White House: Secret Service Director Is ‘More than Qualified To Do Her Job’

BRZEZINSKI: "I want to start with the head of the Secret Service who faced a lot of questions yesterday. Did she answer them? Is she qualified to do her job?"
EARNEST: "Mika, she’s more than qualified. She is somebody who has a very difficult responsibility. She’s responsible for leading the agency that protects the president and the White House. What you saw her do yesterday was take responsibility for the shortcomings that are evidence in the security posture at the White House. When there’s someone who jumped the fence on the north lawn about 10 days ago. She also took responsibility for leading a review and implementing the needing reforms."
BRZEZINSKI: "Josh, tell me, about what, what drills has she run? What has she done to change the culture in the Secret Services? And how can you actually say everything you just said, given the three or four cases that we’ve been talking about this morning, which show that people who could harm the president have gotten very, very close to either the White House, inside it, or the president himself?"
EARNEST: "Well, Mika, in the immediate aftermath of this incident 10 days ago, there were a number of reforms put in place that very evening to strengthen the perimeter, to change some security protocols to make sure that the president was safe. I’m obviously not going to be in a position to detail all the security protocols from here. Those security protocols work because they're not widely known by the public. But there were some reforms that were implemented that very night. More importantly, there’s a broader review under way to determine what happened that night. What was the Secret Service’s response to that incident. And what changes need to be made. Whether it’s staffing changes. Whether it is additional technology so — that should be deployed, to protect the president, to protect the White House. Are there some protocols that should be different? Should the protocol for responding to these incidents be changed? So this is a pretty broad look they’re conducting. The president and the team at the White House is obviously very interested in reviewing the reforms they recommend. But this is something the Secret Services takes very seriously and they need to work on it."