WATCH: Sen. Rosen questions acting Secret Service leader on Trump rally shooting probe

Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada, questioned U.S. Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe and FBI deputy director Paul Abbate in a hearing Tuesday.

The joint hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Senate Judiciary Committee was the latest to examine what investigators have learned about the shooter who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, as well as the security failures that preceded the deadly shooting.

Rosen asked Rowe to explain the specific intelligences challenges of trying to mitigate violence by lone wolf actors versus state actors.

"We have people that are, for whatever reason, fixated on carrying out an attack against the president of the United States or one of our protectees, and in this instance you have the assailant who was a loner," Rowe said. "Obviously he was researching. He had researched the Democratic National Convention. He had researched and Googled, or used a search engine, about the president, the former president. And so I think he had moved towards an idea that he was going to try to do something."

"I think what we always try to wrestle with is trying to line up and see people as they're starting to head down a pathway towards violence," he said. He added that the national Threat Assessment Center has worked to grow their understanding so that agents in the field are better able to make a determination of whether somebody is a threat or needs needs mental health or another type of services.

Rowe, who since 2023 had been serving as deputy director of the Secret Service, was appointed acting director after Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation.

Subscribe for exclusive content in our newsletters

PBS News podcasts

Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app

Find more from PBS News at

Subscribe to our YouTube channel