First it was Butler, Pennsylvania. Then it was Palm Beach County (twice). And now, in Washington, D.C., Americans witnessed yet another significant attempt on President Trump’s life.
During this past weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a lone gunman stormed past “security” with the alleged goal of killing Trump and high-level members of his administration. Identified as a California resident and a reported Democrat donor, the suspect bears all the hallmarks of someone indoctrinated by the left’s media/online disinformation ecosystem — the same ecosystem that regularly slanders Trump and his supporters as “Nazis,” “threats to democracy,” and “literally Hitler.”
I put “security” in quotation marks because it’s evident from the event attendees‘ collective experience that the evening’s defensive measures were not up to standard. Not even close for one in which the president was in attendance.
“There were no checkpoints at the doors at street level,” NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich wrote on X, responding to a video of the suspect sprinting past security. “This checkpoint was only one level up from the ballroom, the stairs down to the ballroom are yards away. Grateful for the rapid response, but the fact that anyone could get this far into the building was a serious problem.”
The hotel venue’s lackluster security was unfortunately a detail the attempted assassin seemingly noticed in his anti-Trump manifesto prior to the attack.
While commentators are correct in noting the bravery of the individual U.S. Secret Service officers who quickly engaged the assailant before he could harm the president and other targets, the entire episode raises an important point the federal agency tasked with protecting the president doesn’t want discussed. That is, how was this wannabe-assassin allowed to get so close to the commander-in-chief at what should’ve been a highly secured event?
To say that USSS got lucky that nobody was killed is an understatement. As my colleague Brianna Lyman aptly observed, “What if the would-be assassin had been carrying a bomb or other explosive device? A device detonated just outside the magnetometer may not have breached the ballroom, but it could have caused mass casualties and chaos nonetheless.”
The Secret Service’s security failures at the Washington Hilton closely resemble the same level of negligence the agency displayed at the 2024 Butler rally, in which Trump was a head turn away from having a sniper’s bullet go straight through his skull. And much like this most recent incident, it was only after the attempt on Trump’s life that such security breakdowns were acknowledged.
Which brings us to the chief problem at hand.
It’s become increasingly evident that the Secret Service has not undertaken the structural reforms needed to ensure the president’s safety since Trump’s return to office. But don’t take my word for it. Award-winning journalist and RealClearPolitics political correspondent Susan Crabtree has extensively reported on the agency’s ineptitude and corruption during Trump 2.0.
But rather than address those reported problems, USSS leadership seems more concerned with rooting out the officials sounding the alarm about their existence.
That’s not a good look by any measure.
The Trump White House has since come out and issued a statement saying it is “standing by the leadership of Secret Service” but that Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is nonetheless “convening a meeting early this week with the White House operations team, USSS, and DHS leadership to discuss protocol and practices for major events involving POTUS.”
Responding to the statement on X, Crabtree noted that “any admission by the White House that the @SecretService was not up to the task Saturday night would invite more perpetrators.” She said the fact that the administration has scheduled a meeting on the subject, however, “is significant.”
“Susie Wiles has been overseeing the Secret S[e]rvice and keeping Director Sean Curran in place in spite of multiple failures. The fact that she called a meeting to review USSS protoc[o]ls is significant. Top WH staff know this type of porous WHCD security can never happen again if they want to avoid a major tragedy,” Crabtree wrote on X.
Let’s hope that Trump and his team finally recognize the systemic failures within USSS and act accordingly. Not just for their own protection, but for the safety of all Americans in the president and his officials’ proximity (like Corey Comperatore).
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