Former President Trump reacted to the news of Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigning in the wake of the assassination attempt against him, telling Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that ‘she never gave me proper protection.’ 

Cheatle resigned Tuesday morning amid pressure from Republican and Democrat lawmakers amid scrutiny over the massive security failure that led to the shooting at the Butler, Pa. Trump rally earlier this month. 

Trump, during his rally, ever-so-slightly turned his head—narrowly missing the bullet shot by 20-year-old suspect Crooks’ AR-15-style rifle by just a quarter of an inch. The bullet hit him, instead, in his upper right ear.

The bullet killed firefighter, father and husband Corey Comperatore as he protected his family from the shots, and severely injured two others. 

‘She never gave me proper protection, so I ended up having to take a bullet for democracy,’ Trump told Fox News Digital Tuesday after she resigned. 

‘Many requests were made by on-site Secret Service for more people, always with a turn down or no response,’ Trump said. ‘I have the biggest crowds in history, and they should be treated accordingly.’

Trump told Fox News Digital, though, that ‘big improvements have been made over the last week.’

Fox News reviewed the letter Cheatle sent to the U.S. Secret Service Tuesday morning, just a day after she testified before the House Oversight Committee Monday and over a week after a would-be assassin Thomas Crooks attempted to take the life of Trump at his rally in Butler, Pa. on July 13. 

‘To the Men and Women of the U.S. Secret Service, The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders and financial infrastructure,’ Cheatle wrote in a letter to the agency. ‘On July 13th, we fell short on that mission.’ 

Cheatle said that the ‘scrutiny’ over the last week ‘has been intense and will continue to remain as our operational tempo increases.’ 

‘As your Director, I take full responsibility for the security lapse,’ she wrote. 

‘In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that, I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director,’ Cheatle wrote. 

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has opened an investigation into the Secret Service’s handling of security for the Trump rally on July 13. 

President Biden is scheduled to return to the White House for the first time since ending his re-election campaign.

Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday while campaigning in Nevada and has since been isolated at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home. Just days later, Biden made a sudden withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race via a written statement.

The president has not made any public appearances since both his diagnosis and suspending his re-election bid despite growing concerns over his fitness to serve.

After staying out of the public eye for almost a week, the president will reportedly travel from Delaware to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday afternoon, according to the White House daily press schedule. 

The White House physician gave an update on the president’s health on Monday, sharing that his symptoms have ‘almost resolved completely’ and that Biden ‘continues to perform all of his presidential duties.’ 

Biden called in to the recently revamped Vice President Kamala Harris campaign headquarters on Monday, making his first public comments since dropping out of the race. 

‘I know yesterday’s news is surprising, and it’s hard for you to hear, but it was the right thing to do,’ Biden told his former campaign staffers. ‘I know it’s hard because you have poured your heart and soul into me to help us win this thing, help me get this nomination, help me win the nomination and then go on to win the presidency.’

In less than two days since Biden dropped out of the race, the campaign was renamed to ‘Harris for President,’ and the vice president has already reportedly gained the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, according to The Associated Press.

The race between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is too close to call in the aftermath of President Biden’s decision to drop out.

Trump garnered the support of 49% of voters compared to 47% who prefer Harris, according to the results of a new Quinnipiac University poll released Monday.

The former president takes a slightly larger lead in a hypothetical six-way race that includes other candidates such as independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with Trump coming in as the preference of 45% of voters and Harris garnering the support of 41%. Kennedy Jr. received the most support of independent or third party candidates, coming in with the support of 6% of voters, the poll found.

‘The dramatic reset at the top of the Democratic ticket does little to move the race as Vice President Harris enters the fray with numbers similar to President Biden,’ Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a news release on the poll’s findings.

The poll is one of the first to be released since Biden’s decision to drop out of the race Sunday, which the president said was ‘in the best interest of my party and the country.’

Pressure on the president to drop out of the race among his fellow Democrats had continued to intensify in the weeks after a disastrous debate performance left many questioning his ability to defeat Trump in November.

Biden was quick to endorse Harris in the minutes after announcing his decision on X, noting in a subsequent post that his ‘very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President.’

‘And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,’ Biden continued. ‘Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.’

Harris will now look to solidify support for her candidacy ahead of the Democratic National Convention next month and take on Trump in November.

For his part, the poll found that Trump enjoys his best approval rating in the history of the poll, with 46% of respondents expressing a favorable view of the former president and 49% expressing an unfavorable view. The Quinnipiac University poll first began asking registered voters for their feelings about Trump in May 2015.

The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed 1,257 registered voters nationwide between July 19-21 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

Hollywood Democrats have opened a floodgate of donations to Vice President Kamala Harris as her presidential campaign picks up steam with a string of celebrity endorsements.

Actor George Clooney, a Democratic fundraiser who had called on President Biden to step aside from the 2024 campaign in a July 10 op-ed in The New York Times, threw his support to Harris on Tuesday morning after Biden dropped out over the weekend. 

‘President Biden has shown what true leadership is. He’s saving democracy once again. We’re all so excited to do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest,’ Clooney said in a statement to CNN’s Jake Tapper.

‘Lost’ producer Damon Lindelof said Monday his call for a so-called ‘Dembargo’ on Hollywood donations to Democrats had been lifted since Biden passed the torch. 

In an Instagram post, Lindelof said he felt ‘profound relief, gratitude… and then, for the first time, genuine EXCITEMENT for the election ahead’ after Biden’s decision.  

‘Suffice to say, the DEMBARGO is lifted. And here. We. GOOOOOOOOOOO!’ Lindelof added.

With Biden out of the race, Hollywood heavyweights, including rapper Cardi B, Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, TV producer Shonda Rhimes and others, offered glowing endorsements of Harris. 

‘We are all in for Kamala Harris! Started to work on her behalf the moment she announced,’ Andy Spahn, a Democratic fundraiser in Hollywood and president of consulting firm Gonring, Lin, Spahn, told Reuters.

The vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee made her first official visit to her campaign headquarters on Monday evening, walking out to Beyoncé’s song ‘Freedom.’ CNN reported that Harris’ team got approval from Beyoncé’s representatives to use the song.

A June fundraiser hosted by Clooney and actress Julia Roberts raised more than $30 million in what the Biden campaign said was the largest Democratic fundraiser in history.

However, after Biden’s halting performance at the June 27 presidential debate against Republican candidate former President Trump, Clooney and others publicly called for the president to end his campaign. 

Disney heiress Abigail Disney, who had said ‘Democrats will lose’ with Biden atop the ticket, told CNBC that Harris would be an excellent candidate and said she has resumed her donations to Democrats.

‘I’m with her,’ actor Bradley Whitford posted on X. Whitford played a fictional White House staffer on ‘The West Wing.’ 

Curtis, who won an Oscar for her performance in ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once,’ said she supported Biden’s decision to endorse Harris. Singer Barbra Streisand said Harris ‘will continue Joe Biden’s work and will be a great president.’

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and ‘Scandal’ creator Rhimes posted a photo of her standing with Harris and offered her endorsement.

‘I stood behind her in 2016 when she ran for Senate, I was behind her when she ran as [vice president] and I continue to stand behind her today,’ Rhimes wrote on Instagram.

Still more celebrities gave their endorsements, including ‘The Woman King’ actress Viola Davis, ‘Abbott Elementary’ actress Sheryl Lee Ralph and Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles. 

Cardi B proudly proclaimed that she had called for Harris to replace Biden shortly after the June 27 presidential debate. 

‘AHAHAHAHA LETS GOOOOO I TOLD YALLL KAMALA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE 2024 candidate,’ the musician wrote on X.

Reuters contributed to this report.

The Justice Department revealed late Monday in a court filing that it does in fact have transcripts of President Biden’s interviews with a biographer after initially having denied possessing the documents. 

While juggling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to former special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents following his departure as vice president in the Obama administration, DOJ attorneys said it would be time-consuming to process audio files into transcripts related to the president’s conversations with biographer Mark Zwonitzer. 

‘We don’t have some transcript that’s been created by the special counsel that we can attest to its accuracy,’ DOJ lawyer Cameron Silverberg told U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich last month. 

That changed Monday evening, when Silverberg told Friedrich in a new court filing that Hur’s office did in fact have transcripts of some of Biden’s conversations with Zwonitzer. The biographer worked with Biden in 2007 and 2017 to compile memoirs, Politico reported. 

‘In the past few days, in the course of processing the portions of the Biden-Zwonitzer audio recordings that the parties agreed to (see June 25, 2024 Joint Status Report at 2-3, ECF No. 20), the Department located six electronic files, consisting of a total of 117 pages, that appeared to be verbatim transcripts of a small subset of the Biden-Zwonitzer audio recordings created for the SCO by a court-reporting service,’ a court filing late Monday evening reviewed by Fox News Digital states. 

The specific FOIA request related to the Biden-Zwonitzer transcripts was filed by the Heritage Foundation. 

The court filing Monday evening also revealed that while fielding the various FOIA requests related to the bombshell Hur report, DOJ officials contacted an unnamed person with knowledge of the transcripts, but the individual was unable to weigh in. After resisting reaching out to Hur directly for information pertaining to what documents he relied upon for his final report, the DOJ did in fact reach out to Hur. 

Hur confirmed the Biden-Zwonitzer transcripts and said he relied on the documents, as well as a note handwritten by Biden related to Afghanistan, for his final report. 

Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified materials after his eight years as vice president was released in February, and stated Hur would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’

‘Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,’ Hur wrote in his report. 

The findings sparked widespread outrage that Biden was effectively deemed too cognitively impaired to be charged with a crime yet could still serve as president.

In May, the White House asserted executive privilege over audio and video recordings related to Hur’s investigation, including the interviews between Biden and Zwonitzer. 

‘The audio recordings of your interview and Mr. Zwonitzer’s interview fall within the scope of executive privilege. Production of these recordings to the Committees would raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the Department’s ability to conduct similar high-profile criminal investigations–in particular, investigations where the voluntary cooperation of White House officials is exceedingly important,’ Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote to Biden in a letter obtained by Fox News at the time. 

Silverberg said in his Monday court filing that he will confer with the relevant parties regarding processing the documents for potential release. 

The court filing comes one day after Biden dropped out of the presidential race following mounting pressure from Democrats to bow out and let another candidate take the mantle to run against former President Trump. The pressure was amplified following Biden’s botched debate performance, which opened the floodgates to criticism and concern surrounding the president’s mental fitness and age. 

Vice President Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2024 election following Biden’s departure from the race. 

Vice President Kamala Harris declined to preside over a Wednesday joint address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because she will be in Indiana for an event that was previously scheduled, per an aide. 

Harris, who on Monday became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president following President Biden’s campaign suspension, will not be in attendance at the address and will not preside. 

With Harris’s absence, the task ordinarily would fall to Senate President pro tempore Patty Murray, D-Wash., but Murray reportedly refused to do so – and will instead be boycotting the address.

Efforts made to reach Murray’s office for comment were unsuccessful.  

When Harris’s office was asked if she would have agreed to preside over Netanyahu’s address if she were going to be in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, an aide to the vice president said they would not answer hypothetical questions. 

Netanyahu will be speaking to members of Congress during a joint address on Wednesday after being invited by the bipartisan leaders of both chambers back in May. 

In the absence of both Harris and Murray, the session will instead be presided over by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who is retiring after this Congress. 

During the time of Netanyahu’s address, Harris will be attending the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Grand Boule in Indianapolis, Ind., which is a biennial international conference, per a White House official. 

While she won’t be there, an aide emphasized that Harris’ absence and refusal to preside shouldn’t be considered a change to her stance on Israel.

An aide to the vice president told Fox News Digital that she would be meeting with Netanyahu at the White House this week while he is in Washington, D.C. They noted that the meeting is separate from Biden’s planned meeting with the prime minister. 

Harris is expected to reiterate her commitment to Israel’s ability to defend itself from Iran and militias that are backed by the country, such as terrorist groups Hizbullah and Hamas. According to the aide, Harris will once again condemn the Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israeli civilians by Hamas, as well as the sexual violence that took place. 

The vice president will also express her already stated concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where most of the war is taking place. Harris is expected to further convey that the war should end soon and in a way that allows for a secure Israel, the release of all hostages and the restoration of the rights of civilians in Gaza. She will specifically discuss with Netanyahu efforts to reach a deal for a ceasefire. 

U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday in the wake of mounting pressure following the assassination attempt on former President Trump, Fox News confirmed. 

Fox News reviewed the letter Cheatle sent to the U.S. Secret Service Tuesday morning, just a day after she testified before the House Oversight Committee Monday and over a week after a would-be assassin Thomas Crooks attempted to take the life of Trump at his rally in Butler, Pa. on July 13. 

‘To the Men and Women of the U.S. Secret Service, The Secret Service’s solemn mission is to protect our nation’s leaders and financial infrastructure,’ Cheatle wrote in a letter to the agency. ‘On July 13th, we fell short on that mission.’ 

Cheatle said that the ‘scrutiny’ over the last week ‘has been intense and will continue to remain as our operational tempo increases.’ 

‘As your Director, I take full responsibility for the security lapse,’ she wrote. 

Cheatle said, though, that the ‘incident does not define us.’ 

‘We remain an organization based on integrity and staffed by individuals of exceptional dedication and talent,’ she wrote, adding that the agency ‘will move forward with our investigatory and protective mission in a steadfast manner.’ 

‘We do not retreat from challenge,’ she wrote. ‘However, I do not want my calls for resignation to be a distraction from the great work each and every one of you do towards our vital mission.’ 

Cheatle said that when she got the call asking whether she would return to the Secret Service after her brief retirement from the agency, she said she ‘did not hesitate.’ 

‘I love this agency, our mission, and the great men and woken who sacrifice so much every day,’ she wrote. ‘I have, and will always, put the needs of this agency first.’ 

‘In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that, I have made the difficult decision to step down as your Director,’ Cheatle wrote. 

Cheatle reflected on her career, reminding that she served as a special agent for 27 years, securing events for then-First Lady Hillary Clinton; worked as a supervisor on then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s detail; supervised then-Vice President Biden’s detail; lead RTC and more–including ‘overseeing the agency’s protective mission under the Trump Administration as AD-OPO.’ 

‘As I stated in the hearing yesterday, all of you are worthy of trust and confidence,’ Cheatle wrote. ‘You deserve the nation’s support in carrying out our critical mission.’

Cheatle said ‘one of my favorite things about this workforce is that the men and women are fiercely committed to our mission.’ 

‘Thank you for all that you do, and will continue to do, for our great nation,’ she wrote, signing the letter ‘kac.’ 

Trump, during his rally, ever-so-slightly turned his head—narrowly missing the bullet shot by 20-year-old suspect Crooks’ AR-15-style rifle by just a quarter of an inch. The bullet hit him, instead, in his upper right ear.

The bullet killed firefighter, father and husband Corey Comperatore as he protected his family from the shots, and severely injured two others. 

Cheatle admitted under oath that the Secret Service ‘on July 13th, we failed.’ 

‘As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency,’ she said. ‘We must learn what happened and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like July 13th does not happen again.’ 

Cheatle added: ‘Our agents, officers and support personnel understand that every day we are expected to sacrifice our lives to execute a no fail mission.’

House Republicans, including House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, had been calling on Cheatle to resign, calling her and the agency under her watch ‘the face of incompetence.’ 

‘It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign,’ Comer said during the hearing. ‘The safety of Secret Service protectees is not based on their political affiliation. And the bottom line is that under Director Cheatle’s leadership, we question whether anyone is safe.’ 

But Cheatle had defied those calls for days, maintaining she would not tender her resignation, and instead appeared before Congress to answer questions for the American people. 

Cheatle’s initial explanation of why there was such a significant security lapse that led to the near assassination of Trump included details about the roof Crooks was perched upon. 

‘That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,’ Cheatle said last week. ‘And so, you know, the decision was made to secure the building, from inside.’ 

During the hearing, Cheatle said the Secret Service is ‘still looking into the advanced process and the decision made’ as to why an agent wasn’t positioned on top of the roof that Crooks used to fire at former President Trump.

‘The building was outside of the perimeter on the day of the visit. But again, that is one of the things that during the investigation, we want to take a look at and determine whether or not other decisions should have been made,’ she said. 

She added that ‘I’m not going to get into the specifics of the numbers of personnel that we had there, but we feel that there was a sufficient number of agents assigned’ to the event.

Trump’s security detail reportedly asked for additional security from the Secret Service, repeatedly, but those requests were not met. 

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general has opened an investigation into the Secret Service’s handling of security for the Trump rally on July 13. 

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.