While many Republicans are demanding Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle be fired, Whip Tom Emmer thinks she should stick around and take a turn in the ‘hot seat.’
‘Don’t resign,’ he told DailyMail.com at the Republican National Convention in comments directed at Cheatle.
‘I think you should sit in the hot seat. You should answer all the questions before you are fired. I think you gotta be there.’
The Republican whip rattled off a list of questions he had for Cheatle, including ‘most importantly, how in God’s name did [the shooter] know to go to that building in the first place? What told him that building was going to be not secure, that he was going to be able to gain access?’
Cheatle made an appearance at the RNC and was confronted by Republican senators.
Emmer pointed to the back-and-forth between the Trump team, which says they had requested additional security and were denied, and the Secret Service that says they had offered the additional security.
‘I want to know which one is true, because if this administration did not provide additional resources that were requested, that is incredibly damning.’
‘I know the speaker, some of our members are already calling for the resignation. I’m one of those that says you know what, that’s the easy way out. You stick around you answer these questions.’
Speaker Mike Johnson has called on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign – other Republicans have demanded she be fired.
The top Secret Service head will sit for a hearing with the Oversight Committee on Monday.
Emmer said the shooting had brought on a sense of unity he’d never seen at a convention before.
‘It’s been amazing in this place. You know, the president asked me the other night when I was sitting with him, he said, “Do you think this is the best convention ever? And like, you know, actually, without pandering?”‘
‘”Yes,” I told him,’ Emmer said.
‘What happened on Saturday. I think that really galvanized us.’
‘You saw Nikki Haley, you saw Ron DeSantis when I when they want to shoot a guy want to kill a guy for what he believes in what he’s fighting for. Time to unite and understand this is much, much bigger than us.’
Former UN Ambassador Haley and Gov. DeSantis received a largely warm embrace from the crowd when they took to the stage earlier this week – with only limited booing.
Despite being Trump’s former top opponents, they made their case for why Republicans needed to unite behind him – even ones that don’t agree with him on everything.