Former President Trump and his 2024 running mate JD Vance sat down for their first joint interview with Fox News host Jesse Watters on Monday following the assassination attempt on the GOP nominee’s life at a rally in Butler, Pa., last week.

Trump told "Jesse Watters Primetime" embattled Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle came to see him in the days following the assassination attempt.

"It went very nicely. She was very nice, I thought. But, you know, somebody should have made sure there was nobody on that roof," he said. 

The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired several shots at the former president from the rooftop of a building roughly 130 yards away. 

Investigators are piecing together how the 20-year-old local resident was able to gain a clear line of sight at Trump. Eyewitness Michael Difrischia filmed Crooks lying down on top of the American Glass Research building, looking down the sights of an AR-style rifle.

"I saw a younger kid running through the crowd and somebody had spoke[n] up [and] said the guy had a gun," Difrischia told "The Ingraham Angle" last week.

WHO WAS THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS? WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT TRUMP'S ATTEMPTED ASSASSIN

"The problem was the police officers were too close to the building. They could not see him," he added. "We were trying to tell them he’s right there, he’s right there, but they just couldn’t see him."

Other eyewitnesses said they tried to warn police officers of a shooter before he fired the shots that grazed Trump’s ear, killed former Pennsylvania fire chief Corey Comperatore and injured David Dutch and James Copenhaven.

Trump told Watters he was surprised at how close Crooks was able to get. 

"They said it's really, it's a -- a bad shot would usually hit the target. And so I mean, it's got to be, somebody's got to be there. And it's essentially a flat roof. I mean, I noticed that she [Cheatle] said, well, this is a slope roof where you think of like a barn where you have, this thing had just a little -- a little upswing in it, a few degrees. This was a not -- it essentially was a flat roof," he said. 

Cheatle told ABC News last week the building the alleged shooter was on top of had a "sloped roof at its highest point." "And so, you know, there's a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn't want to put somebody up on a sloped roof," she said. 

Trump said he believes Cheatle was given "false information" when she mentioned the roof's slope as a reason why there weren’t any Secret Service agents atop the building.

The 2024 Republican nominee questioned why he wasn’t told to stay off the stage for 5-20 minutes before he came out and started speaking if there were concerns about a potential threat. 

OFFICER REPORTED MAN AT TRUMP RALLY WITH RANGE-FINDER 30 MINS BEFORE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: SOURCE

"You have to answer why couldn't I have stayed off the stage for five minutes while they do their work? Why couldn't, you know, how does a situation happen where a roof that's plainly in sight from the location where I was speaking… why would somebody not have seen that?" he asked.

Cheatle appeared on Capitol Hill Monday to answer for the security failures that almost led to the assassination of a former president. 

She acknowledged the attempt on Trump’s life was the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades. 

Two ranking members of the House Oversight Committee, Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., and Jamie Raskin, D-Md., called on Cheatle to resign from her post in a letter following her testimony, saying she failed to "provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure and to reassure the American people that the Secret Service has learned its lessons and begun to correct its systemic blunders and failures."

Trump praised the actions of his Secret Service agents, who rushed to cover him after shots rang out at his rally.

He told Watters his ear is healing and getting better. "We're getting down to the small bandages. But it was a nasty one. And it was nasty, period. That was exactly one week ago from today, exactly. And, you know, when you think about it, it's -- that's been a lot of territory covered," he said. 

"Who -- who would've thought this was going to be happening? But it happened. And I got very lucky, or God, I think it was God, actually."

At the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the kindness and good nature of the local denizens were much talked about by attendees. But there was something else in the air: A new kind of openness to Donald Trump. 

I spent a lot of time outside the security perimeter, or "zone," as it was locally known, because I generally prefer talking to people who aren’t wearing lanyards and credentials for my work.

I stopped by the Milwaukee Brat Bar near the RNC entrance a few times, mainly because they have a cigarette machine, and my vice of choice was hard to find in the area.

There, one afternoon, I was getting change and I heard a man and a woman talking. They were in their thirties, nice looking. I couldn’t tell if they were a couple, coworkers or friends. And then I heard her say, "It’s like I’m coming around to Trump."

For me, this kind of comment was like a '49er striking gold, so I politely introduced myself and inquired if I might I ask them a few questions.

I wanted to know when this softening of attitude towards the former president had started. She wasn’t sure. She thought it had been gradual, but that the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump had built on it. As for the guy, he told me he had not voted for Trump in 2016 or 2020. I asked if he had been open to it back then, and he said no. And in '24? Yes, he was now.

HERE'S WHY SHY TRUMP VOTERS NOW FEEL SAFE GOING PUBLIC

It didn’t seem policy driven, or even the "are you better off than you were four years ago?" thing. It was more like finding a way to tolerate an annoying member of your friend group. Trump was no longer a dealbreaker for a dinner party invitation.

The next day, grabbing lunch at Who’s on Third, I met Jay and Jeff, who are both very committed Trump supporters. Jay, in advertising and in his fifties, had been coming down to the zone for lunch every day to dig the goings on.

Their enthusiasm was high. Both thought the iconic image of Trump pumping his fist after getting shot was a game changer. They almost seemed giddy at the prospect of a second Trump term.

One question I have asked strong Trump supporters over the years is whether the people they work with know how the feel about him. Both Jeff and Jay said they weren’t shy about it now, but acknowledged they used to be. I hear that a lot.

My most personal acquaintance with Milwaukee kindness came one evening when my friends stranded me. I had been to dinner, and told my crew prior to dinner to let me know when they were heading back to the hotel. After dinner, I texted "where are you?" 

They were at the hotel. 

It wasn’t the end of the world. I’d take an Uber, but I was out of cigarettes and went back into Brats. There I met Scott and Lizzie, a married couple who looked like they belonged in a Williamsburg, Brooklyn, electroclash night club in 2004, not like the RNC cats at all.

But they were Trump supporters, so we got to talking and I told them my story. That’s when Scott glanced at an approving Lizzie and they offered me a ride.

In a very Northeast way I said, "I can’t ask ya to do dat, it’s a half hour."

He said, "You’re not asking, we’re offering."  And I said, "You know what? Ok." I think it was the most Midwestern thing I’d ever heard uttered.

On the way back to the hotel, an incredible thunderstorm rattled giant flashes of lightning that dominated the skies. This truly was the flat and honest middle of America. We chatted about our kids, the amazing joy and challenge of all that. We also played a game I invented back in the 90s based on the sitcom "Friends." Lizzie won.

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But politics did come up, and it turned out all three of us had had a slow acceptance of Trump. We talked about how his newly minted running mate, JD Vance, had been a Never Trumper. It seemed like all of us, or at least most of us, had been. Fully embracing him was so new, and so crazy, we agreed. But it was also a natural evolution many people have gone through. 

I told them a story about the night of the election in 2016 when I asked a mentor of mine, "What do we do now?" And he said, "You call balls and strikes. He does something you like - say so, something you don’t like - say so."

Lizzie, Scott and I all agreed there was more that we liked than we didn’t.

When I got back to the hotel and told my friends what happened, one said it was the most Dave Marcus story ever, and maybe so. But it's really just an American story. I've gotten plenty of rides from strangers in Texas, California, and a million other places because we liked each other. 

But I felt something new in Wisconsin. Trump just isn’t taboo anymore, and one has to wonder if that might be part of why Joe Biden is no longer in this race.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS