Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
MANCHESTER, N.H. – As the nation grapples with the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, law enforcement in New Hampshire are already thinking about the lessons learned from Pennsylvania and how they can secure future campaign events.
“No chief or no police agency wants what happened on Saturday on their resume,” Manchester, New Hampshire Police Chief Allen Aldenberg told WBZ-TV.
Aldenberg has helped secure his fair share of campaign events involving presidents, former and current. Manchester is a popular campaign stop in the swing state of New Hampshire and Secret Service often reach out to local police weeks before an upcoming event.
“They trust us. So perhaps they may give us a little more than they would,” Aldenberg said.
Most Manchester rallies are held at the city’s SNHU arena. In those cases, Aldenberg says Secret Service is involved with securing the interior of the arena, Manchester police are involved with securing the outside, and preparation for these events can take weeks.
“And once you get three or four days out from the event, we’re in there probably sometimes two or three times a day, meeting with Secret Service, meeting with the arena staff, the management, doing walkthroughs,” Aldenberg said.
On the day of the event, communication is key. Each agency involved works with its own communication system. That is why Aldenberg says he pairs up his local police with other agencies.
Manchester police offer all sorts of capabilities to Secret Service. They use bomb-sniffing dogs, local intelligence, and tactical assistance in the form of SWAT teams. Aldenberg says they do not offer sniper capability.
Each event can be time-consuming and costly. Aldenberg says each local department is typically left to pick up the tab for the security it provides, which can be a strain on small police departments.
“It can also be a financial burden. It’s a significant amount of money when a candidate or a particular sitting president comes into your community to hold an event. But that cannot be an excuse not to do what’s appropriate and what’s right,” he said.
Aldenberg says it’s critical that local law enforcement and the public receive as much information as possible about what led to the assassination attempt on Trump at his Butler, Pennsylvania rally.
“They owe it to the public to be fully transparent so we make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said.
As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.
“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.
“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”
Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.
“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.
He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”
Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.
For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.
“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”
Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.
CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”
Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.
29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.
“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.
While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.
“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,
“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.
“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.
Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.
“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.
Local News
A Massachusetts man was arrested late Wednesday night after police say he was driving more than 100 mph on a New Hampshire roadway.
Officers with the Rindge Police Department stopped a vehicle shortly after 11 p.m. on Route 202 near Sears Drive in Rindge following a report of a car traveling at excessive speed, according to a statement from Chief Rachel Malynowski.
The vehicle, a 2020 Kia Stinger, was spotted traveling at 104 mph in a posted 55 mph zone, Malynowski said.
The driver, a 21-year-old man from Attleboro, was arrested and charged with reckless operation of a motor vehicle, according to police.
He is scheduled to be arraigned April 5. If convicted, the man faces a fine of at least $750, in addition to the court’s penalty assessment, and a 90-day license suspension, Malynowski said.
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
Setting sail on iceboats across a frozen lake in Wisconsin
Massachusetts man awaits word from family in Iran after attacks
AM showers Sunday in Maryland
Pa. man found guilty of raping teen girl who he took to Mexico
Florida man rescued after being stuck in shoulder-deep mud for days
Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death
Giants will hold 2026 training camp in West Virginia
Mamdani’s response to Trump’s Iran strike sparks conservative backlash: ‘Rooting for the ayatollah’