Merrick Garland: It's 'extremely alarming' a shooter was able to get that close to Trump
Attorney General Merrick Garland said he is outraged by the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump and warned that democracy depends on accepting election results.
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland told NBC News on Tuesday that he was outraged by the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, saying authorities must do everything they can to ensure that type of "horrific attack" never happens again.
"This should not happen in America. This kind of security failure is not acceptable," Garland said in an exclusive sit-down interview that will air Tuesday evening on "NBC Nightly News." "This kind of a horrific attack on a former American president just can’t continue. We have to be sure we stop this."
Garland said Trump was hit by a bullet, and there was "no question" that Trump was "the object of an assassination attempt," even if authorities were still trying to determine the motive. Garland said that it was "extremely alarming" that the shooter was able to get so close to the former president.
"Democracy will not survive if people decide that the way in which they're going to get whatever outcomes they want, or whatever other motive he may have, is by killing someone," Garland said. "That’s why we have to find out what happened here, why it happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again."
With less than 100 days until the 2024 presidential election, Garland also warned that political violence poses a major threat in America's "more polarized society," pointing to a "quite scary" increase in threats.
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