Trump's former Secret Service agent raises concerns over Trump's stage presence amid threat: "Why not delay?"

A former U.S. Secret Service agent questioned why former President Trump was allowed to speak at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, even though a "person of interest" was identified beforehand.

On "America's Newsroom" Thursday, Mike Matranga questioned why there was a rush to push someone on stage and why not delay the action.

"Taking a tactical pause, assessing the situation, and locating him could have potentially prevented what we haven't seen in 43 years."

According to Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi, Thomas Matthew Crooks was deemed a "person of interest" by the Secret Service after law enforcement observed him behaving suspiciously and possessing a golf range finder.

According to Guglielmi, a threat requires a different protocol and course of action than a person of interest, as was evident when Crooks was identified as a threat only after he retrieved the weapon and climbed onto the roof of a building just prior to the shooting.

Matranga called the situation a "catastrophic failure."

"It is unacceptable to not address the American people or to blame only the local law enforcement," he stated. "This is a catastrophic failure of communication. We have known for decades that we rely too heavily on our local counterparts to do the jobs we are designed to do, and so this is a catastrophic failure."

"The former president and those who were harmed or injured by him deserve better treatment."

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has stated that he is prepared to urge President Biden to dismiss Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle following the incident.

The building with a sloped roof at its highest point has a safety factor that should be taken into consideration when putting someone up on it. Therefore, the decision was made to secure the building from the inside.

This report was contributed to by Greg Norman, David Spunt, Jake Gibson, Chris Pandolfo, and Michael Ruiz from Planet Chronicle.