on so many levels. The fact that they didn't walk through even that day, the two sharpshooters that were inside the AGR building where President was shot from, they were inside and they had never communicated. They were from another county and never talked to anybody from the Secret Service. The fact that they had command posts, and they couldn't... Secret Service and EMS were in one, and all the local law enforcement was in another one, and they couldn't transfer information. The idea that this person was walking around, it was already considered suspicious, and the photos were being transmitted, cell phone to cell phone. As you know, when you get in a crowd like this, cell phone transmissions just don't work. There should have been a live link. These things should have been taken care of. The fact they didn't take a drone over or secure the perimeter of the facility.

There's just so many app failures. I'm happy to see the Secret Service has since come out and said it was their ball, and they dropped it, and I'm sure that they're not going to leave any stone unturned today.

They've announced a couple of changes for today's rally. If we just want to pull it up on our screen, it includes one command post and communication bridge, law enforcement on top of the AGR building, security manpower in the hundreds and surveillance drones. But as Alexis McAdams just laid out to us, this event is really larger than the one 12 weeks ago, in part because it's such a powerful moment to have the former President returning to the scene where he almost lost his life and people in that community wanting to be part of this symbolic and powerful return to show that he's not going to get pushed down by something like this. But given the size of today's rally, do you foresee any challenges, new challenges that maybe the agency needs to be extra aware of going into this?

Well, the facility itself is not ideal for these type of things. I mean, you have a water tower lurking in the back, but I'm sure that's properly covered today. You have the building to the side. The one thing we did, and Chairman Kelly and the ranking member had us go to this scene, which I thought was invaluable because it's one thing to read 110 feet. It's quite another when all of us were on top of the rooftop to realize how close this person was to President. It's important that you understand that the perimeter of this place has to be shut down. There has to be a way that they can communicate with each other in an effective way. The other thing is that you have to do counter surveillance where you have people who watch the magnetometers. They're not foolproof. But when people come up, lurk around outside of it, don't come in, and they're checking to see how the progress is going. They're working to see what the security is like. You have to have people on the ground, eyeballing the crowd on the way in, and those who don't come in, specifically, and making sure they follow them.

This guy was out there with the a change finder. I mean, that should have had police on him and dogs and everything else that they could get on him right away because it just doesn't amount to being the proactive secret service that we've had in the past. They've admitted that they were reactive. I don't know when they dropped the ball and went from proactive to reactive, but we need to get back to being a proactive force that protects the President and the citizens who come to my district and from all over. They were going to come just to cheer on the President today.

Let's hope he has a successful and powerful rally there in Butler. Congressman, really quickly, because we're almost out of time, but you're on the Appropriations Committee, and I thought it important just to get your reaction to this criticism around FEMA. There's been some misrepresentation of how the appropriations, how it works. There are different revenue streams for things like migrants and Lebanon. But at the same time, when you have the Secretary of State yesterday We just gave 157 million, I think it was, to Lebanon, and you have folks in Nashville, North Carolina needing help. Explain to us how that can happen and if you think that Congress needs to repriorise prioritize some of these things coming back next session.

Look, we had $1.8 billion that they could draw down before we put another $20 billion in with the continuing resolution before we left town. If they want to draw that down, The stream of money is there. But you're talking about agencies that are underneath Director Mayorkas, who, as we've seen, everything that he's touched has been a failure. The funding stream is in place. If they need more money, FEMA is supposed to come back within 30 days to tell you what they're also going to need if they needed more funding. Well, if the administration wants to get more funding on the table, then have them do that within 20 days. They have the right to speed that up. But for us to come back and say that we're going to put more funds down, we don't know what the total cost or projected costs are going to be, would be a waste of everyone's time.

All right. Important perspective. Thank you so much, congressman Dave Joyce. Really appreciate your time. Hope you have a good rest of your Saturday.

Pleasure to be with you. I'm Steve Ducey. I'm Brian Kilme.

I'm Ainsley Earhart. Click here to subscribe to the Fox News YouTube page to catch our hottest interviews and most compelling analysis.