In his first public comments about the prostitution scandal that has engulfed the Secret Service, President Obama praised the agency and said those implicated in the scandal should not the diminish the work of everyone else.
"The Secret Service, these guys are incredible," Obama said according to Politico. "They protect me, they protect our girls... A couple of knuckleheads shouldn't detract from what they do."
Obama made the comments during an interview with Jimmy Fallon, which was taped at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The comments were telegraphed in a pool report.
"What they were thinking, I don't know," the president said, according to USA Today's The Oval. "That's why they're not there anymore."
The scandal, in which Secret Service employees preparing for a presidential visit hired prostitutes and took them back to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia, has already cost six employees their jobs.
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