Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday he was deeply alarmed after a gunman was able to get close enough to try to kill former President Donald Trump earlier this month.
Speaking to NBC News on Tuesday, Garland described the attack – which killed one of Trump’s supporters at a rally in Pennsylvania – as a “security failure” that “should not happen in America.” The FBI said last week that Trump was hit by a bullet in the ear, though officials are still investigating looking for a clear motive during the attack.
“This is extremely alarming,” the attorney general told NBC. “Our democracy will not survive if people decide that the way they get the results they want … is by killing someone.”
“That’s why we need to find out what happened here, why it happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Republicans do continued to react angrily after the shooting, prompting Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign earlier this month amid a bipartisan push.
Garland also said there is no doubt that Trump was the target of an assassination attempt, calling the shooting “a horrific attack on democracy itself.”
“This was a major safety failure,” he added. “These types of horrific attacks on a former American president simply cannot continue. We have to make sure we stop this.”
However, he added that in a democracy, people should have the opportunity to discuss and disagree, sometimes loudly, and then vote to resolve those disagreements through the ballot box.
“There will always be a winner and a loser … and that person’s supporters will always be angry,” Garland said. “But in a democracy we have to accept the results. Otherwise, democracy will not survive.”