Texas AG Paxton to Newsmax: Trump Rally Security Failure 'Shocking'

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told Newsmax on Tuesday that the security "incompetence" that allowed former President Donald Trump to be nearly assassinated at his campaign rally over the weekend is "shocking."

"It doesn't make sense to me that that building was unsecure," Paxton said during an appearance on "The Chris Salcedo Show."

"It's a 130-yard shot. Recreational hunters can make that shot. I can make that shot. Probably more than 90% of the time, I'm going to make that shot. I'm not going to miss that shot. It's too close.

"So it's very shocking to me that this was some type of, like, just incompetence," he continued.

"It doesn't make sense that they would allow that building [to be unsecured], they would see the shooter, that other people would see the shooter, and yet nothing was done with President Trump? He wasn't taken off the stage just as a precaution? I don't know how to explain that any other way than they just let it happen."

Trump was less than 10 minutes into his speech at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday when he was grazed by a bullet in the ear and took cover behind the podium. Positioned on a nearby rooftop, the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, killed former fire chief Corey Comperatore, 50, and critically wounded David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, before being fatally shot by authorities.

Paxton said Trump's message of unity at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week "will pull in a lot of Americans" who are "going to get the agenda" of the former president.

"They've seen that it worked for four years, and they've seen the comparison to [President] Joe Biden," he said. "None of his [Biden's] policies have worked. Whether it's international, whether it's the border, whether it's the economy, it's been a disaster.

"And so unity has to be around policies and ideas, and that's what President Trump is putting forth. If these other people who have this complete opposite view of what America should be, which is the disaster that they've created, well, they may not like the America that we have.

"But most Americans are going to like success, and they're going to like a president who's strong and who favors policies that benefit the American people," Paxton said.

In the aftermath of the attempt on his life, Trump reworked his convention speech to focus on unifying a deeply divided country.

On Sunday, the former president said he was originally going to give a "humdinger" of a speech on Thursday that would have targeted Biden's policies, but changed course following the failed assassination attempt.

"This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together," Trump said. "The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would've been two days ago."

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