Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-NY) joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss his legislation to require House active shooter training after the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes breaking news. Joining me now is Congressman Anthony D'Esposito.
00:05Congressman, thanks for joining me once again. Thanks for having me. We sit here a little less
00:10than three weeks after Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a political rally
00:16in Pennsylvania. And since then, you introduced legislation that would require every full-time
00:21house employee to undergo active shooter training. Can you talk to us a little bit about your bill?
00:26Sure. I think that, quite frankly, it was surprising to me that it wasn't something
00:31that's already mandated by those who work on Capitol Hill. I mean, if you think and you look
00:36at the threats, the security threats that we have across this nation, there are many facilities in
00:43Washington, D.C. and on Capitol Hill that are at the top of that target list. We are often seen as,
00:49you know, the epicenter of democracy. It's a place where we welcome, you know, thousands upon
00:58thousands of protesters each year who are there about the issues that they are passionate about.
01:05So quite frankly, I'm a little surprised that it wasn't already in place. But
01:09after the assassination attempt on President Trump, I think it's one of those, it's an idea
01:14that is a proactive approach looking forward. As someone who has spent a career in emergency
01:20management, both in the fire service and law enforcement, you know, after a large-scale
01:26incident, you always have a critique and you say to yourself, what can we do better next time?
01:32And, you know, after every emergency, you say, we want to, are we more prepared now than we were
01:37before, before the last one? And I think that this is an opportunity for us to be prepared
01:43better for, God forbid, if this were to ever happen again.
01:47After that assassination attempt, you really saw bipartisan calls questioning, A, how did this
01:53happen, amongst other things. But is there bipartisan support for your legislation?
02:00I mean, we'll see. You know, I'm hoping, I think it's common sense legislation. I think that
02:07I don't believe that education is ever wasted to give our staffers and our co-workers the ability
02:14to train in an active shooter situation. Not only is it better to prepare them and prepare our staff,
02:21but it makes the lives of law enforcement professionals a little bit easier because,
02:26God forbid, we are in that situation. Anyone who has lived through any type of shooting or any type
02:33of incident like that, there's a lot of emotion and people do get scared and people don't know
02:38how to react. And I'm not saying that, you know, training will prepare everyone to react exactly
02:44how we want them. But I think that having that bit of training not only will probably bring comfort
02:50to our co-workers and our staffers on Capitol Hill,
02:53but it will allow law enforcement professionals to do their job better.