On July 13, President Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt when a gunman’s bullet grazed his ear. Trump didn’t survive because his Secret Service detail did such a splendid job but because of dumb luck: Trump moved his head at just the right moment. Had he stayed still, the inside of his skull would’ve sprayed the front row. It’s impossible to overstate how lucky we were.
That should’ve been our wake-up call.
But today, 64 days later, Secret Service agents fired shots at a rifle-armed gunman at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. The FBI said today that it’s “investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination” of Donald Trump.
Two serious assassination attempts just 64 days apart. This is beyond ridiculous: Piñatas get hit less frequently.
We’ve seen enough: Whatever the Secret Service is doing, it’s not even in the same zip code as sufficient. Trump isn’t safe, and if his security detail doesn’t change, he will get killed. It’s just a matter of time.
The first red flag was when the Democrats dehumanized Trump, portraying him as a “threat to democracy” and a Russian spy. The second red flag was when the Democrats weaponized the judiciary, wielding “unbiased, apolitical” government agencies against their political enemies for the first time in U.S. history. The third was when a would-be assassin shot Trump in the ear. The fourth was today.
At this point, there’s more red flags than in downtown Beijing.
If anything else happens to Trump, we can’t pretend that we weren’t warned. We were warned — over and over again. We just chose to ignore all the warnings.
Something’s not right.
Like most Americans, I’ve always had lots of respect and admiration for the agents of the Secret Service. After all, being willing to take a bullet to save the life of the president is the ultimate example of patriotism and bravery. And I’m sure that even now, the overwhelming majority of field agents are American patriots.
But something’s not right.
At the end of the day, government agencies are staffed by people — no different than you and me. Some are marginal. Some are superstars. And some are only there to do the least amount possible while still collecting a paycheck. It’s true at the IRS, it’s true at the DMV, it’s true at the Pentagon, and I’m sure it’s also true at the Secret Service.
Either way, somewhere in the current Secret Service SOP, there’s a big gap in President Trump’s protection. This isn’t something you can spin anymore; reality is what it is. Protecting the president is like flying an airplane: It’s not acceptable to do it well “most” of the time or even 99.9% of the time. Your standard is perfection. This is an all-or-nothing situation!
Yet here we are: Two serious assassination attempts within 64 days. Each involved gunmen, rifles, and shots fired within very close proximity of the former president. So what do we do now?
If we continue the status quo, President Trump will eventually run out of luck. That’s a certainty. So forget about that.
Eventually, the Secret Service will need to reverse-engineer its SOPs. No matter who wins in November, we can’t afford any more mistakes. But figuring out what went wrong — and retraining all the agents — won’t be a quick fix. It’ll be a long, drawn-out process.
It might take years.
This is why President Trump must announce ASAP that he’s privatizing his security detail. Secret Service protection falls under the purview of the executive branch, and after back-to-back near-misses, the executive branch no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt. It squandered all goodwill with its abject ineptitude and obvious incompetence.
The Biden-Harris administration deserves public shame, and on this issue, President Trump has the unique standing to hit them hard. Sometimes, the best PR is simply to tell the truth — and this is one of those times.
Furthermore, Trump is a wealthy man, but what good is all that money if you’re dead? Investing in his own personal safety certainly seems like a worthwhile investment to me. Hopefully, it does to Trump. Winning an election in November won’t Make America Great Again if an assassin’s bullet stops him from being sworn in on Inauguration Day.
Remember, the crux of the Trump brand has always been that he’s a businessman outsider, unbeholden to government stupidity. What better way to remind the voters how a REAL leader demands accountability than by firing the Secret Service and replacing it with the finest security detail that money can buy?
It would contrast quite nicely with Biden-Harris, who held nobody accountable for the Afghanistan humiliation, sky-high inflation, chaos at the border, and everything else.
“You’re fired!”
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