Two shot during Trump assassination attempt say secret service failed them

Two men who were shot during the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump this summer say the US Secret Service was negligent in protecting the former president and other bystanders at the campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

David Dutch, 57, an ex-Marine, and James Copenhaver, 74, a retired liquor store manager, told NBC News in an exclusive interview Monday they were excited to be sitting in the bleachers behind the Republican nominee at the fairgrounds in Butler on July 13 when gunshots rang out and they were hit.

Another man, Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed in the shooting while shielding his family. Trump was wounded in the ear.

The interview with the two Pennsylvania men who were critically injured marked their first public statements since 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, opened fire in July from an unsecured rooftop nearby before he was fatally shot by sharpshooters.

It was like getting hit with a sledgehammer right in the chest, sai